New Airfix Zero

[Nigel Bunker]

In all my 58 years, I have never built a WW2 Japanese aircraft (no reason - just one of those things) but today I bought the new Airfix Zero in a gift set from The Works. Can anybody tell me what the white/light grey overall finish to the Zero is? I haven't got a clue, but once I know I can source some acrylic paint to paint the kit.

Cheers.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Nigel Bunker

[tango98]

Hi Nigel,

You'll find all that you need and more at the following sites:

http://www.j-aircraft.com/faq/faqsfrom.htm

http://www.straggleresearch.com

Incidentally, Nick Millman who runs the straggleresearch site recently produced a colour guide for the early Zero which is well worth getting (if he has any copies left)

HTH

Cheers

Dave

[Nigel Bunker]

Thanks Dave, but that is rather too much information. Can anybody just tell me what the colour is?

[Daniel Cox]

Hi Nigel,

You might try Tamiya's XF-76 Grey Green (IJN), Tamiya made it specially for their 1/32nd scale A6M2b kit which is comparable with their Spit IX and VIII kits.

Cheers,

Daniel.

[Jeff Wilson]

Thanks Dave, but that is rather too much information. Can anybody just tell me what the colour is?

Therein lies the problem.

I'm building the same kit at the moment, albeit the standard issue kit with decals for the green and gray scheme (or possibly green and yellow, if you read the information at Nick Millman's site). I've read much of the information on Nick's site and found it to be extremely useful. In a nutshell, Hemp or RLM02 will both get you in the ballpark for a Pearl Harbor aeroplane. Tamiya's XF76 IJN gray/green is another potential choice, but it's vastly different to the previously mentioned options and is probably more likely to found on later or weathered aeroplanes (if I understand correctly).

The consensus appears to lean towards a caramel toned gray for the Pearl Harbor Zeros. I'm not sure which starter set you have (there appears to be two) and I don't know if the decals are for a Pearl aeroplane or for Saburo Sakai's. If it's Pearl, they were relatively new and well maintained aeroplanes, and they also had a somewhat glossy finish. The cowling should be blue/black, not just black, and the cockpit rear decking should also be blue/black (if I have correctly understood what I've read). The cockpit interior green varied depending on whether or not it was a Mitsubishi or Nakajima built aeroplane - Tamiya's XF71 IJN cockpit green is as good a bet as any. The wheel well colour was either the blue/green lacquer over aluminium (Nakajima) or the underside gray (Mitsubishi). If you are doing either of the Airfix starter kits, they do not appear to have white surrounds to the hinomarus, so, if I have correctly understood everything i've read, they were probably Mitsubishi built.

I suggest that you take all of the above with a large pinch of salt and do some reading of your own (here is a good place to start, with particular attention to the final post from Nick Millman). I'm also more than happy for anyone to wade into this discussion and tell me that I'm wrong - the one that I'm doing now will have orange/yellow undersides anyway.

BTW, what a terrific little kit it is. It may not have ultimate finesse and detail of the unobtainable Fine Molds kit, but at a third of the price it's excellent. More of this please, Airfix.

Regards,

Jeff

[FalkeEins]

..thanks Jeff - I'm in the same boat as Nigel - despite having the 600-page Lela Presse 'Carrier Samurai' book in my 'library'! RLM 02 and 'hemp' seem to be pretty good approximations for the colours used by Thierry Dekker in his artworks..

cheers

[dfqweofekwpeweiop4]

Or you could just standardise on the WEM IJN aircraft colours. They do the Mitsubishi Green and Grey for the exterior, a Mitsubishi interior green, Aotake interior colour, the Blue-Black for the cowling and if you want to do it circa Pearl Harbour - they do the overall Amerio colour, which is the caramel tinted grey people refer to. I'm not saying these colours are 100% accurate but I don't think too many people will look at your model and say the colour's wrong!

thanks

Mike

[tango98]

Hi Nigel,

Actually Jeff is dead right with the content of his post as also is Falkeins.

I have a 32nd Tamiya A6M2 Zero almost at the paint stage and I still haven’t made a final decision for the exterior colour!

