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A6M5c, Hobby Boss, 1/72 -- Takeo Tanimizu


opus999

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I decided I needed to get out of my rut of Spitfire/Bf-109/Fw-190...  I was set to do yet another FW, but decided to head to the Pacific instead.  I've only done 2 Zeros in my life; the first was a 1/32 Revell that I snatched from my Dad's stash when I was 13 (Sorry!), and the second was a Hasegawa 1/72 A6M5c that is still on my shelf and seen below:

 

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You know you're in trouble when spiders are nesting in your landing gear wells (sorry for the bad pic)

 

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My guess is that I did this in late High School.  I hadn't learned to do weathering yet, nor how to do decals properly.  I was paying more attention to my painting (being more careful), and decals (getting them straight).  This is after I gave up on the Badger 150 but before my Dad got our first Aztek, so I'm pretty sure this is late High School. 

 

So, this build is going to be a replacement build.  About a year ago I did some research to find a more modern kit of the A6M5c.  I love the double cannons in the wings, it just looks dangerous!  Although in reality the extra weight without a more powerful engine made it a dog.  But it looked cool.  Of the 1/72 offerings of the 5c, the Hobby Boss was the one that had very few negative comments.  Plus it had Takeo Tanimizu's marking, which I really wanted to do anyway.  

 

I did some reading and one resource said that all the 5c's were made by Mitsubishi.  The aviation of Japan website shows the Mitsubishi cockpit color to be darker than I thought and the closest match I could find was Model master enamel FS34087 (Olive Green).

 

The cockpit has more detail than many other Hobby Boss kits, and probably more than my original Hasegawa.  The seat is wrong, however, so I will start by trying to make it look a little more accurate. Although, I'm not sure how much effort to put in it because the Hobby Boss canopies are usually a little opaque, making it hard to see details!  More later...

 

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Worked a little on making that seat look... well...less bad.  I found several good photos of both models and the real thing and set out to match them.  I filed the top and rounded it.  I also filed the sides so they are less square and more "zero-seat-shaped".  I also thinned the edges as best I could.  It's hard to do when the cockpit is all one piece.  After that I drilled some holes in the seat back, but the smallest bit I had was still too big, so the holes are too big and there aren't enough of them.  I figured that since the canopies of Hobby Boss kits are hard to see through, then no one would be able to count the holes.

 

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After that, I painted to match the color shown at the Aviation of Japan website, did some silver dry brushing and chipping and finished it off with some Tamiya tape seat belts painted RAF Dark Earth.  I thought about adding buckles, but after dry fitting (including the canopy) I found that I couldn't really see anything in terms of detail.  Oh well.... at least I have pictures! :)

 

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Tomorrow I'll be able to put the wings and fuselage together (being just 2 pieces) and then I can sand down the raised mold lines that are on every Hobby Boss kit.

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3 hours ago, Graeme H said:

Interesting kit, not seen it before, but looks the part in the end, well done

Thanks!  It was a long time ago...

 

1 hour ago, VT Red Sox Fan said:

Looking fwd to this--best, Erwin

Thanks!  Glad to have you along...

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Hobby Boss is know for missing details, and this is no exception.  There's no head rest!

 

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So, that and a gun sight are on my to do list. I downloaded some recent Hasegawa A6M5c instructions for more accurate painting instructions (Hobby boss thinks that the top of the a/c should be "Cockpit green".  So... yeah...).  The instructions also have the added benefit of showing me little details that were missed, such as the head rest, gun sight and a loop antenna behind the head rest... which I didn't know.

 

I took the canopy off the old Hasegawa kit to get a closer look at the head rest.  While Hobby Boss cockpits are very sparse, this one beats the Hasegawa kit's!

 

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Keep in mind though that the mold for the Hasegawa kit may have dated to the 1970s.

 

Moving on... I glued the wings to the fuselage.  This was one of the better fitting HB kits.  the seams were smooth (e.g., no overlap), but the seams were pretty wide and deep. So, fixing them would be fairly straightforward: some CA and sanding.

 

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There were also some rather tall mold lines, but those are easily dealt with using sand paper.

 

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I forgot to take a picture before I glued them in, but the wing guns/cannon were inserts:

 

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Luckily these fit well -- the seams were very smooth, just wide and deep like the fuselage, so that made fixing them very easy!

