Hi all!
Thanks for the many nice compliments! For me, this one was about getting things restarted, otherwise I may have gone with something a little different. I’m glad I didn’t!
Iain, nice George!!
Joe, I used Mr. Color Nakajima grey/green (formerly Gunze, I believe) mixed 1:4 with Mr. Color Leveling thinner for the main color. First time using Mr. Color paint, I’ve been using Tamiya acrylics as I move away from enamels. The paint behaved like Tamiya, very nicely. I love the lacquer thinner! It works great with most paints, does level things out nicely, I also will spray a coat of the thinner over the completed paint as it levels the whole area. It’s not cheap, so I use it only to mix the paints, and small volumes at that!
The PTO is where most of my modeling interest lays, and I’ve picked up a bit along the way. Regarding your color question. For the battle of Midway, the top color on all the planes were blue/grey, and the undersides light grey. The Intermediate blue came into play somewhere around February of 1943 with the 3-tone scheme (sea blue, intermediate blue over insignia white). I know Model Master makes the blue/grey to which I’d lighten sunlight exposed areas with about 10% white to fade (note, Hornet’s TBD’s spent most of their time indoors so the fading would not be as pronounced as other carrier planes). Also, since your doing VT-8’s CO’s plane a neat little point of interest. Lt Cmdr Waldron wrecked his ride a few days before the Midway battle, so he used a spare, 8-T-16. It would seem that while hanging from the ceiling with wings folded, they couldn’t paint the red circle out of the insignia, so it’s possible that Waldron flew into battle with the old insignia on the underside. Also, the squadron code (in this case the “8”) for the squadrons that indicated what ship they came from were painted over after Coral Sea, so an un-lightened coat of blue grey over where the number is would be appropriate. For the light grey, take some light gull grey and lighten it with white.
If you go the Tamiya route, then it’s their medium blue XF-18 lightened with white XF-2 (3:1, and add a bit more white, but not more than 2 parts white), to get the grey undersides use Sky grey XF-19 mixed with XF-2, at 2:1. I don’t know about Mr. Color yet.
I like what you’ve done with the Monogram kit so far, it can be bear in spots. I wish you success with the corrugated leading edge of the wings. Hope the information helps, though I’m thinking you may have known the tidbits on Waldron’s plane. I do know that this campaign has me motivated to get some early PTO USN birds on the done shelf!
Matt, I really like the weathering job you did! It’s true that freshly painted Zero’s were glossy, although this faded fairly fast in the environments they were used. The same would hold true for the A6M2-N, even though only 12 were rolling off the line per month. Best guess on Jiro’s mount is that it was in service about 6 months prior to what I was going for. So, a bit flatter would be appropriate, alas, I tried using Tamiya clear flat for the first time. I’m not sure if thinning it with the lacquer thinner resulted in a less than flat finish or what, but I feared damaging the paint job and a white build up that I’ve read of. I’ll be working with this a bit more and let you all know. Restarting things does have its downsides, I really miss Testors Dull Coat! I think on my next flat finish I’ll be adding their flatting stuff to Future. On a humorous note, doing the move forced me to inventory my stash. I thought the P-47 was my favorite plane, but my buying habits would indicate that it’s the Zero!
Michael, I vote MTO, and so does Crickit! Got the B-25 with decals and masks burning a hole in the shelf!!
Until next time, enjoy the hobby!
, but I said it's time to fight back the "dark matter" 
) 
Oh... my clumsiness ... 
