Sunday 8 June 2008

The Vexed Question of IJN Browns ~ Part 2




William Reece very kindly contributed photographs of his excellent 96 Kansen (Kyu Roku Shiki Kanjoh Sentoh-ki), built in 1/48th scale from the Fine Molds kit. William says he is not totally happy with the colours chosen but it looks very good to me!

In Model Art 510 Shigeru Nohara suggests that well-known 96 Kansen white '4-122' , a 13th Ku aircraft flown by PO 1/c Mitsugu Mori in February 1938, was painted in camouflage of D1 (dark green) and H2 over J3 undersurfaces.  It is not clear how Nohara-san arrives at this information but it may be significant that H2 features in Kugihô 0266.  
The appearance of J3 has already been discussed elsewhere on this blog. Unfortunately H2 was missing from the Kariki 117 copy examined by Ryôichi Watanabe, so we do not have a JPMA, Munsell or FS595b comparison for that particular colour. D1 is said to be like FS 16081, a very dark grey rather than green, and said to look like a German "field grey", whereas the D1 chip in Kugihô 0266 is described as a "dark green-black colour". Puzzling.

The Fujimi 1/72nd 96 Kansen kit calls for Gunze Aqueous H72 or Mr Color 22 'Dark Earth' for the camouflage brown, with silver painted or natural metal finish undersurfaces. The box art by artist Masahiro Mino appears to show the more yellowish brown colour, whilst the box side profile depicts a darker more reddish brown. I would be very interested to learn about the painting instructions in the Fine Molds kit. Comments welcome.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello William,

Another great job with your A5M2 kit.

Regards,
Ken Glass

Anonymous said...

Thanks Ken. Photos do tend to emblish a model. Still it's built and on the shelf. I bought it for nearly nothing. I recall $10 USD.

William