Zoukei-Mura's new 'Stang - quickbuild OOB

[seiran01]

Hi all, I've spent the last few nights working on ZMs new P-51 kit and figured some of you may appreciate a look at how it builds up. I'm doing this as a quick-build and I already know that I will not be painting this in NMF based on my level of tolerance for prepping the exterior for that level of cleanliness needed. So here's where we are right now. Overall, I'm loving this and definitely feel it's worth the money! Some things better than Tamiya, some things not quite as impressive. Note that I've not yet looked at my tamiya kit in detail, it's next in my build pile for RNZAF #2 or #3 (Wellington or Christchurch) squadrons. I'm going off Brett Green's "how to build" book and the myriad of reviews online.

 

Front end:

I'm building this with engine panels closed up so no paint up here. the intake was cut off just behind where the filter holes are in the nose.

Fit of the engine parts was a bit annoying even at this level of attention; the colored styrene also makes for more of a nuisance with gluing than plain ole' gray. Tamiya definitely has the win for the engine and front end but this is still very workable and detailed. In some ways, more detailed than tamiya. Alignment of engine + mounts + firewall was a pain in the butt, I know hands down that tamiya has a leg up on this design.

 

 

Rear End:

I love that the rear is removable! tail wheel bay looks nice through it's opening. The tail locks the horizontal stabs in place nicely but I did add a sprue shim to widen the fuselage parts under the fin fillet so to kill a very noticable join gap between fuselage and underside of the horizontals. Fin fillet is strange in the molding - one half sits down nicely and the other rides more on top of the rear fuselage half. You'll see a gap and step in the photo of the problem the "riding on top" half leaves. I'm also going to note right here that panel lines and exterior surface detail is beautiful!

 

 

Wings:

I LOVE the design of the wings with the inner rib structure - once the main panels are glued on, this is an *extremely* strong structure You'll want to lightly sand the underside of the inner structural piece as there are a few small locator holes that have some flash around them and will goof up the fit of the lower wing panels. I found it interesting that the flaps glue on to mounting "struts" that are joined to the rib, instead of the standard strut-into-wing join.

Gun bay detail is gorgeous, gear well detail is absolutely superb and from what I can tell, more detailed than tamiya's kit in these two areas. Be careful glueing the wing leading edge pieces as they'll need some tape to hold them in place while the glue dries.

 

 

 

 

Cockpit and interior

Below you'll see the progress I've been able to make so far. The radiator detail is great however I had a very hard time with the piping that goes to the engine and ended up cutting them short under the cockpit and beyond what will be seen through the gear wells.

 

There is still touch-up paint needed on the cockpit fuel tank and I will be adding Barracuda's cockpit stencil decal set only. I did toy with using Barracuda's resin cockpit sidewall set as well which would add a little bit of improvement but the sidewalls are so nicely detailed that I felt the extra effort wouldn't actually add that much more to what is on the kit parts, for what I feel will be seen. The sidewalls do need to have mold separation seams removed before painting and on the left side, this runs all the way along the center of the bottom console. Control panel is gorgeous and there's a clear option also with decal. The non-clear control panel has some wires molded on the back for yet more detail.

 

Have a look at the bottom picture - the control column attaches to the wing spar and goes through the cockpit floor, like on the real plane. A great touch in detail. One small wonder I have here is the vertical gap between cockpit floor and top of wing as the gap looks a lot larger than what i can see in pictures. Could simply be perspective in the photos, so this may well be correct. Either way, I think it looks great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 29, 2012 by seiran01

[seiran01]

I issue a challenge for you all - Find me a great NON-natural metal finish, NON-US mustang that can be built without modification of the kit. I'm looking for obscure here, civilian and racers included! If there aren't decals available, I'll be going after Scale Precision or Ad Astra for masks (and decals possibly)

[RacerDave]

Thanks for posting this, I cant wait to get started on mine!

 

I dont have much Mustang reference but I do have some obscure racers ...somewhere... I'll get back to you.

[Out2gtcha]

I issue a challenge for you all - Find me a great NON-natural metal finish, NON-US mustang that can be built without modification of the kit. I'm looking for obscure here, civilian and racers included! If there aren't decals available, I'll be going after Scale Precision or Ad Astra for masks (and decals possibly)

 

 

OR

 

 

OR

 

 

OR private ac from AUS -

 

 

 

 

[KOTR]

I issue a challenge for you all - Find me a great NON-natural metal finish, NON-US mustang that can be built without modification of the kit. I'm looking for obscure here, civilian and racers included! If there aren't decals available, I'll be going after Scale Precision or Ad Astra for masks (and decals possibly)

 

Oh, obscure, small airforces are just my thing...

 

 

 

 

[seiran01]

I've always loved the dominican ones but Dave Lochead wins this one - a civil-registered P-51 ZK-CCG, the Mobil Mustang. Red pegasus does decals already. sweeeeet

 

 

[EvanAugust]

How about Old Crow in its Green/Grey finish? Nice work on the kit so far.

