Hi there, I was inspired by Andy's excellent Tamiya A6M3, so thought I'd add a variation to a theme - my recently-finished 1/48 Hasegawa A6M3 which I completed as a rebuilt machine that was restored by USAAF, USN, and RAAF personnel in Brisbane, Australia (my old home town!) in early 1943, using several airframes that had been captured following the fighting around Buna in Papua.



The US markings were presumably a safety measure as much as anything, although the Australian War Memorial website photos which I used as a painting guide also show the plane restored in 'approximate' IJN colours, presumably for intelligence/enemy aircraft identification purposes. While I can't reproduce any of those photos here, go to awm.gov.au, and do a search on A6M3 - you will find a series of about 20 excellent photos that you can't miss. I mixed up the paint scheme colour from Tamiya acrylics, based on a US federal standard colour equivalent that was suggested in a forum over at j-aircraft.com.



Sorry the photos aren't much good - it was a quick fun build (sandwiched in between CA's E.E. Canberra and Finemolds Millenium Falcon), and the US markings look a bit different.

cheers, Brad

Hi Brad!

Very nice and clean job! Interesting scheme as well. How did you do the panel lines? They are very sharp...

There was a Campaign proposal at Aeroscale one day, it was called "In other hands", which would have been perfect for this project.

Jean-Luc

An excellent and interesting build Brad.
In that colour scheme it looks remarkably like a Harvard .
How does the Hasagawa kit go together ?
Andy

Thanks for the nice comments Jean-Luc and Andy! To answer your questions:

- It's still actually a bit too clean - I need to grubby it up just a little before I take it in to my club's annual comp. My reference photos show a very clean airframe (not even any exhaust stains), but as someone told me when I took it along to my club meet recently, all planes get dirty! Any suggestions as to how I might do this nice and subtly without getting things too messy?

- I do my panel lines with acknowledgements to Brett Green over at Hyperscale - one part Tamiya acrylic red-brown XF-64 and black X-1 to about 10 parts water, with a drop of dishwashing liquid for good measure. I then apply this directly to the panel lines with a thin brush after the model has had a couple of good coats of Future and is nice and shiny. You have to wipe away any overspill pretty much immediately, or it stains and you can't remove it (use Tamiya thinner to try and you just end up wiping away the Future). It's a bit slow and painful, but the end result is really worth it. I should experiment with oil washes, but I like this method a lot...

- The Hasegawa kit goes together very well. I only added an Ultracast seat and a couple of bits of wire and Mike Grant placards to the cockpit; an igniton harness round the engine (which was a waste of time given how much of it you can see); some Moskit exhausts (which look good but don't sit perfectly): and some brake lines from stretched sprue. All in all, a very satisfying little build! cheers, Brad