Aichi's B7A Ryusei (Comet) was code-named Grace. But she was not built to bring grace, rather tribulation! High performance, designed to be as manuverable as the Zero, it was fortunate that only 111 were built and there were not enough crews to exploit the potential of this beautiful, world-class warplane.
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Hasegawa's 1/48 kit built OOB except for Squadron's Fast masks, aftermarket seatbelts up front, and homemade in back. Painted with Aeromaster Nakajima Green and Polly Scale aluminum underside.
I patterned the harsh weathering after the photos of Graces in Don Thorpe's book Japanese Naval Air Force Camouflage and Markings World War II. Primed in silver, the green and black and yellow top colors were applied and thern removed with tape, X-acto and razorsaw blades, fingernails... Then the anti-glare portion of the fuselage was put over it, and re-removed. The green was applied with irregular thickness and coverage to simulate the hurried production of late war IJN planes.
Hasegawa shows a 3-color special mix for the interior color, used within.
I tried to make the Hinomarus chipped the same way--masked a silver disc where they would be, applied the decals, and then scrape pieces off. This didn't work as well as intended, but I will try again.
The exhaust stains are mainly painted on, but there is pastel in there too, to give that lead build up look. Water-oil paints are used for POL streaks and stains.
J-Aircraft.com tells how the torpedos were left oiled bare steel, with a milky-white latex shock absorping coating applied to the nose. I lightly brushed various rust 'scratches' around it, peeled the tip of the latex off, and left the fin extentions wood.
Grace is preparing for another strike, the pace is hectic, no time to wipe away those exhaust stains left from war-emergency power used to avoid the swarming Hellcats and Corsairs....