Greif8

You are crushing it Chuck! Very nice work and rapid progress to boot! Ernest

Hi Damian, I spent a good deal of time last week researching your question for my own build on Nick Millman's blog "Aviation of Japan". Tim hits the nail on the head for many (most?) late war Japanese aircraft as the fabric surfaces were very often painted as Tim pointed out. However, there were quite a few examples where the fabric surfaces were painted olive green and left that way. As with all other WW2 aircraft there does not appear to be an absolute definitive answer - which gives us modellers a lot of room for artistic license! Ernest

Great research Finn! I thought it might be the load I described above as the SBC's held a variety of different small bomb types. The Cookie threw me off I guess! Ernest

Very nice build! Ernest

I think your scratchbuilt cannons look quite nice Gary; and as Mike said they will look even better once painted. Ernest

Spent some time buffing out the NMF and spraying the tail area and anti-glare panel today. I buffed the finish with different grades of buffing pads to try and get the surface to have different degrees of reflection to add some tonal variation. Not sure how well I executed that idea, but there is some variation in the tone throughout the surface. The paint did buff well and I might have gotten a bit carried away in a couple of spots making them too shiny for a wartime aircraft. Airbrushing the red onto the tail area turned out well. I opted to use some MRP Kraplack Rot, also known a Richthofen's Red. I still need to buff it out once it cures overnight. I sprayed the anti-glare panel with some flat black primer after masking the area off. I still need to spray the yellow areas on the wing leading edges, anti-skid areas and the white fuselage stripe, but the upper surfaces and fuselage are looking ok up to this point. You can see the varied shinyness of the surface due to buffing. The tail area turned out very nicely; the silver base gave the red a lot of pop. You can make out some of the tonal variation, the surface was pretty smooth when I got through buffing it. The NMF must have a bit of static as it is a real dust magnet, I have had to pay close attention both while prepping to spray and spraying. Masking and airbrushing the anti-glare surface was without drama and turned out as it should. I managed to correct the two areas on the starboard wing leading edge that had a bad reaction between paints. I am still working on those spots on the bottom of the aircraft and they are turning out to be very hard to correct. Other than that though this build is progressing ok.

Thank you for the info man! The build will be very loosely based on Kobayashi's aircraft. I am taking some artistic license as there are a couple of technical things I want to achieve, or try to at least, with this build. Ernest

Thank you Dennis. The NMF did not turn out perfectly; there are a couple of area on the bottom where the Alclad reacted badly with the MRP Gloss Black and crazed the plastic of all things. I'll not be spraying the paints from those two companies together in the future.

HaHa Mike! If this were only an isolated incident! Hopefully I can correct the issues and make it look ok. Ernest

Very nice airbrush work and chipping John. Ernest

Awesome work all around Paolo! I think your build looks fantastic, the weathering is exceptionally well done which is all the more impressive because you used so many different techniques to do it. Much respect man! Ernest

Looks great Pete, and the best part is your daughter helping and obviously happy! Ernest

Thank you Damian! Ernest

Thank you for the information Tim, I will keep that in mind next time a try to spray Alclad on larger surfaces. As I told Gary, I sure wish I had used MRP Super Silver in the first place. Live and learn! Ernest

I admit that I have never looked closely at Alclad in an airbrush cup Gary, but I will take your word that it looks wierd. I am still kicking myself for not using the MRP Super Silver straight away. Ernest

Very nice Michael! Ernest

I could be wrong but I think the bomb load shown is an area bombing raid configuration for bombing heavily industrilized cities. The load was optimized for blast, demolition and fire and code named "Cookie/Plum/Duff". The blast was provided by the 4000 lbs High Capacity (HC) "Cookie"; demolition bring accomplished by 3-4 1000 lbs Medium Capacity (MC) bombs (or 500 pounders for very long range missions) and finally fire was made using either 4 lbs or 30 lbs incendiaries loaded in Small Bomb Containers (SBC) of which up to six could be carried depending on range to target. Ernest

Superb Panther and diorama man! Everything is very well constructed and the scene is laid out in a way that conveys the story. Top marks! Ernest

Man that is some first class scratchbuilding John! Ernest

Very nice Spitfire Dennis. I hear about builds that fight you every step of the way. Sometimes it is almost a feeling of relief when one of those are completed! Ernest

Steady on Gary! I am sure you'll get up to speed quickly with the riviting. Ernest

That landing gear is the biz Damian! The NMF looks excellent! Ernest

That would make a very cool build Marc! Dennis is spot on about Nick Millman's blog; he is one of the foremost experts on IJA/IJN aircraft colors. Ernest

You are so right Gary! I'm not sure why the Alclad reacted in only a few areas, but I am glad I decided to try it on the underwing area. Ernest

After quite a bit of additional surface prep I sprayed the Natural Metal Finish today. This is the first time I have attempted to airbrush an NMF and it turned out to be somewhat of a mixed bag. At first I wanted to spray Alclad II Aluminium and started on one of the lower wings spraying light coats. After the third coat a few spots looked like there was some sort of reaction with the paint. I immediately stopped and after assessing the situation decided to switch to MRP Super Silver. Given that the gloss black is also an MRP product I should have went with the Super Silver from the start. I sprayed the rest of the model with it; also spraying thin coats and had zero issues. I'm a bit vexed with myself that I did not think through the right course of action from the beginning as it is pretty obvious what right looks like in this case. Stupid of me! Fortunately the upper surface and fuselage sides turned out pretty good. The finish is smooth in all but a couple of small spots where it is very slightly rough; something which should be easy to buff out once the paint cures overnight. I tried to vary the coverage slightly to make it less uniform in appearance. I considering masking some panels and spraying them a slightly different shade/tone, but I don't think NMF Japanese WW2 aircraft had that sort of look. At least the many photos I looked at did not look like it. Tomorrow I will see what I can do to fix the areas that reacted with the Alclad II, and a couple of other small blemishes. If any of you have any suggestions how best to do that I am all ears! Overall shot of the upper surface. I noticed that the reflections change the look much more sharply than a non-NMF depending on the lighting and angle, not surprising I guess. I forgot to mention that I sprayed the fabric surfaces a grey-green color and masked them after a few hours. Hopefully, I will not have any issues when I remove the tape! The fuselage turned out pretty good overall, smooth and reflective. It also looks like it has a static effect as the damn dust is already getting attracted to it. Fortunately the MRP paint drys within 30 seconds are less so. Given the amount of sanding and filling I did in the nose, I was concerned about how it would look. This is one area I managed to get it right the first time; very relieved about that! Here you can see a couple of the spots that reacted to the Alclad II. Keeping my fingers crossed that I can clean this up decently. And here you can see the poor areas much better. Man I wish I had been smart enough to use the MRP paint right from the start - live and learn! On the plus side I managed to get the wing joins right at least. Though overall, the bottom of the aircraft looks ok. The lower fuselage turned out pretty good as well. I bit of polishing and it will be fit to fight!