A6M3-3A Zero Fighter, Maj. Saburo Shindo

[KennyX]

I need another break from the Corsair. I’ve been Captain Ahab’ing my way through that project for so long now, I’m not deriving any joy from it. I need to turn that quagmire into something positive. I want to take what I’ve learned about paint chipping, oil dot filtering, and salt fading, and parlay that into a project that will hopefully get me back to enjoying building model aircraft again. I have come to prefer armor of late, due to the fact that tanks don’t have any of the usual stuff that aircraft hang me out to dry on. Or should I say- that I hang myself out to dry on.

Hence this project here. The Zero. “Zeke” in-particular.


Saburo Shindo, arguably the first Kamikaze Pilot.

This fascinated me. I’m doing Saburo Shindo’s aircraft from June, 1943. He was flying out of New Guinea. Buin, Bougainville:



I got started on the first subassemblies this morning:



Those two pieces will be painted and dry-brushed separately before attaching them.

Next, I began playing with colors for the interior of the cockpit. Carlos was kind enough to speak to me about the specifics of the colors used on the Mitsubishi-manufactured Zeros. He told me the cockpit color was similar to the interior green we used.

I mixed up some paint in a similar fashion to the paint I use on my Corsair cockpits, with the addition of some Xf-71 and XF-54 instead of Flat Black, which you can see here on the forward section of Doug Tthe Paint Mule’s stab:

The formula for that is: XF-4: 3, XF-71: 2, XF-54: 2

Next, I tested out what plain old XF-71 would look like, heavily thinned and sprayed over black:


I did that because though CF-71 is more associated with Nakajima-manufactured aircraft (per Carlos and many, many others apparently -this is hotly debated) the black base tends to make these colors behave differently, like turning XF-4 green for example. I’ve painted this color over gray primer before and yes indeed, it looks quite different- more green, less gray.

Not sure which I’d like to go with yet. I may continue experimenting.

So that’s where we’re at!


BANZAI!

[LyleW]

"Doug The Paint Mule"?

Love it. Looking forward to seeing this come together in a drama free manner. No pressure. Hope life is settling down for you.

[KennyX]

Yes sir! Doug The Paint Mule. He was my first failed Corsair project, on which I learned the awesome and terrifying destructive power of Windex.

And you said it brother- drama free. That’s what I’m shooting for.

I think the biggest mistake I made on the Corsair was setting such high expectations for a project on which I was learning so many things simultaneously. One big issue I had was after a little while I’d learned so much, I’d look back on the work I’d already done on it, because I’d improved so much. That combined with all the bad luck is been having, it soured me on it. I don’t know if that makes sense.

Anyway, I’m feeling buoyant and happy at the outset with this build. And I have Doug, on which to tear out anything I may wish to try first.

[LyleW]

Looks like you have it under control! Carry on and whatever.

[KennyX]

Just digging up some interesting cockpit reference photos here:

Zero-Sen:

http://www.aviation-history.com/mitsubishi/zero.html

Underwater Zero:

Note the small bit of green that still is intact around the bottom.

[Floki]

Should be a great build the newer Tamiya Zero's are great kits. That photo of the underwater Zero is that from Truk Lagoon?

[KennyX]

They’re saying Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, which is interesting because my subject was flying out of New Guinea.

[KennyX]

This one looks restored to me:

[speedgraflex]

X marks the spot!

Subscribed for the ride.

[KennyX]

I think I found it! Take a gander at this:


XF-71: 2, XF-26: 1