Tamiya 1/48 A6M5 Zero dead

[kyledehart5]

Being new here, I have just stumbled across this. And I do love any sort of Zero. Have a dual kit from Eduard when they were first coming out with theirs. But this work here, What a magnificent undertaking. I am nearly speechless. I would never dream of something like what you’re doing. I love it. Hats off to you.

[mz3]

Thank you, I really do appreciate it!

Moving fast now...

Mr. Metal Color Aluminum






I got to say, if I hadn't already picked colors and what not, this would have been what I would have gone for. That paint is amazing! There is a Monogram Zero coming at the end of the week🤔

What I was hoping would happen with the rivets is happening. Once paint goes on they blend in. Perfect! There are some flaws here and there, but the green and grey will cover them up. If not I'll work them intonthe weathering.

Next step is gloss coat. See how that will effect the aluminum effects.

[deafpanzer]

Those AM rivets will make a difference once you are done painting and weathering

[406 Silverado]

Jul 30, 2023 19:28:31 GMT -5 mz3 said:

I'm sick of rivets

Done with the decals for now. I still have to do the cowling and flaps. There are some areas that need small runs of the single line rivet decals, but I'm like screw that. Just hit those areas with the rivet wheel. I stiil have to wait a bit to remove the film, then done with this step. Fun times ahead!

I can only imagine that you are sick of those things MZ. lol

Hang with it bro....this is looking good.

[mz3]

I do hate them, but that feeling is fading.




Paint is polished and gloss coated. I just sprayed a layer of hairspray. It pains me to cover this paint, but the monogram zero coming tomorrow will definitely get this. I'll prep the basecoat differently. Use gloss black instead of black primer. I was also thinking about testing some of the left over rivets on the gloss black paint. Just to see what happens.

[buddho]

One outstanding build, here..the zeke is coming alive!

[mz3]

Time to fun...

Bottom painted. Tamiya xf-76 gray green IJN


I picked out a couple panels with deck tan. Not sure if it was even necessary. After weathering they may not even show up.



I preshaded the upper. I've never actually preshaded on top of hairspray before. Figured it wouldn't hurt anything. I was painting another kit with nato black and inspiration just kinda hit. I might experiment a little and add some more thinned out colors. The green is dark enough if I don't like the result I can just paint over it.

I'll go back and do a little post shading on the bottom later. I have to wait a few days for the green to come in. I have mr. color ijn nakajima green, but being a lacquer it's harder to chip. I used it on the last zero I built and didn't like how it chipped.

[handiabled]

I think you will be happy you went through the rivet hassles, they add a depth to the detail that pops more when the bird is completed imo.
I think this looks brilliant so far!

[406 Silverado]

Good to see that this one is coming along and that you're now about ready to start putting paint on this beauty. Looking forward to that Monogram Zero that you've got coming MZ. I'm sure you'll have to tweak it some as far as some of the details are concerned but with your skillset I see it as a very doable thing.

[mz3]

Yeah, about that monogram zero

I got it on Friday, opened it right away and just started chuckling. It's bad. I wasn't expecting much, but wow. There's no cockpit, no landing gear bay, no deck behind the cockpit, the engine is just molded into the cowling, it's missing TONS of detail, like metric tons of detail. It does have thousands of rivets though😆












I'm going to build it though. I'll do what I can. But I'm not going to buy any thing for it. It's a $7 model originally made in 1962, maybe printed in 1990. It will be fun.

[mz3]

Pleasant surprise, fedex delivered the paint I ordered for this several days early. So on to the fun...

I ordered xf-70 dark green ijn. It seems a little lighter then the mr. color I used before. I'm not really trying to represent a nakajima or mitsubishi built here. Just a nice Zero.



I used xf-10 flat brown, x-15 light green and a pinch of x-26 clear orange for spice. I honestly don't know if they will change anything, but it's worth a try. Like I stated above, if it looks weird or whatever, the green is dark enough I can just spray over it.

[jeaton01]

That Monogram kit's an old friend, but it's one of their first kits when they started doing 1/48 fighters, and I built it when it was fresh on the market. A giant step up from Lindbergh and Aurora and I was glad to see it. Here is one I built with one of my granddaughters 7 or 8 years ago.

[mz3]

It's definitely not the worst kit I've ever seen. I'll have some fun with it.

On to green...


The preshading did almost nothing. The black was a little too thin and only the brown really did anything.

So I lightened up the xf-70 with the light green.


Hard to see in this pic. I just picked out random panels and highlighted the middle.

Then I remembered I had one of these...


Don't know the name of it or the term. Blotcher? I know there's a term, I just can't remember. Never had these before I took my break.





Tomorrow I will fix the line between the gray and green on the fuselage.

[406 Silverado]

Your work on this Zero is paying off. All the frustrations you had with the rivets and construction of this thing are all adding up now. If I'm not mistaken, there's a decent amount of aftermarket for that Monogram Zero MZ in order to take full advantage of the details on the exterior of the aircraft.

[stikpusher]

Aug 8, 2023 5:21:04 GMT -5 406 Silverado said:

Your work on this Zero is paying off. All the frustrations you had with the rivets and construction of this thing are all adding up now. If I'm not mistaken, there's a decent amount of aftermarket for that Monogram Zero MZ in order to take full advantage of the details on the exterior of the aircraft.

