Revell Zero Rebuild

[ruzlkampf]

Hey, that's really neat Kevin! You're a braver man than I taking pics of scratch-built stuff at those magnifications. Sheesh, after playing with my camera for awhile now, I know what we see and what it looks like in yer hand are wildly at variance. I stood back across the room from my monitor and looked at these pics, and I'll be darned if I can see the effect you're getting across with the yellow perfectly! Neat touch, I'll have to play around with this technique on the A-4G pit tonight whilst painting. It DOES give it a lot more 'depth'.

Heh he, I still can't believe this is a kit you took APART. This kind of stuff is too cool. More pics!

[LSP_Kevin]

Hey, that's really neat Kevin! You're a braver man than I taking pics of scratch-built stuff at those magnifications.

 

Yeah Russ, it looks pretty ugly up close, but serviceable at normal viewing distances. And probably more so now that it's all hidden away in the fuselage:

 

 

I've decided I need to rescribe most of my panel lines on the rear half of the fuselage, as they're just not very good (poorly done, poorly positioned, or both). I'll do that before attaching the wings. In fact, I think a coat of primer about now would help me decide what's what with the surface detail, and how much work needs to be done.

 

The other change on the rear fuselage is the removal of the portion behind the tail planes:

 

 

 

The need for this came about because I'd wrecked the original tail wheel and housing during the deconstruction phase, and had to come up with another solution. Those of you who have been following this build will remember that LSP_Dave generously sent me most of the CMK resin set for the Tamiya Zero (thanks again Dave!), parts of which I've already used in the wheel bays. Well, as it happens, that set also provides for a completely exposed tail wheel assembly, with detached rear fuselage panels.

 

The CMK bulkhead is too large for the Revell fuselage, so I'm going to copy its detail:

 

 

But I'll use the other parts involved, which include a new tail wheel assembly, yoke, wheel and assorted attachment bits. Here's one of the fuselage panels:

 

 

Excuse the bizarre colours - a trick of the light, as it's the same colour resin as the previous shot!

 

Anyway, here's hoping I can pull this off without my usual level of butchery. You may be wondering why I don't simply use all this gorgeous resin on the Tamiya kit where it belongs. Well, two reasons really. One, the Tamiya kit doesn't need this resin set's help, whereas my poor Revell monstrosity does. Secondly, there's no way I'm gonna hack up the Tamiya kit for anything! That's like trying to give Elizabeth Hurley a facelift and a boob job.

 

Kev

[theseeker]

Outstanding!

[ruzlkampf]

Daaang, I wish I could get pics to focus that close-up. Then again, it might be just as well I can't....cause I'd be scared to see my stuff up that close. Great photography Kevin. Don't remember you mentioning it, but have you decided which paint scheme yet? Just curious, cause I haven't built a Zero in a long time...it always stops whenever I try and decide which markings to put on it. (or how beat-up it should look)

Looking good, dude! Russ

[LSP_Kevin]

Thanks for those photos Manny! The CMK part doesn't look too badly off by comparison, so I can live with it. At least I know what colour to paint it now!

 

Don't remember you mentioning it, but have you decided which paint scheme yet?

 

There's a profile that caught my eye in the excellent Modelmania book on the Zero, which I mentioned at the start of this build. It's a standard green over grey job, with the exception of what I gather is a white tactical marking on the top of fuselage behind the canopy. Hinomarus with the dark borders. It's featured on the decal sheet that comes with the book, though it only has the relevant unit markings. I'll probably paint everything else on.

 

Having said all that, I'm tempting to paint her up as one of the captured machines, just for some contrast to the Tamiya one.

 

Kev

[Spads57]

Kev,

Your Revell Zero is coming along nicely. The cockpit is major improvement over the kit supplied parts.I'm looking forward to seeing the completed project.

Highest Regards,

Gregory Jouette

[LSP_Kevin]

Another small update. Juggling this build with the Tamiya Zero for the Box Stock Derby GB is slowing both of them down, but things are progressing slowly on both fronts.

 

I finally put a blanking plate at the rear of the headrest, with some lightening holes for effect:

 

 

There should really be 5 holes, but I screwed up.

 

I've also done some rudimentary scratch work for the tail wheel attachment bulkhead:

 

 

Let's just say that the level of detail and fidelity is in keeping with the original kit. The bottom of the fuselage where it meets the bulkhead actually curved in to form the start of the tail wheel recess, so I filled it with scrap styrene and Milliput.

 

The next task is to give the whole shebang a coat of Mr Surfacer and then assess the state of the seams and panel lines.

 

Kev

[LSP_Kevin]

Things are progressing slowly with this one, but I thought I'd chime in with a quick update. I primed the fuselage and cleaned up a few panel lines. Still some work to do there though. For laughs, I thought I'd fit the Tamiya rudder to the Revell fin, and was quite amazed at the result:

 

 

The overall shape of this old girl is really quite good.

 

Kev

[Loic]

Hey Kev,

it is nice having those two Zeke kits in concurrent builds.

I would say that this Revell Zeke is quite typical of this company releases of their time: rather accurate in shape but details are sometime rather crude and some shortcuts were often taken... Otherwise they are good kits and with some level of work, they can turn out to be real show stoppers.

Loic

[ruzlkampf]

Uh oooh, First it's a rudder....then a prop. Followed by other assorted what-nots, until; you realize you've become a 'kit basher'!!!! The dark side is calling, Kevin. Muwhahaha.

Lookin suweeeet, dude. Good to see ya got some spare time to play with, been missing your posts! More pics, more pics! I love this kinda stuff. Russ

[rotary]

and 'in there day' they were loved by us guys and eagerly awaited---also hasegawa's oldies and matchbox-----they were almost the only games in town----now mostly of course superseded by better examples (but not always) although not caring much myself for japanese subjects this is the only revell offering i never ever built. i --like most of us---did very similar things with all the other kits though. a warm place in my heart for revell would be considerably warmer still if they'd get the mossie and hurri out of mothballs-------------please.

 

cheers,

dave.

[LSP_Kevin]

I thought I might bring this one out of the archives and dust it off after 8 months! All the work I've been doing on the Doyusha George has inspired me to resume the battle on this Zero. I've been attending to all the surface imperfections on the fuselage, so no photos in this (long overdue) update, but I'm hoping to make progress on this one concurrently with the George, and paint them in tandem. There's a long way to go though, so I best stop yappin' and get on with it!

 

More soon...

 

Kev

[LSP_Ron]

Looking forward to it

[ruzlkampf]

Ooooh, yeah. Can't wait to see some more progress piccies on this build!

[LSP_Kevin]

Thanks guys, good to be back at this one. I've been working at filling the seams, scratches, dings, dents and mis-scribes on the fuselage. I'll need to rescribe some lines again, as I either did them poorly or got them in the wrong place first time round.

 

I've also been working on the fuselage gun cowling. It was one of the few parts that didn't fare well during the initial disassembly phase, with the moulded-in port gun staying resolutely glued to the fuselage. I decided to drill out the gun ports anyway, but managed to make a bit of a mess of it. I'm currently part-way through trying to patch it up:

 

 

Even with the shimming, it'll be quite a sloppy fit on the fuselage, so I'm hoping my old box of Milliput is still OK! I'll be looking for some machine gun barrels to poke out of the ports too.

 

Kev