 

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The way the bottom of the gun assembly is engineered, there really wasn't any work to do with it

 

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I got quite a bit done last night because the rest of my family was preoccupied with other things (scouts, homework, etc.).  Not much time tonight, but I was able to start a little test.  It's been a while since I played around with tonal variation.  I liked how adding different colors under the final coat added some depth that was subtle, but broke up the monotony of a single color.  The obvious example (and the most surprising to me) is that I found that brown under RAF Dark Green actually added a yellow tone that looked just like sun-faded green paint I've seen in real life.  I used that on my P-40 builds and was very pleased with the results.

 

For some reason, the IJN green really makes me want to play with this tonal variation.  Maybe because it's so dark that I'm afraid it will look too monotonous and toy like?  Well, whatever the reason I'm going to do some experimenting.  So I painted some different candidates on my paint mule with a hairy stick.  When these are dry I will airbrush the final color over them to see what happens.  Because I used a hairy stick, the colors are very solid b/c of the thick paint.  So, airbrushing these on a black base will be much more subtle, but it will at least give me an idea of how these paints will affect the finish.

 

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The bottom right is the Mr. Color IJN Green (Nakajima) that will be the final color, I'm using that as a control.

 

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Well, the paint experiments were not quite satisfying.  This dark green is a difficult color to get different tones into.  I'm not posting pictures of the test swatches because the differences were way too subtle for the camera;  I just couldn't capture the look. I also found that with this color, there seems to be a very sudden tipping point where the pre-shading (or pre-coloring in this point) suddenly disappears altogether!  With, say, the RAF dark green I found it took several coats before the colors under the final coat disappeared.  With this color they would fade with each coat, but then suddenly go from being too visible to almost completely invisible. 

 

So, here's the "Pre-coloring" I did:

 

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And the paint job so far, after I even used a little FS34102 medium green for post-shading (post-coloring) some sunfade on it:

 

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The sunfade is subtle, which is what I want, but when I put one of the hinamaru decals on the wing, the bright red really tones down the other colors.  So I think I will have to add a little more sun fading to compensate and I'm going to attempt some post coloring in other spots to make it look less monotonous...

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I exaggerated the sun fading (FS34102) and used a couple shades of dark green (FS34079 and Nakajima Dark Green) to add some areas of faint color variation.  I think the different greens worked well, I think the sun fading may be a little too much now.

 

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But the Hinamaru kind of tones it down a bit

 

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I'm not too worried because after the gloss coat and decals if it is still too much I can tone it down with some misting of the base color.

 

I also got the bottom done.

 

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It looks a little washed out in this picture.  I didn't get time to get the yellow identification bands, but maybe tonight after the family heads to bed.

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Cockpit is probably good enough you won't worry about it later, but on a lighter note you're having fun with that paint, aren't you?   😄  

 

(When I built models as a kid I didn't have a sweet Japanese airbrush that was easy to use and clean.  I mean, yeah, I tried to use an "airbrush" but it was made of sand-cast bronze and the compressor was a loud, rude, unregulated thing cobbled together from clumsy forgings.  I got good results, if "good results" means an even monochrome finish.  Being able to mix colour on the fly in a gravity feed double action gun makes modulation like you're doing now so accessible to anybody who bothers to learn... well, that and Mr. Color Levelling thinner.)

 

You've got to try a Tamiya Zero.  I say this as a modeller of 'Merica airplanes.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Jackson Duvalier said:

you're having fun with that paint, aren't you?

How could you tell? :D 

 

1 hour ago, Jackson Duvalier said:

When I built models as a kid I didn't have a sweet Japanese airbrush that was easy to use and clean.

I hear you!  My dad and I struggled with our first airbrush, a siphon feed, single action Badger 150, which was probably a good airbrush but for a beginner like me it was like black magic.  If I got it to put out an even monochrome finish (like you say), I was feeling pretty good.  Getting a double action Aztek made things much easier.  But once I discovered how to thin paint properly (and Mr. Color levelling thinner) things really started to take off.  But like you said, once I got a nice gravity fed double action gun... it was like a whole new world! Now actually enjoy painting.

 

1 hour ago, Jackson Duvalier said:

You've got to try a Tamiya Zero.

you read my mind sir.  I was looking at their A6M5b (or "a", I can't remember) and their "Hamp" just yesterday.  I built their Bf-109E in the last couple months and it was such a terrific kit that I started looking at what else they made!

