Revell Zero Rebuild

[LSP_Kevin]

Some small progress today. I managed to fix the prop painting (though not without its own dramas), and I've finished the engine off.

 

First, the prop:

 

 

I almost completely ruined it by not properly clearing my airbrush nozzle of lacquer thinner before spraying the protective coat of Future. The first squirt turned out to be more lacquer thinner than Future. I had drips, runs, bleeds and general paint chaos, so I had to leave it overnight and sand the worst of it off for repainting, which I've just finished. It's not perfect, but looks OK - I oversprayed the stencils with thinned red/brown to tone them down a bit. Another coat of Future and a wash and it should pass muster. Still got to deal with the yellow prop warning stripes though.

 

Here's the finished engine (apologies for the poor photo):

 

 

You won't see much through the closed cowl front anyway, so it should be effective enough. So, first time trying to detail an engine (albeit a token effort), and first time using dry transfers.

 

Kev

[LSP_Kevin]

Another small update - the propeller assembly is finished. Still deciding whether I'll apply any paint chipping, but I guess that can happen at any time.

 

 

The inner stencils on the prop blades are from the HobbyDecal set. When I tried to use their yellow stripes for the blade tips, the first one disintegrated due to the impractical nature of the application. Nothing wrong with the stencils themselves, but getting the slightly inflexible backing material to conform to the shape of the propeller tip proved difficult, resulting in my rubbing too hard to force adhesion. This caused the stencil to break up slightly, to the point where I could see it just wasn't going to work. Anyway, I resorted to masking and painting, and you can clearly see the more orange hue of the paint compared with the inboard stencil. I can live with it.

 

Here's the completed engine and propeller assembly (complete with dust already!):

 

 

The prop has had a wash and a flat coat, and though it's not perfect (perhaps not even good ), it's a substantial improvement over what I started with. Let's hope I can say the same for the rest of the build!

 

Kev

[Azgaron]

Kev,

 

I think it turned out great! Both the engine and prop are looking good!

 

 

Azgaron

[LSP_Kevin]

I'm currently indulging in a short break from the Zero while I await packages from Dave (RookieLSP) and Manny (canuck63). Well, the first has arrived (thanks Dave!), so I thought I'd take a look at the wheel wells. The CMK wells for the Tamiya Zero fit the shape of the Revell cutout surprisingly well:

 

 

The kit cutouts are about a millimetre or so longer, but no big deal. However, I've now discovered that they are in fact way too deep for the Revell wing, probably by a good 2 mm. I just don't see a way to fit them in, as there's virtually no spare resin on the back to remove (it's already translucent), and the plastic in the upper wing is not thick enough to allow that much to be removed.

 

So, I'm now considering my options. I thought I could possibly widen the cutouts so that the rim of the wheel wells is flush with the wing surface, but that has a few down sides. Firstly, if it doesn't work then I've basically stuffed the wing. Also, making a strong join in this important area would be much more difficult under those conditions.

 

I also thought of forcing the upper wing over the too-large wells, but that would put a lot of strain on the upper-to-lower wing join at the leading edge, and detrimentally change the profile of the upper wing against the wing root.

 

My only other option would be to scratch build a pair of wheel wells, but the way I'm going at the moment, that would be like Andre the Giant riding a winner at the Melbourne Cup.

 

Suggestions?

 

Kev

[Maarten]

Hello Kev!

Great build sofar, I have to say! I even pulled out my own Revell Zero to do some work as yours is very inspiring!

Two things I could think of as far as the wheel wells go - either you could try thinning down the well from the underside (as in the side with all the detail) I realize the round section in particular is especially difficult to thin down (without coming down to the "ceiling"), but most of that should be beneath the fuselage anyway and thus much less likely to be affected. Should that route be feasible, try to leave the strut mounting as intact as possible. The other way might be to use the part as a guide to cut out the well shape on the top wing and use the back end of the resin part as the actual wing surface. This might leave you with some more filling and rescribing work to do though. Of course, not having the resin set to hand, either option might be a bit difficult in practice!

 

Best regards, keep on building this nice,

Maarten

 

PS: I have a few books on the Zero - should you need any more references you can email me at maartenbilo@gmail.com and I'll see what I can fix you up with right away.

[LSP_Kevin]

Hello Kev!

Great build sofar, I have to say! I even pulled out my own Revell Zero to do some work as yours is very inspiring!

Two things I could think of as far as the wheel wells go - either you could try thinning down the well from the underside (as in the side with all the detail) I realize the round section in particular is especially difficult to thin down (without coming down to the "ceiling"), but most of that should be beneath the fuselage anyway and thus much less likely to be affected. Should that route be feasible, try to leave the strut mounting as intact as possible. The other way might be to use the part as a guide to cut out the well shape on the top wing and use the back end of the resin part as the actual wing surface. This might leave you with some more filling and rescribing work to do though. Of course, not having the resin set to hand, either option might be a bit difficult in practice!

