Now I was getting cocky. I pulled off the lower masks / tape too quickly and it pulled up some paint, specifically the paint over the metallic chipping base that was covered in hairspray. This happens to me quite often, but it’s a bit of a pain to fix as you have to sand down the paint and build it back up to avoid a step in the paint. Fortunately the lower hinomaru looked great and didn’t require any touch ups.

The upper side was another matter. I got some overspray under the masks onto the white discs and also pulled up some green paint.
The fuselage hinomaru were worse as there was white and red overspray and the left side red disc didn’t seem to be centred in the white disc. Odd, as the masks were cut concentrically. What I think happened is that when I added the ring mask for the white ring (to spray the red), it deformed along the curve. This is one of the main reasons I will be moving to Oramask 810 on curved surfaces.

So out came the masks and sanding sponges and the hinomaru and lifter paint were fixed. I’m not happy with the left fuselage hinomaru but sort of entirely sanding it all down to primer it will do. I spent the entire evening fixing my screw ups and I think that’s as much as I want to do.

Next up are the fuselage stripes , the amber grey rectangle for the data stencil, and the wing no walk lines. Let’s hope I don’t have to redo those .

13 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Great recoveries indeed, Woody @wkubacki!

Yep, I believe the concenteric losses are due to mask material deformation, the slightest "off" shows immediately between red and white...

It is absolutely evident that you spend A LOT of quality time (tial and error loops included) in painting.

Kudos to your skills and persistence!

The final results reflect all this effort, being spotless.

Looking forward to your next steps!

Stipes, bands and tabs are the subject of this entry. This Zero had two chevron style bands on the fuselage, irregular in shape due to them being hand painted in the field. The colour in the Tamiya instructions are more lemon yellow, but, after some discussion with Ryan Toews, I decided to go with the same colour as the IFF bands. I used Tamiya's excellent flexible tape to mask the bands, which was very time consuming to get the shape and widths right.

After the first night I was happy with them and left it to spray the next day, which was a good thing, it turns out. after looking at them and sharing some pictures with a friend, Ronnie, he suggested they were too narrow. It's nice to have an objective opinion sometimes, and Ronnie calls it as he sees it. After some measuring I agreed with him and re-masked the two outer edges while leaving the center one in place. I used Tamiya yellow tape cut to width on my Infini pad to space out the white tape.

Then mixing C69 off white 75/25 with MRT I sprayed the white base coat (10 psi I think). With such a thin paint and low psi you really get a lot of control of the paint, especially in such a small area. It keeps the Paint from running or getting under the mask. Then thinning C58 orange yellow in the same fashion I sprayed it over the white , trying not to create a solid layer of paint. Carefully removing the tape (and you do have to be especially careful with the white tape) showed a only a few over sprayed areas and some lifted paint. The overspray will be taken care of tonight with some light sanding.

I also painted the red wing no walk areas with C385 Hinomaru red, the aircraft stencil backing (J3 SP) and the underside trim tabs (J3 SP). Interesting to note is that the aircraft manufacturer's stencil on Mistubishi Zeros is painted on amber grey and then masked for the D2 Dark Green coat. on Nakajimia aircraft the stencil is sprayed over both paint layers. So that brings up the possibility that Mitsubishi painted the Zero red primer overall, and then J3 SP (amber grey) overall, and then the dark green. I'm not sure if this practice was ended later in the war as you start seeing a lot of A6M5s in very rough shape (and they look operational). I'm sure someone with more expertise could comment.

15 attached images. Click to enlarge.

@jmillan Dude! You’re actually the reason I joined, after seeing your build here I like the format of showcasing the process and the final result better than on FB.

Yeah man, get back to it, it was fun collaborating on the Ki-44s.

As for the masking, yea a total pain, but now that I have tried it once I have a better understanding of how to do it for the next time.

PS , can I send you the scan of the decal sheet so you can design, cut and send me some masks for the tail code? Lol, just kidding, I’ll probably end up using kit decals

Something a bit more tedious today: landing gear weight indicator markings, or this colours on the gear doors. Masked off the are you be painted and sprayed it white, then C58. Then masked the red and blue with the same piece of tape (2x the width of one band) to make sure the bands were equal. One thing I learned is to make sure you have as few masking operations as possible. This worked for one door but the other had very wide red/blue bands and a narrow yellow one, so out came the tape and the yellow was re-sprayed (it looks more orange yellow than the other). End result doesn’t look too shabby.

6 attached images. Click to enlarge.

No sir, not shabby at all! Very nice work Woody.

Woody, @wkubacki
It has been a while since I have posted on here. By the looks of things, you are getting close to the finish line. I especially like how you have sprayed on what most would have used decals for. The painted markings look fantastic too. Keep it up !