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Yesterday was devoted to gloss coating.  I hand brushed 3 coats of Alclad Aqua Gloss on, waiting 3 hours between coats to make sure the previous coat wouldn't soften up when I painted new on.  Didn't do anything else yesterday.

 

Today I put the decals on, which went well.  The Hobby Boss decals work pretty well. 

 

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Unfortunately, the Hinomaru seem almost neon.  When compared to other builds, they are brighter, but not a whole lot.  

 

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I'd planned to put a little sunfading on, but now I think I should scale back the brightness with a slight dusting of Insignia Red first.  This means I will need to make a mask with my circle cutter.  Not too difficult, but a little annoying. So, I will also need to put a layer of Aqua Gloss on the decals to protect them.

 

I painted the Cowl today as well.  I thought that RLM66 Black gray would work, because it seems practically black, but it was too gray.  I dusted it with black until it was dark enough. 

 

I painted the gear doors and drop tank as well.  I still need to come up with a head rest, and will need to mask that darn canopy which will probably take a couple days...  

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Had a little time to mix up some Aotake to paint the various landing gear parts.  By the time I was happy with it, it worked out to 4 parts Testors green (in the little square bottle) to 14 parts Model Master Japanese interior blue.  Which rounds out to 1 to 3 if I need to do it again.

 

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The picture doesn't really do it justice, but it matches the metallic green look of the restored Zero and Oscar at the Flying Heritage Collection.

 

Tonight I set out to fix the Hinamaru.  I used my circle cutter to cut masks so that only the red Hinamaru and black outline were showing and then carefully went over it with Tamiya smoke until it was pretty close to the Hinamaru on my Oscar.

 

This is halfway done with the "fixed" one on the left.  It looks better in real life, but i think you get the idea.

 

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When I was done, I dusted a little light brown to put some sunfading on to match what I'd done with the wing.  I still need to fix the fuselage and underside Hinamaru, but no more time tonight.

 

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Finally got to the point when I could do some dirt streaks and stains using Black and burnt umber oil paints.  After that I dull coated it so I will be able to use my pencil for the panel lines.

 

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The top is so dark that the gas stains and dirt streaks are pretty hard to see.

 

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I also made a head rest with epoxy putty, using the old Hasegawa model as a template.  It turned out a little shorter than it should be, but It will do.  I also put the loop antenna in behind it using some leftover epoxy putty and a spare antenna I found in the spares box.  The epoxy putty lump actually looks pretty bad in this picture, but the canopy is cloudy enough that it won't be noticible.

 

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I also put the last few decals on the propeller and landing gear doors, painted the wheels and gears and dry brushed them to bring out some detail.

 

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lots of little details on deck for today, if I get time.  The canopy needs to be painted still, along with the exhaust stacks and exhaust stains.  Also will need to paint the nav lights.  Zeros looked like they were a semi gloss, so after I pencil in the panel lines I will need to figure out how I'm going to do that.  I initially thought I'd sand the finish with a fine grit sandpaper (8000 or 12000) to get the sheen I wanted.  but I realize that there are a few bits that stick up that will complicate matters, so I may just go over it with decanted Testors Semi-Gloss, which I've used on a number of Star Trek models.

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I almost forgot: Hobby Boss doesn't provide a tail hook, so I need to cobble something up for that.  They also didn't provide decals for the white lines on the top of cowl -- I don't know what those lines are for, but they seem to be something to do with the guns.  I will likely mask and paint those.

 

Looking back at the pictures I just posted, it occurred to me how comical the headrest is, because the seat is too far forward for it to actually work, unless the pilot had a giraffe neck or something.  Oh, well....

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4 hours ago, opus999 said:

I almost forgot: Hobby Boss doesn't provide a tail hook, so I need to cobble something up for that.  They also didn't provide decals for the white lines on the top of cowl -- I don't know what those lines are for, but they seem to be something to do with the guns.  I will likely mask and paint those.

 

Looking back at the pictures I just posted, it occurred to me how comical the headrest is, because the seat is too far forward for it to actually work, unless the pilot had a giraffe neck or something.  Oh, well....

Fairly sure Tanimizu was land based, so maybe the hook wasn’t fitted anyway?