[Dave Morrissette]

I have built both. I built the ZM kit for the Concept book and the Tamiya with a friend. I can say that the ZM kit is as good as Tamiya and at half the price. The parts fit is very good but you must get past the way it builds up. The tail IS NOT nasty at all and fits like a glove with no issues. I will say that the cockpit needs Barracuda's decals. Both kits are excellent and the kicker is, I hate Mustangs . I did the builds for other reasons and they are the only two I own.

 

Dave

[airscale]

Really interesting read on where the state of the art on these two is at...

 

However, that instrument panel is reminiscent of the 1970's 1/32 Hasegawa molding.

 

Part of me wishes they would get this part right, and another part is glad they didn't

 

Saw the same issue with the Ta152

[scvrobeson]

I have built both. I built the ZM kit for the Concept book and the Tamiya with a friend. I can say that the ZM kit is as good as Tamiya and at half the price. The parts fit is very good but you must get past the way it builds up. The tail IS NOT nasty at all and fits like a glove with no issues. I will say that the cockpit needs Barracuda's decals. Both kits are excellent and the kicker is, I hate Mustangs . I did the builds for other reasons and they are the only two I own.

 

Dave

 

 

Thank you for your objective analysis. It's annoying when people bash the Z-M kit because it's not an "established" name like Tamiya, even though their products are pretty sweet. I built their Shinden and Ta-152, and loved the experience with both. I'll be sure to pick up the Concept Note for the Mustang to see your build. I still want to pick one of them up, especially at the nice price Z-M if offering them for.

 

 

Matt

[seiran01]

I tend to agree with Matt- I built the Shinden immediately when it was released and to date it remains one of my favorite build projects. While some details may appear oversized to some eyes, personally I prefer them, even at the ripe old age of 29, my clumsy hands certainly appreciate the larger raised details for the sake of my method of drybrushing without screwups

 

Now before i say what I'm about to say, the text below is strictly my opinion and I realize and respect that there are differing opinions, especially comparing to the Tamiya kit. You get what you pay for with both but that doesn't at all mean that people should shy away from ZM's effort!

 

There's something to be said about building a plane up from a somewhat detailed representation of it's skeleton too; i feel you can learn more about the plane's engineering design then simply looking at cutaway drawings and a simplified representation or some finer details not immediately visible in a "closed up" plane. Even Tamiya simplifies some details, but it's fair to say, obviously, that their simplifications are still done extremely well. Personally, I'm very very glad that ZM tackled the P-51. Is it perfect? No. Are there a few small accuracy issues and minor fit problems? yes. It it fun to build and educational at the same time? Without a doubt, yes. Will I build another? Let's put it this way - there were four RNZAF squadrons flying Mustangs post-WWII and they won't *all* be tamiya kits!

 

I appreciate the input from all of you, regardless of your opinions of the design/quality of the kit. I'll post more pics when I get a bit more completed in the 'pit. It's coming together quite nicely now

[seiran01]

After a few nights of trying not to go blind, I finally have the cockpit detailing done. Majority of the time was spent applying the billions of decals from the Barracuda stencil & placard set, which by the way, is absolutely amazing. So here's how it all looks unassembled; sorry for poor quality photos here, my good camera is on a dead battery at the moment. Bottom of two ribs are cut off the left sidewall as I goofed the spacing on the radio mount (which plugs in to the small hole on top of the sidewall) so the extra room was needed to get it aligned properly. can't be seen now that all's assembled

 

[Hartmann352]

Looks great Mike -- no worries on the photos, looks good.

You must have the patience of a saint with all those bitty decals/placards.

 

Cheers,

Dave

 

(Almost thinking about springing for this ZM offering considering it's price vs. the Tamiya.

Seat-belts molded in?)

Edited August 2, 2012 by Hartmann352

[seiran01]

(Almost thinking about springing for this ZM offering considering it's price vs. the Tamiya.

Seat-belts molded in?)

 

Yep you get two seats - one with and one without belts. Only extra work I did past the barracuda decals in the pit was adding a little wire to the radio (battery?) behind the seat. Looks good to me.

 

 

Thanks guys for the comments! In the half hour since uploading those, I whipped up a lot - fuselage sides, top, and scoop panels added, engine added, tail and wing glued on. It;s tricky to get the fuselage panels lined up properly and i had a spill or two of tamiya extra thin run under my thumb while holding these parts so i have some sanding work to do to fix these goofs. The fuselage skin panels are overengineered in my opinion but a great feature if you want to display more internals. I actually really like how this looks right now with the engine sitting attached minus root fillets and flaps! Had to break off the engine piping behind the engine firewall and this can be seen through the gear bays so I'll whip something up with painted insulated wire which has a similar diameter to the molded pipes.

 

You'll notice the tail is still held on with tamiya tape, this is due to slower curing time I continue to find with this styrene compared to other major companies. the silver and black styrene is slower still which you've probably experienced when building other kits with colored plastic.

 

Now it looks like a mustang!

 

 

 

 

[scvrobeson]

This is looking awesome! The cockpit really came out amazing, and the assembly looks like it really closes up cleanly. Looks like the rest of assembly shouldn't present you with any problems. Your paint scheme will really be different, and make your build stand out from the crowd.

 

 

Matt