Tamiya 1/48 A6M5 Zero dead

[mz3]

So, the masking pulling up the paint kind of took the wind out of my sails on this. My motivation is low. But, I am starting to get it back. Today I started repairing the areas where the tape pulled up paint.








I also went over the larger chips and filled them in a bit.

I used the base green of xf-70 with tamiya paint retarder, 10 paint/1 retarder, and a fine brush. Just lightly dabbed in the paint. The large area in front of the meatball looks too glossy and bright. Hopefully it will blend in once I start weathering. I left it a little chipped trying to see if it will hide any edges from the damaged paint.

[kyledehart5]

I think it looks really good

[jeaton01]

It's going to be fine!

[stikpusher]

It does have a nice well worn appearance as it looks right now.

[406 Silverado]

Man that is RIGHT on! I wouldn't change a thing on this paint job at all MZ.

[Joe Rix]

It appears to me that you are doing very well in the recovery process MZ. You got this.

[TJ]

There was a problem area? I don't see no stinking problem area

[handiabled]

Looks great from here!

[mz3]

😡

So i decided to add a few more chips






This pos almost got thrown into the wall!

[mz3]

Last night I started working on the black boarder around the hinomarus. I prepared the tape like before, made sure it wasn't too tacky and applied it to the surface. Painted the black. Started to pull the tape off and a huge strip of paint came off with it. Needless to say I was mad. I step away from it for a couple of minutes. Sat back down and decided this paint needs to be stripped and the aluminum paint needs to be properly sealed. My growing concern was how this chipping issue would be affected by the weathering process.

It was incredibly easy to remove the paint, obviously. It took about ten minutes. I used a stronger painters tape to left all the paint off.

I started reading about how to seal the aluminum paint. People are still saying alclad aqua. One person said AK sealer. A couple of people said Testor metallic sealer. Guess I'll just try all of it.

I think this was a blessing in disguise. It felt like there was bad things coming if I left the paint on.

[406 Silverado]

I can see where you could get frustrated after that last picture post here. Looking forward to seeing the results of your efforts MZ.

[mz3]

Hmm....





Now that the sun is lighting up my work area, this looks kind of nice to me.

[kyledehart5]

That does look really cool!! Sorry you’ve had those issues with the paint peeling.

[deafpanzer]

Hang in there you will make it work! Like you said I am glad it was addressed early than later on.

[Medicman71]

Man that sucks that the paint peeled up like that.

[mz3]

Ok...




So I stripped off all the acrylic. I'm ashamed to admit I never knew windex strips tamiya paint so well. I've heard and read about it. But never tried it. I was impressed. I actually bought the windex to clean windows.

I have a few topcoats coming in over the next few days. I'll test them and go from there.

[Steve Zuleski]

Hey, Bro, I've been there myself. I personally found an good "Oven Cleaner" bath and a restart makes for a much more relaxed recovery. This is a great looking kit, just redo and Ruck On! You got it, you got it!

[deafpanzer]

You got it! Looking forward to your next update.

[buddho]

One step closer...this is going to be a knockout finish when complete.

[406 Silverado]

Sorry that you had to take a step backwards on this one but it looks like you'll have things figured out this time around MZ. Looking forward to seeing "Round 2".

[mz3]

Thanks guys!

I think I got things figured out. I am going to pick up again this weekend. I bought a masking set that has masks for inside and outside the canopy. I'm also going to tweak the green on it a little bit. It was a little to bright for my taste. I figured once I did the weathering it would tone it down a bit. But, since it's stripped down, I can go ahead and get the color I want on it. I might also do a camo on it, just for the hell of it. That's still up in the air at this point.

[kyledehart5]

Look forward to seeing the reimagined version!

[handiabled]

Standing by....

[mz3]

Alright, back at it....



Masked and primed. I have to build a couple of small items before I install these. It's almost all pe parts, so expect a followup with lots of cursing in it!

[adt70hk]

Sorry to hear of the problems you've had.

Hope you can get a better result second time around.

Yours.

Andrew

[406 Silverado]

LOL on the cursing. Looking forward to "Take 2" on the paint work MZ.

[tcoat]

This is the beauty of modeling!
You are working very hard to correct "damage" that I worked very hard to create.
I would have been overjoyed if tape had pulled off the top coat in the pattern you ended up with.






Depending on the time period these things can't show enough bare metal.

[stikpusher]

This one isn't bare metal showing but was a field applied camouflage of dark green over the original factory applied overall light gray.

[tcoat]

Oct 11, 2023 12:44:17 GMT -5 stikpusher said:

This one isn't bare metal showing but was a field applied camouflage of dark green over the original factory applied overall light gray.

Yep but the wear on the leading edge and wing root shows that the dark green paint used late in the war (and the A6 for sure) didn't stick to nuttin'.

[stikpusher]

I would just say that one, this photo dates from roughly mid 1943, so not exactly late war. The quality control issues of later in the war hadn’t started yet as the sub campaign still had the bad torpedos. And two, I suspect that the green paint was never even applied in those areas that you’re referring to. They are not high traffic areas for the mechanics or armorers.