 

Best regards, keep on building this nice,

Maarten

 

PS: I have a few books on the Zero - should you need any more references you can email me at maartenbilo@gmail.com and I'll see what I can fix you up with right away.

 

Thanks for the nice comments Maarten! I did consider using the top of the resin wells as the upper wing top surface, but I think it would sit too high (it would look like a speed bump on the wing ), and it's at the same angle as the internal profile, which wouldn't match the wing surface profile at all.

 

I also considered reducing the profile of the lower surfaces of the wells, but I think it would be beyond me to do it evenly all the way round - twice! Also, the strut mounting block would have to be left as-is to be useful, so that complicates that approach even further.

 

The approach I'm toying with at the moment is to remove the strut mounting blocks and reduce their height to fit the Revell wing, and then scratch build the rest of the well using the CMK parts as a template. I've also considered chopping each well into 3 parts: strut mount, leg bay and wheel bay. That way I might be able to customise the profile of each section separately, but I'd be left with some pretty ugly joins to deal with.

 

Thanks for the offer regarding the books too Maarten. I'm at work at the moment, but when I get home I'll send you an email.

 

Kev

[maverick728470]

Nippon Builder of redo ZERO,

Honorable builder,Emperor is very proud of u as to the GREAT work u are doing on this from the ashes sort of speak for the Revell zero.Again,I say to U BANZAI,BANZAI,BANZAI.And take a Bow!U have shown us what can be done to a GREAT Old kit.Larry

[Allok]

My only other option would be to scratch build a pair of wheel wells

This would be my option... but that's just me!

It really isn't as hard as it may look.

 

The resin ones look very nice though. At least you will have some thing decent to copy.

The rest of what you have done looks terrific.

 

Good luck. I'm sure it will be impressive, regardless of what you decide to do.

[LSP_Kevin]

This would be my option... but that's just me!

It really isn't as hard as it may look.

 

The resin ones look very nice though. At least you will have some thing decent to copy.

The rest of what you have done looks terrific.

 

Good luck. I'm sure it will be impressive, regardless of what you decide to do.

 

Thanks for the encouragement Keith. I certainly do seem to be going to a lot of trouble to avoid having to scratchbuild these things. Seeing Chris's latest update to his Tornado is both inspiring and intimidating!

 

Kev

[LSP_Kevin]

Wow, I can't believe it's been more than 6 weeks since I did anything with this one! I've been dallying in other scales, having since completed Airfix's 1/144 BAC 1-11 and Tamiya's 1/48 P-51D (definitely needed that one!). I'm ready to restart this Zero rebuild however; I just need to get reacquainted with where I was at and what I was planning to do, so no pictures yet. I'll definitely be missing my self-imposed end-of-year deadline though.

 

Thanks to those LSPers who have been prodding me on this one. It's nice to know you cared.

 

More soon.

 

Kev

[Spads57]

Kev,

Loved your Mustang over at HS.I'm looking to seeing more of your outstanding work here as well as elsewhere

Regards,

Gregory

[LSP_Kevin]

Thanks for your kind words Gregory! I've started back with the wheel wells, and have made some minor progress. In the end, I decided to use the narrow 'leg holding' portion from the CMK set, and scratch build the rounded 'wheel holding' portion. I separated the resin parts with a razor saw and then trimmed the height of their sidewalls to fit within the Revell wing. I also separated and reused the gear anchor portions of the CMK set. As you can see from the photos, the Revell wheel wells are longer than the CMK inserts (which are intended for the Tamiya kit), so I've left a gap that I'm still pondering how best to fill.

 

The outside:

 

 

I'll trim around the outside so that it's flush with the profile of the under surface of the wing.

 

The inside:

 

 

I'll probably add some reinforcing strips on the inner surface to give it more to grip when it's flush. I doubt I'll be able to replicate the subtle shape of the wheel bay floor, so I'll probably just attempt to make it look busy. I'm still not sure how to fair in the areas where resin meets plastic card either. Tips?

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Kev

[LSP_Kevin]

Just a quick update to keep me motivated and make me feel like I'm actually making some progress. Work on the wheel wells continues, and I think it's coming together. I basically just tried to copy the CMK floors, but I probably should have checked a few references too.

 

 

I was working on both wells simultaneously, but when I got to this point and fitted them both in position, I realised that I got all the details backward on the starboard one.

 

 

Still some minor details to add, but I felt I needed the floor in position before adding them, lest I risk getting them out of alignment.

 

It's an ugly mess from the other side though:

 

 

I'll trim the floor to ensure it doesn't get in the way of the cockpit floor or forward wing join (not a lot of room to play with in there). I also completely forgot to fair in the areas where resin meets plastic, and it will be that much more difficult to do it now. Oh well. As most of you would know by now, this is how my builds go!

 

Kev

[CPNGROATS]

NICE PROGRESS..! Big Kev..

 

I love the re-habing of older models....can't wait to see more..

Cheers,

ggc

[Ironwing]

Kev,

 

Very nice re-detailing of an older kit. I like what youre doing. That metal finish looks sweet too.

 

Geoff