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Mitsubishi A5M4 "Claude" [1:32 Special Hobby] - RFI


Alex

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After two more rounds of paint.  

potCKtWCj

 

Tonight I'll do the tail section.  Then tomorrow, mask off the fabric control surfaces and paint them flat light khaki, so that the Alclad layer has that "aluminum dope on fabric" look.  After that, I can move on to shooting Alclad.  Given that there will be a lot of red, black, and white paint to do over the aluminum, I think I'm not going to bother trying to get fancy with a bunch of tonal variations of Alclad (especially since it would be made up in the absence of any clear period photos).  I'll just do the whole thing with basic Aluminum.

 

I'm pretty well settled that this is the scheme I'm going to do.

pohacltkj

 

And looking at it reminds me that I should not even bother underpainting the tail control surfaces with Khaki, because they're going to end up entirely red anyway.

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1 hour ago, mgbooyv8 said:

Hi Alex,

 

Your black base coat is looking splendid, your preparation work surely paid off! :goodjob:

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

Thanks!  Fingers crossed that I can keep things working well for the next ten or so steps.  Always makes me nervous to be painting because there’s so much time already invested, and so much that can go wrong...

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13 minutes ago, LSP_Kevin said:

That black base coat is amazing!

 

Kev

Well, it’s getting there for sure.  I think it still has another notch to go before it rates as a “Chuck-level” black base coat, but I’m going to keep practicing...

 

One thing that is true is that I’ve had no issues with dust landing on it.  I think that the ground wire may actually be doing something.

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Starting in on the aluminum coat.

 

Before:

poQpo6jkj

 

First phase:

pnSbJeZ8j

 

The "fabric" effect on the ailerons is pretty subtle.  A little bit easier to see from a different angle.

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The ailerons are still a bit too shiny for me.  I may mask them off and give them a shot of clear flat.  But then I'm going to weather the whole surface to some extent, so maybe that's superfluous.  We'll see.

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Slowly progressing this.  I finished the Alclad, then masked off everything that is meant to remain as "bare metal".

pnvWocbuj

 

I will paint white first, and to make sure that the red looks the same everywhere, I need to paint everything that will eventually be red, white.  Along with what remains white, of course.  So after spraying what seemed at the time like a gallon of white paint at the model:

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Now, in a familiar pattern, I can *wait until tomorrow* and then mask off the bits that will remain white.  I cut the tail codes out quickly on the Silhouette, along with some circle masks for the hinomaru.  Overall this is a busy but fairly basic scheme - most of it will just be masked with tape.

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There are still lots of cycles of this to go through...

 

Next I need to mask out white and spray red.

 

Then mask over red and spray black.

 

Then take off the last two rounds of masking and do any touch-ups where white/red/black may not be perfect.

 

Then spray clear flat.

 

Then I can peel the rest of the masking up and see how much more retouching of the NMF I get to do...

 

Fortunately I think this GB runs through August...?

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So I sprayed the red (Mr Color C-385 IJN insignia red), and then decided that I didn't like the fuselage side hinomaru - it was too small. 

 

pno8LJuWj

 

So I went and made a larger mask, and re-sprayed it.

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With the unfortunate consequence that this hinomaru will end up being a bit more saturated red than the other markings.  I'm going to try and not lose sleep over it.

pnZ2oBVvj

 

Tomorrow I'll paint the black.

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Looking fantastic Alex!

 

That is a good idea masking off sections when spraying the Alclad to avoid the dry dusty overspray, I have a P-47 to paint with Alclad and I was trying to work out how to avoid that problem, I'm going to give your method a go, thanks a lot for the tip!

 

Cheer's,

Jeff.

 

 

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6 hours ago, dennismcc said:

Hi Alex, this is the really scary part of these complex masking jobs, I am always a bit nervous doing them, but it looks like you have it well in hand.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Here’s hoping!  I’m sure that I’ll need to do some bits of touch up here and there, but hopefully not too much.

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3 hours ago, JT68 said:

Looking fantastic Alex!

 

That is a good idea masking off sections when spraying the Alclad to avoid the dry dusty overspray, I have a P-47 to paint with Alclad and I was trying to work out how to avoid that problem, I'm going to give your method a go, thanks a lot for the tip!

 

Cheer's,

Jeff.

 

 

Hope it helps.  Please let us know how you get on and if you discover and other useful things.  I’m still very much a beginner when it comes to Alclad.

 

If anything I think I might even try smaller sections in the future.  Possibly spraying at even lower pressure too (I’m already using like 12 psi).

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