The Zero's Rejuvination!

All looked lost at the end of the last post for the Zero. As I continued to cogitate on the situation at hand, I realized that I could just continue with acrylic paints. The main inspiration was AK Interactive's FAQ Aircraft Modelling book that I recently acquired.

Let's see what I was able to accomplish.

The instructions called for semi-gloss black for the engine cowl. The FAQ book gave me the idea to paint it a lightened aircraft interior black and then I shaded the panel lines with flat black. You can see it better in real life.

I used a silver colored pencil to create chipping.

The completed, chipped engine cowl.

I used Tamiya's Titanium Silver to paint the propeller.

On the backside of the prop, I painted aircraft interior black.

I peeled off the Humbrol Maskol that I put down prior to painting the black. I'll show you what I mean below.

After coating the model with the Alclad Black Primer, I noticed a panel line I scribed was crooked and awful. I filled the line, sanded it and rescribed it with the the help of an embossing label

I sprayed semi-gloss black around the cockpit area as directed by the directions. Can't you see the difference? I removed the masking and added the antenna.

I glued the cockpit in place with Kristal Klear. Model glue and super glue will cause foggy on clear parts. Ask me how I know!

The side was re-primed with AK Grey primer. It caught some of the semi-gloss mist.

Here is the Titanium Sliver that I used on the prop.

Future self tells me, I shouldn't have left all those black areas.

This purple stuff is the Humbrol Maskol I mentioned earlier. It is a liquid latex that I applied with a torn green scouring pad. It also smells really bad, not a noxious, attack your nervous system bad, but just gross.

This will provide areas of chipping after applying the top coat.

I sprayed medium grey on the bottom. I realized that I really don't have the appropriate grey to spray, but I just wanted to move this project forward, plus the kids were gone for the weekend so time was of the essence. The next Zero will be better.

The finish of the bottom coat was terrible, the black primer had a rough and pebbly texture. I took a high grit sand paper and sanded it down. I would say the finish on the bottom is 80% improved. Some areas still have issues but they were difficult to reach, like under the fuel tank. Here I did some pre-shading with Tamiya Smoke.

Bottom coat re-applied. I think I should have put the coat on a little heavier. There was primer and paint down already, so I was concerned it would start to get thick and obliterate the very fine panel line detail. I'll nail it next time around.

For the top portion, I pre-shaded using the base coat of IJN Green. I put it down pretty heavy to show through the base coat.

The base coat of IJN Green is down. I added some lemon yellow to the paint, as I didn't have any white, to do some post shading inside the panel lines. It's tough to see in the pictures. I would have preferred adding white.

This is where the magic happens. I rubbed off all of the latex masking with my finger.

Zeros paint really took a beating in the Pacific and I wanted to heavily weather this aircraft and experiment with some new techniques. The areas on the outside of the wings and on the elevators, looked pretty clean after this. I took the same silver pencil I had for the engine cowl and created chipping effects on the panel lines. I don't have a good picture of it here, but you'll see it in the next post.

I masked off the leading edge for the Lemon Yellow highlights.

I added a little bit of Maskol to the leading edge before painting.

It came out fairly well.

Now for the chipping.

I'm becoming very familiar with cleaning and dissembling the Infinity. It's really a beautifully crafted airbrush. After recently dissembling the Infinity and the Badger I realized the difference between an $80 airbrush (that I got for $40) and a $250 airbrush.

Quality wise, I think this aircraft will have defects greater than my last aircraft, the Spitfire. I've tried a number of things different here, so I suppose that should be expected. I also learned that when you are spraying with metallics it's best to thin them more than you would for regular acrylic paints. Since the Zero had black primer, I think I should have applied the Titanium Silver all over instead of leaving some areas black. I see why grey or white is the preferred primer base for aircraft.This kit was $14, so I'm not too disappointed. It's all about the learnings.

That's it for now. It is on to a coat of Aqua Gloss and decals for the next post. See you then!