At present I’m leaning towards an RLM 02 as the variations in the actual colours of currently available RLM 02 model paints (some pretty close to the colours of extant early Zero artifacts) almost exactly mirror the same variations as the real 02 manufactured by the various German paint company’s during WW2!!

Bottom line is, have a good look at colour examples of surviving early Zero relics and then choose a currently available model paint that you find as the closest match and use that.

Cheers

Dave

[Mike Starmer]

RLM 02 is far too green and grey. The colour can be mixed using 1:1 Humbrol 40 grey and 168 Hemp. It is a strange yellowish grey shade.

[Daniel Cox]

Hi again Nigel,

Alternatively Brian Criner recommends the following options; Polly Scale F505230 USSR Topside Green (Enamel), Gunze Sangyo H70 RLM Gray 02 (Acrylic), Model Master 1792 SAC Bomber Tan FS4201 (Enamel) & or White Ensigns ACJ07 Mitsubishi Navy Grey (Enamel).

Or if Tamiya is more your speed and you don't like Tamiya's XF-76 Grey Green (IJN) you might try 80% Tamiya Color X-2 White + 13% Tamiya Color X-9 Brown + 4% Tamiya Color X-5 Green + 1% Tamiya Color X-1 Black + 2% Tamiya Color X-8 Lemon Yellow (available in either Acrylic or Enamel versions) as recommended again by Brian Criner.

Cheers,

Daniel.

[occa]

I heard RAF Hemp is the best compromise if you don't want to mix colors yourself.

Edit:

Obviously you had to mic that^^ with a grey green either so there's no easy road ....

Edited December 23, 2011 by occa

[Chuck1945]

...Alternatively Brian Criner recommends the following options; Polly Scale F505230 USSR Topside Green (Enamel) ...

Just a clarification, Polly Scale paints are all acrylic

[tango98]

Just to add a bit more to the discussion, these are the mixes worked out by Greg Springer for the early A6M from available Tamiya paints (matched to surviving relics) courtesy of j-aircraft:

Mitsubishi A6M's at Pearl Harbor:

Airframe (sans control surfaces):

XF-2 (White) 100

XF-8 (Yellow) 24

XF-1 (Black) 11

XF-7 (Red) 2

Control Surfaces (Fabric):

XF-19 (Sky Grey) 105

XF-49 (Khaki) 20

XF-25 (Lt. Sea Grey) 15

Nakajima built A6M (s/n 646 at Midway)

Airframe (sans control surfaces):

XF-49 Khaki 100

XF-2 35

X-6 Orange 6

With Clear Glosscoat

Control Surfaces (Fabric):

XF-20 (Medium Grey) 50

XF-19 (Sky Grey) 7

XF-53 (Neutral Grey) 5

Production line difference...

Mitsubishi A6M5 spinner: BROWN

Nakajima A6M5 spinner: NMF

Dave

[Graeme]

Thanks Dave, but that is rather too much information. Can anybody just tell me what the colour is?

The colour is "Ame-iro"...but as to what shade that is, that's a can of worms.

There is very little agreement about what the colour is and Hyperscale normally explodes when someone posts there asking for info.

Paint the plane Orange and say it was a trainer LOL.

Graeme

[Jeff Wilson]

The colour is "Ame-iro"...but as to what shade that is, that's a can of worms.

There is very little agreement about what the colour is and Hyperscale normally explodes when someone posts there asking for info.

Paint the plane Orange and say it was a trainer LOL.

Graeme

What shade of orange?

Jeff

[Graeme]

What shade of orange?

Jeff

Taken from j.aircraft.com:

"IJN had a principle to paint training and experimental aircraft in "tou-ou-shoku" (literally orange yellow but practically orange or mandarin orange; some people call it "ou-tou-shoku" but tou-ou-shoku is the official notation)."

In other words, there is again no definitive answer; the advantage being, you can't be wrong!

[Nick Millman]

What shade of orange?