Any aftermarket for Zeros came out well after the Monogram kit and is likely intended for one of the many better A6M5 kits that came out afterwards. I’m sure that some can be made to fit with some surgery. Might be easier to scratch build some aside from the engine and wheel wells.

[mz3]

🤬





I wanted to get the hinomarus started today. Made a stencil from tamiya tape. You can guess the rest.

I wound up scraping the paint back to the panel lines so I can get a levelish looking repair. I was pretty pissed when it happened. But this is model building. Mistakes happen and it's fixable.

I'm actually more excited to do the chipping now. The topcoat chips off easily, obviously 😅 I probably won't need to use water at all. Put the chips exactly where I want.

I looked up aftermarket parts over the weekend. I couldn't find anything specifically for this kit. But, I don't think it would be worth the money to add aftermarket parts to the monogram. The amount of work it will take to get this thing to a good level is alot. Rescribing the raised panel lines would ruin a ton of the rivet. All of the control surfaces are shaped wrong. It would be easier to just build this kit again.

[stikpusher]

You might want to have a look at the Otaki/Arii Zero kit. They had a mad riveter do the molds for that one. Externally, lots of recessed detail… internally, it needs help in the cockpit, engine, etc… it’s also been reissued by AMT/ERTL…

[mz3]

Back at it. I took a couple of days off from this and did some mental health builds. But...



Paint fixed. There are a couple small areas where if you look really hard you can see some roughness. But it's pretty small, so I'm good with it.

Finished the base paint...







There seems to be something off on my airbrush I use for finer details. I'll have to go back and fine tune the green a bit. But that's basically as good as it will get on the rear part of the fuselage.

Then this happened...





Some fun!

Chipping was done with a needle. I tried to keep it in areas that I think would be worn down by maintenance and pilots just walking. I then ¡LIGHTLY! sanded the surface to bring out some of the rivets. I really hated them up to this point. I don't even know or care if it accurate, it looks awesome to me.

Now I have a dilemma. The paint chips really easily. I want to spray on as much as I can. I don't think putting on a topcoat will stop the chipping with any stencil I make. I really don't want to use decals, but I may have to. I'm not sure why the paint is chipping so easily.

[deafpanzer]

You nailed with the chipping where foot traffic would have been... looking real good!

[jeaton01]

Have you been sticking the tape to your arm or forehead before you mask? The oils from your skin reduce the tack of the Tamiya tape and greatly reduce instances of lifted paint.

[chromdome35]

Aug 14, 2023 23:43:27 GMT -5 jeaton01 said:

Have you been sticking the tape to your arm or forehead before you mask? The oils from your skin reduce the tack of the Tamiya tape and greatly reduce instances of lifted paint.

I had never heard that before, great tip!!!

[406 Silverado]

GREAT recovery from the paint mishap and I can only imagine that you were pretty ticked off when it all happened. You just gotta love it when a recovery effort comes out that nice though. Chipping effects seem to be right on MZ.

[handiabled]

Great save! I'm glad your back at it again. This is looking really good

[mz3]

Aug 14, 2023 23:43:27 GMT -5 jeaton01 said:

Have you been sticking the tape to your arm or forehead before you mask? The oils from your skin reduce the tack of the Tamiya tape and greatly reduce instances of lifted paint.

I did try this. I cut out the hinomaru and first tried sticking it to areas of my desk. Trying to get the tape to pick up some dust. I felt is was too sticky. So I then put it on my forehead. I placed it on the repaired area, I didn't put any hairspray under the green there because alot of it was under the hinomaru (I also used tamiya flat aluminum instead of the mr metal). Around the repair it was still pulling up chips. I'm not sure which layer is causing the problem, so I'm painting a test piece to figure out what to do. I bought a revell F-14 that is not a good model. I'm painting one of the wings the same way I painted this.

[Medicman71]

It could be the oils from your skin. They can do bad things to paint.

It's looking great though!

[mz3]

I did this after the repair. I usually clean the crap out of everything thing I touch.

[mz3]

Update time...

Long story short, I think the Alclad aqua gloss does not bond to the mr metal color at all or poorly. I read different things on different sites with people getting different results. Whatever!

Hinomaru painted on









I made the tape so it was just barely staying on. I still got some chipping, one bad one on the fuselage. The 2 on the wings are not lined up, I'll try to adjust them when I spray the black circles on the edges.

I have some overspray to sand out. At that point I just wanted to get done with this step. It was a little stressful peeling that tape off.

Made the stencils from what I'm assuming to not tamiya tape I got off of amazon advertised as tamiya tape




Paint is tamiya xf-7 mixed with xf-64 red brown ratio 6 red and 2 red brown in 12 x-20a. I read years ago this was an ok color for these. I didn't put a lighter color down first because I was worried about having too many layers and getting a raised edge. Under the wings they are a little light/faded. I'll try hitting them with some oil paint.

Blah

[deafpanzer]

I hate that part taking the masking tapes off painted surfaces... you did far better than I would have done! Really liked the faded red color too.

[JimD]

Sweet kit. Built one for a magazine feature some time back. I've got a 32nd I need to give the all out treatment some day.

[handiabled]

The insignia look great with the color mix you made. That's a shame the masks pulled up the surrounding paint