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A6M5 Type 52 colours (inetrior and exterior)


DominikS

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Hi!

I've a few questions to IJN aircraft specialists.As I'm completly new in this subject and my knowlegde is rather basic. All I know is:

a) Zeros were built by Mitsubishi and Nakajima;

B) the cockpit colors were different for aircraft built by Mits. and Nak.

c) upper surface colours were also different

And that's all. So I have billions of questions as I've recently started building Tamiya's superb A6M5 Zero in 72nd scale. I decided to build the aircraft of 652nd Ku from Junyo. According to info from manual it was built by Nakajima and I need help.

The cockpit - can I use Tamya's XF-71 Interior Green?

The chassis bays - the Blue Aotake will be ok?

Upper surface - I assume something like Nakajima Green?

Lower surfaces - ??????

And what about Mitsubishi Zero's? The same interior colours?

So as you can see my knowledge is almost nil.

Please, help me.

Thanks in advance

Dominik

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I was going to suggest J-aircraft.com but someone beat me to it.

another good place to look for colors (with digital color samples) is

www.aviationofjapan.com/

Nick Millman's excellent blog on Japanese aircraft of WWII

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Much will depend on what paints are available to you and/or what paints you prefer to use.

The Tamiya painting suggestions for the kit can be followed but AS-21 for the upper surfaces is the spray version of XF-70 Dark Green 2 (IJN) which is brighter and greener than XF-11 JN Green (too bright and too green IMHO). XF-11 is arguably more suitable for a Nakajima-built aircraft. The official Japanese names for the D1 and D2 dark green paint colour standards were 'deep green black colour' and 'green black colour' which speak for themselves but they are difficult colours to successfully 'scale' down being both very dark and rich in hue. In service the upper surfaces of aircraft were usually maintained to the lustrous, semi-gloss appearance of the paint as originally applied.

Tamiya suggest painting the cockpit decking under the canopy in the cockpit colour XF-71 but it should be painted a very dark grey to represent sun-baked blue-black - the same colour as the cowling.

Tamiya XF-71 is a paint of convenience and convention for the cockpit interior but there are examples of other colours found on the A6M5 here at my blog:-

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2008/08/zero-interior-colours-ii-nakajima.html

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2008/08/zero-interior-colours-ii-mitsubishi.html

The cockpit paint was specified to be M1, a light sage green, but in practice the application of interior paints was not rigidly controlled and you have some leeway in representing it. Grey greens, light olive greens and "buff greens" have all been recorded, and they cross over between Nakajima and Mitsubishi as shown. How far these appearances might represent degradation of an originally light green paint has not yet been determined. Your choice.

Generally Mitsubishi painted the wheel wells the same as the under surface colour. That was a warm, amber tinted grey that oxidised and chalked towards a more neutral "dove grey" or slightly bluish grey. Tamiya suggest AS-2 which is the spray version of their XF-12 JN Grey. That is probably more representative of a fairly heavily oxidised and chalked paint surface (so a weathered airframe). Their more recent XF-76 Gray-Green (IJN) is representative of a slightly less weathered airframe.

Nakajima wheel wells were usually finished in the so-called aodake coating (the translucent bluish-green phenolic lacquer) that gradually abraded to show natural metal on the most exposed panels, but other opaque paints have also been recorded, including light grey, a dark blue-grey and even the red oxide primer colour. The wheel well areas were also subject to regular maintenance and the moving parts such as doors and yokes (which were originally gloss black) were often re-painted or replaced with contractor painted parts in non-standard colours. Again there is leeway for your personal preference. Tamiya suggest a 3:1 mix of X-13 Metallic blue and X-25 Clear green to represent the aodake if you choose to go that route but it is best applied in a thin coat over an aluminium base.

If you care to pm me with your email address I can send you some factory colour samples and photos that might help.

Nick

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