Andrew, @pb_legend

This information you provided the links to was exactly what I was looking for... Sincerely I thank you for sharing this with us. It's perfect.

I agree with this being a hobby. I typically try to build my planes as accurate as I can. Part of the joys of this hobby we share, is our love of history, and the thrill of the hunt... looking for the ever elusive quarry we call factual information.

Your leads were spot on.

I hope that you continue to follow along with us on this journey. Now I have a great reason to build the Hasegawa A6M-3's... Perfect.

Again I thank you.

Thank David ! @davidathomas
I'm trying my best... I have had some considerably help along the way. And it's much appreciated.

I can't believe how much I have learned on this journey so far... and it's just getting started !

Please stay tuned for the next installment. It's about mathematics.

1 + 1 +1 = 3 Zero's.
Add 2 more... and there's 5 Zero's !

Here we go...
I'll call this my Itsy Bitsy assembly line... This will not include 5 A6M-3 Zero's.

I didn't realize it at the time, but all of the A6M-3's were manufactured by Mitsubishi. None were made by Nakajima. Because of this it is highly likely they all used the same color for the interior. It is now widely accepted that Mitsubishi Interior Green is very similar to FS 34151 "Interior Green" that is typically found on American aircraft. It's not quite an exact match as it is supposed to be a little more yellow. This color doesn't have an exact match using the Federal Standards system. I found this picture online of a Zero seat. I don't know if it's correct, as this is in a restored plane...

Notice how the light affects the cockpit colors.

I posted it because it shows the various holes that are present in the seat.

I drilled out these holes in the kit supplied parts. I used a #64 and a #73 drill bit to do this. The drilled out seats were then sanded down to make them look a little thinner.

These are the seats from the Tamiya kits. You can see how much thinner the seats look after sanding.

Next I prepped all of the cockpit parts for the Tamiya Zeros.

I assembled one to show you how it looks sitting next to the parts from the other Tamiya Zero. This is an easy build and the parts fit very good.

Here you can see the Tamiya cockpits from both sides.

The details are decent on the fuselage sidewalls.

Next I glued the fuselage halves together.

And then temporarily placed the cockpit inside to show how much detail is visible in the Tamiya kit.




Now it was time to do the same thing again, but this time it's the Hasegawa kit. You can see the seats are very similar, and look decent once the holes are drilled and the sides thinned down a little.
The untouched part is on the left.

One of the Hasegawa cockpits was assembled.



Then I placed it into the assembled fuselage to show you the differences.

As expected, the Hasegawa kit is better. It should be, since it's a lot newer.
Here you can see the results of tonight's bench time.
The Hasegawa Zero is on the left. A Tamiya Zero is in the middle and on the right side in the last photo.

I still have two more Hasegawa Zeros to build. Hopefully I can get to them tomorrow, and also start the P-38.

I have built both companies Zero kits in the past. The Tamiya kit goes together quickly and is a relaxing build. The Hasegawa version is a very nice kit with more detail, but it is just a little harder to build.

On both kits, the fit is exceptional, and I can recommend both...

As always,
Comments are encouraged.

Louis, you will be certifiable if you build every P-38 that went on that mission...:-)

So, what's after this? Operation Bodenplatte?

Hello again everyone ! Yesterday was Veteran's Day here in the US. Our family has been serving in the US military since the American Revolution, and I also served in the Army just like my Dad. I wanted to take a moment to give a shout out to our men and women who are in uniform today and say thank you for what you do for us.

George, @gblair
It's going to be a challenge keeping everything separated. What I typically do is place each plane back into their respective boxes at the end of each building session. That's about the hardest thing to do. Otherwise, it's actually much easier for me building them this way. Your comments about painting the exteriors are spot on. About a year ago I built up 4 Hasegawa 1/48 scale F6F Hellcats at the same time. Things moved along at a lightning pace until I started spraying the outside of each plane... Naturally I had picked out different paint schemes for each one. Then it seemed to drag on a bit. But I'm happy with how these usually turn out building multiples at once. I had a similar experience when I made 4 Tamiya FW-190A-4s...and my 8 Spitfires that morphed into 12 (5 of which have not been finished, the GB ended before I got them done). It works for me. Most of the time.

Thanks !

James ! @jamesb
Ha ha ... You made me chuckle with that one. I'm not crazy enough to tackle something like that ! Even I know when to say enough is enough. Well, probably not always... I have the occasional Oops moments.

Thanks for the compliments on my photos. I simply use the camera that's in my cell phone. It's an older IPhone 6S plus, but it has a very good camera built right into it.

As far as the seats are concerned... Once I drilled out the holes, I reamed them just a little using a small pointed file. After a few twists, I blew the parts off to get rid of the plastic filings so I could better examine the work. Once I was happy with the results, I sanded the edges of the seat.

I simply took a small sheet of 400 grit wet / dry sand paper and placed it flat on the work bench. Then I placed the flat sides of the seat on the sandpaper and after a little bit of work, the sides looked visibly thinner. I used the same sand paper to shape the upper edges of the seat. Here I only sanded the top edge and made it look more like the real Zero seat. You don't have to worry about sanding the entire seat back. The upper edge is all that you need to work on, since the seat has a curve, and it would be very hard to thin out the entire seat back.

The upper portion of the seat is what you see anyhow. This sort of tricks your eye into believing the entire seat is thin when it's not. I have used this trick on many of my builds when the kit supplied parts look a little too thick. It's even harder to distinguish once the seat is painted and the cockpit is installed into the fuselage. You don't have to sand the entire seat back.

Before I did that, I would consider scratch building a new seat using flat sheet plastic. It's not too hard to build one using aluminum from a soda can also. Then you can press in bead lines like some of the real seats had. Aluminum scratch built seats look very realistic...

Hope this helps !

and thank you very much for the compliments.

I have two of the new Tamiya P-38's now. If I could find a set of decals for Lamphier's plane "Phoebe" I'd build it in a heartbeat to go alongside "Miss Virginia". I have been doing a lot of online research and stumbled across this article at another website. This is a 4 part series and it shows how this person built their "White Box" P-38. It turned out very good. Please follow this link and you will see what I mean.

https://theplasticadvocate.com/2019/10/03/finished-tamiyas-white-box-1-48-p-38f-g-first-thoughts-part-4-the-finale/

I have also been looking more in detail at what colors were used on the interior of the early P-38's before I start mine. Here's another link that shows there are other people out there who don't think RAF colors are correct.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/hyperscale/early-f-g-p-38-color-questions-t510184.html

This is just food for thought. Please don't believe everything you read on the internet. Some persons are more accurate in their statements than others, that's all.

Read what's out there and make up your own informed mind. In the end, it's a hobby and you can paint your plane whatever color you desire.

Have fun with it.