I got a Nell bomber at a Christmas white elephant gift exchange at one of my model clubs. I am starting it now, but can’t tell from color diagrams or photos- was their camouflage soft edge or hard edge?
I went to this site:
and found several pictures of the Nell. Some in cammo, solid green/grey, silver, and even an orange version. From the looks of it you could go either way on the hard line or feathering of hte colors.
Hi Don,
Typically the Japanese used hard edges.
I would argue either type of edging for two tone upper surface camo based off of photos of the Nell. But the upper to lower surface was usually feathered
Soft edge for Nell…
Judging by the photos, The Japanese sure must have used bad paint in WWII. So much chipping and flaking on their aircraft it’s even hard to tell a soft edge from a hard one sometimes.
[quote user=“Jay Jay”]
Judging by the photos, The Japanese sure must have used bad paint in WWII. So much chipping and flaking on their aircraft it’s even hard to tell a soft edge from a hard one sometimes.
Nature of the enviroment.
Thanks, guys.
I forgot where I read the article, apparently some of the additives in the Japanese paints reacted with the “negative ions” in the air of the salt water seas they operated in.
It produced a corrosive effect which bubbled and caused the paint to chip and flake off.
Little did they know at the time it sure made a very “cool” camo look for us modelers!!!
Considering that Japan itself is an island nation with its’ climate and air very much influenced by the sea, that does not sound too legit to me. They would discover problems with paints at home long before they expanded in the Pacific War campaigns. Now on the other hand many of their camo schemes were field applied directly onto metal witout primer, and many of their bases were forward in nature with crushed coral runways, the prop wash blowing up that abrasive dust would be even more wearing on field applied paint schemes, than on factory applied ones such as the US aircraft in identical climes that wore badly.
Hey Stick,
Just a wee off topic here but you brought up US AC. I got the chance to watch “Flying Leathernecks” again this last weekend and I never noticed before, but there is a wealth of beautiful weathering examples on the Hellcat. All the way from the fuse to the battered prop…
Sounds good MC. When I watched “30 Seconds Over Tokyo”, you saw some really well weathered B-25s were used in that film. Of course by the time that the movie was filmed the early model Mitchells were no longer front line birds so the ones they used had to come from training squadrons or stateside ASW patrol tasked units. I did find a Japanese wartime film on You Tube recently that showed Oscars and some bomber types to good effect. As well as a captured P-40 and Buffalo… I’ll see if I can find a link to post here… Sort of like watching a WWII John Wayne film from the other side’s point of view.
Sorta like field-applied Zimmeret…