Jeff

posted here in March

HTH

Regards

Nick

PS the paint colour standard is ‘Kaigunkokukiyo Toryu Shikibetsu Hyojun, Kariki 117 Bessatsu’ (Imperial Japanese Navy Headquarters Paint Identification Standard for Naval Aircraft, Supplement to Provisional Regulation 117)

Edited December 24, 2011 by Nick Millman

[Jeff Wilson]

posted here in March

HTH

Regards

Nick

PS the paint colour standard is ‘Kaigunkokukiyo Toryu Shikibetsu Hyojun, Kariki 117 Bessatsu’ (Imperial Japanese Navy Headquarters Paint Identification Standard for Naval Aircraft, Supplement to Provisional Regulation 117)

While my comment was primarily meant in good humour, both responses are interesting and extremely useful. I was wondering what shade of yellow/orange I was going to use on the underside of my Zero and I'd more or less decided on Lufthansa Yellow, available in the Revell acrylic range - a dash of red to redden it and a dash of white to lighten it was the plan. I'm going to mix that up in the next few days and test it, but looking at the photographs that Nick's just referenced tells me I might not be too wide of the mark.

Thanks,

Jeff

[Nick Millman]

The colour is "Ame-iro"...but as to what shade that is, that's a can of worms.

There is very little agreement about what the colour is and Hyperscale normally explodes when someone posts there asking for info.

Paint the plane Orange and say it was a trainer LOL.

Graeme

The paint colour is not "Ame-iro" per se. This is a misnomer arising from a description in the March 1942 Yokosuka Kaigun Kokutai (KuGiSho) Report No.0266 which related to camouflage and paint trials. The actual (translated) description was:-

“The paint color currently in use for the Type 0 carrier fighter is J3 (Haiiro ash or gray colour) leaning slightly toward amber colour (Ameiro - caramel or candy colour). However, it differs from the experimental colours in being glossy.”  

In other words an amber-tinted grey paint rather than an amber paint. This is entirely consistent with analysis of actual paint samples to determine their pigment composition. 'J3' relates to the paint standard designation and chip in the Kariki 117 document mentioned elsewhere here. When new the paint was glossy but it typically oxidised and chalked towards a dull, flat dove grey colour, especially in the climate conditions of the South Pacific. As others have noted the Pearl Harbor participant aircraft were relatively new with paint in good condition. They were all Mitsubishi-manufactured.

The "can of worms" arises more from attempts to describe and visualise the paint colour, especially for those who have not seen it, and from diverse opinions based on the subjective perception of scanned images of colour photos, paint charts and models. The paint occupies a subtle colour space and is highly metamerismic. When shown a swatch of the colour people often describe it using different terms.

As to little agreement about what the colour is, that may be true of many modellers but at least six leading and well-respected researchers in this field (in the USA, Canada, Thailand, Australia and Japan) who have studied the subject closely for many years and examined actual samples of the paint all broadly agree on the paint colour. A distinction needs to be drawn between different subjective perceptions of the colour and the actual colour value of the original paint from the scientific analysis and measurement of both its appearance and its constituent pigments. Explosions at Hyperscale are not limited to this subject and opinionated forum discussions are not always the be all and end all of serious research. In fact several of the serious researchers and people who take the subject seriously seldom post because of the "explosions". Therefore all that bluster does not invalidate the results of the objective research into the subject - or represent it.

There are currently no hobby paints that replicate the original colour precisely straight out of the tin (or bottle) but there are several which are reasonable approximations for it, given the difference between full size paint colour and the need to replicate it to scale on a model and to introduce various finishing techniques. There are also various mix formulae to replicate the paint closely from different paint ranges. Details of the hobby paints (with measured examples) and mixes are given in my e-guide to the factory paint colour. Airfix recommend Humbrol 90 Beige Green for their Zero but it does not represent the colour very well at any stage of its service life and 168 Hemp is a better choice for those who want to use Humbrol but don't wish to mix paint - "J3 leaning slightly towards amber". Xtracolor's X119 FS 14201 SAC Tan/Green is another possibility but needs to be lightened significantly as it is too dark. WEM ACJ16 Mitsubishi Zero Grey-Green is another reasonable out of the tin choice but is a little too dark and too brown for my personal taste, being based on the age-darkened full size samples and FS 16350 which is the closest FS 595b chip to the average of actual colour. The original paint was "brighter". Tamiya XF-76 is a reasonable compromise to represent a moderately weathered aircraft but is matt in finish.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Nick Millman