 

AW

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3 minutes ago, Andwil said:

Fairly sure Tanimizu was land based, so maybe the hook wasn’t fitted anyway?

 

AW

That's a fair point.  The Hasegawa I'm replacing has it, but that doesn't necessarily mean they did their homework.  I'll need to do some research to see if I can find out. 

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The rest of the weekend conspired against me, so I didn't get a whole lot of time at the bench, but it was enough to get that canopy done.  Ugh.

 

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While I had the green paint in the paintbrush, I painted the spinner

 

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And masking the exhaust stacks was easier than I thought it would be, so I was able to get a coat of Burnt Iron metallizer on them

 

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Tonight, I sprayed Testors Semi-Gloss clear decanted from a rattle can on the whole a/c.  I put a nice wet layer on, but for some reason it dried kind of pebbly looking.  I'm terribly disappointed.  I thought that maybe sanding it with some 3600 gritt or higher sandpaper would help, but the spot on the bottom I tried was coming out uneven and actually was starting to look worse than the un-sanded part, so I bagged it.  It's a real bummer because the Dull coat was nice and smooth and looked very nice.

 

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So. Rats.

 

Well, on the bright side, I'm just about to the finish line.  A couple of details to paint and that should be about it.

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Over the finish line!  Last night I had just enough time to paint the stripes on the top of the cowl

 

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The engine was not very detailed, so I did the best I could by drybrushing Testors Steel over the black.  Not like it will be easy to see anyway.

 

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Today I started on all the final details and had an ugly surprise.  I noticed that, when looking at the old Hasegawa kit, there were 4 engine stacks on the starboard side, and 3 on the port side.  The hobby boss only had 3 and 3.  Some searching on the internet confirmed it, so I set out to make a new stack.  It turns out that the cowl has a cut-out for the extra stack.  Actually it has one on both sides which is incorrect, but I couldn't fix that.  I got some 1 mm half round styrene, cut it to size and bent it appropriately.  Here it is dry fit:

 

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I painted that part and while it dried I painted all the nav lights.  I used Testors Insignia red and Mr. Color 319 Light Green, which seemed more realistic than the pure green in the Testor's bottle. I did final assembly and painted the guns and then did paint chipping.  The photos I've found of Tanimizu's plane show it not very worn, so I kept the chipping to a minimum.  Well, except for a couple "oops"es I couldn't fix very well. 

 

The engine assembly had a part inside that would connect to the end of the propeller rod and allow it to spin.  These things usually don't work, so I wasn't very hopeful.  This time it worked, except there was so much play inside the engine, that the propeller could stick out a couple of millimeters and droop.  I finally gave up and glued it into place.  As usual.

 

My research on the tailhook turned up conflicting info.  Some kits of Tanimizu's a/c have a hook, others don't.  I couldn't find any pictures of his plane that showed the area where the hook would be.  So I left it alone.

 

So until I get a proper RFI, here are a couple quickie shots of the finished product.  I'm still not happy with the finish, but it will look fine in the cabinet.

 

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So, until next time when I start a 45-ish year old P-51B that is still in the factory shrink wrap.... see you then.

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Good save on the exhaust stack!

 

You could fix the port side cutout, but sometimes the effort/reward ratio favours FIDO.  😎

1 hour ago, opus999 said:

a 45-ish year old P-51B that is still in the factory shrink wrap

 

Oooh, is it from Monogram?  I do hope so! 

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19 hours ago, Jackson Duvalier said:

Oooh, is it from Monogram?  I do hope so! 

It is indeed!  See here.

 

18 hours ago, 2996 Victor said:

What method did you use for your chipping? It looks nicely understated.

Thanks!  I've been striving to be restrained on the chipping.  So my method is simply the smallest brush I have (20/0?  I don't know, all the paint has worn off the handle) and some Testor's Model Master chrome paint.  And a lot of patience!  The Chrome is a bit sticky, and a lot gets on the brush, so I wipe the excess off on a paper towel.  I guess you could say it's "not-quite-drybrushing". :) I have to be very careful, and often I end up with some bigger spots than I'd like.

 

On 10/2/2020 at 10:50 PM, Jackson Duvalier said:

You've got to try a Tamiya Zero.

I took your advice and received in the mail yesterday a Tamiya 1/72 A6M5b.  :D Almost tempted to start on that next, but I've been thinking about the P-51 for a while.

Edited by opus999
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