Tamiya sprays to match RAAF Hornets

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Reference Materials
1

Hi Everyone,

I’ve returned to aircraft modelling after a long absence and my current project is all the aircraft and helicopter types that were operated by the RAAF Aircraft Research and Development Unit (ARDU) in 1/72 scale.

I confess to never having owned or used an airbrush so I’ve always relied on Tamiya sprays and with satisfactory results but my current dilema is finding a spray which closely resembles the lower fuselage colour of the F/A-18. Some of my reference material says light ghost grey. Well I sprayed the model yesterday and thought, hmmm this isn’t quite right and a little too blueish. I’ve checked other reference pictures and it appears almost to match the TS18 IJA ight grey. The RAAF Hornets are notorious for looking different colours depending on lighting conditions.

Has anyone done a colour match for the RAAF Hormets with Tamiya paints who can assist.

Thanks in advance, Tim

2

Cant help you mate, after a bad first experience with tamiya spray as a kid (15y/o) I never touched them again. If you’re going to be dealing in alot of 72 scale an airbrush would give you much better results overall as you can lay down thinner coats and you also have a better range of colours.

As for your Hornet I think they are a different colour to our F-111 I’d say easy. Just checking some references You wont get the bottom colour in Tamiya without mixing, the top colour maybe a match for XF-66 Light Grey, I cant find a spray can match. Personally I’d say Gunze Sangyo you giv you better colour matches but no spray cans.

Andrew

3

Andrew,

Thanks for your help. Will look at the Gunze range and also look into air brushes because you’re right about greater flexibility to colour match (just a bit daunting and although I’m far from being a newbie modeller, I am with airbrushes). So far on the current Hornet build I’ve used Dark Ghost and Light Ghost greys and will make good with this model but the next one I’ll experiment with.

My F-111C sitting there to build is A8-132 which is camo on top of the wings and fuselage and everywhere else is gloss white plus calibration markings.