1/32 IMCTH Zero Type 21 Fine Structure - 20/07 - Finished!

[LSP_Kevin]

I'm no expert John, but I'd say anything that forces the cure time of CA will make it inherently more brittle, and hence inherently weaker. It's not really a problem where strength isn't a big issue, or where there is sufficient surface area between the joining parts to negate the effect. I often reinforce the inside of dodgy fuselage joins with CA, and will use accelerator there. I almost always use the gel type where I can, but I have some super thin stuff too, which I find really difficult to control. I also keep a small stash of ultra cheap chain store CA tubes for mixing with talcum powder for gap filling.

 

Kev

[Guest Peterpools]

John

Fantastic tutorials and reviews - and I'll be spending a few more dollars this week on sullies and tools! Appreciate the conversation between Kevin and yourself on the how the use of accelerator will cause CCA to produce a more brittle and weaker bond - just what I didn't want to hear. Of course, it's only been recently that I started using an accelerator but now knowing the advantages and disadvantages, I'll be a lot more careful, where and how I use it.

Peter

[John F Smith]

Thanks, Kevin for taking the time to talk about using CA and strength issues.  I did some reading today on the topic myself and discovered that the biggest weakness for using the product is that it has relatively weak shear strength, a problem which is overcome when you increase the surface area of the join.  Smart move on your part to reinforce fuselage joints before using it.  It certainly explains why certain joints on these Fine Structure models are relatively fragile.  I'm with you, friend; I've begun to really love gel CA both for it's strength and ease of use.  Takes me back to my childhood and model airplane glue in a tube!  And, it has been so useful on these Fine Structure builds.  I've used almost a full size tube of it and still have the rest of this Zero to complete.

 

Thanks Peter for chiming in and for your kind words and support.  I'm always glad to hear from you, and happy that you are enjoying the build and the write-ups.

 

John

[Guest Peterpools]

Hi John

Fascinating stuff for sure. CCA weakest when it comes to shear strength and simply a quick ping with your finger, 90 degrees to the glue joint and it usually breaks but try pulling it apart and that's a whole new story. Also will be stocking up on those Micro Brushes ... I can think of a million uses for them

Peter

[John F Smith]

A real milestone this time....the wing is complete

But, it wasn't easy getting there.  I think that the flaps, ailerons, and wingtips were among the most difficult parts of this build yet, mostly due to the small size and/or complexity of the assembly.

Let's look at the parts for one of the flaps:

  

I included the tip of the ballpoint pen for scale.  As you can see, the ribs for these flaps are exceedingly small, especially note the size of parts B14 in the photo.  My best recommendation here is to study the assembly diagram very carefully and resign yourself to the fact that it's going to take some time and patience to build them.

I think they are really beautiful and realistic when they are done, so the effort is certainly worth it:

  

Next up are the ailerons, and let me apologize for not having photo documented this part of the build at all.  The ailerons themselves are pretty easy... You don't have to glue the ribs in place, they are simply twisted from a horizontal to a vertical position.  

The leading edge of the ailerons is another story;  There are 8 white metal parts which make up the leading edge of the ailerons; 4 large ones which look almost identical to each other, and 4 small ones which also look identical to each other.

The instructions are very unclear in this area and it's critical to locate the correct piece in each position because it will affect the hinges, and the taper must go in the right direction.  The taper of these white metal parts is especially ambiguous and I had to debond a couple of times to correct mistakes.  Finally, though, they came together and here is the result of the flap and aileron assembly.  I do have to say that these ailerons also look very realistic and include both top and bottom counterweights which look great!

  

Finally, we have the wingtips to complete.  Remember, this was a carrier aircraft and the wingtips fold to conserve space; not by much but I guess every little bit helped.

I've included a photo of the relevant instructions here and I'm going to take a minute to discuss it because there are some important points to make note of here if you're going to construct this kit.

  

First of all, note that parts A27 and A28 must be bent in a particular direction.  Be very careful here.  If you bend one or more of them in the wrong direction (as I did), they will break off.  This is true of any PE bending you do in these Fine Structure kits.  Putting the pieces back together was a near nightmare, but I got it done in the end.

Also note that parts J10, J11, J12, and J13 are white metal and their shape and dimensions are just plain wrong.  They are not going to look right to your own critical eye, and you just have to accept it.  There is no way to fix them.  So, count to 10 and get at it!.

Finally, Parts J51 and J52 are resin, two of the very few resin parts of this kit.  For some reason they were molded in a milky white color so there is no way that you can paint them with clear red and clear green and come out with anything resembling real wingtip lights.  Not to mention that they are about 500% oversized and out of scale, and they fit poorly. Again, you just have to accept that they are notional in shape and size, and let the model as a whole speak for itself when it is complete.

Here are the parts for  the wingtips:

  

And the completed items:  (These actually do fold up and work on the model although I'm certain that the hinge is not scale accurate)

  

With the flaps, ailerons, and wingtips complete, we can attach them to the wings and complete that part of the assembly.  All of them are hinged and operable; the aileron hinge arrangement is integral with it's parts, the flaps are hinged with a piece of piano wire, and you can see the hinging piece for the wing tips.

Here are the completed wing halves:

  

I don't know why the instructions don't call for attaching the wing halves together at this point.  It would seem a logical thing to do now, but they would have you wait until it's time to mate the fuselage with the wings.

I saw no reason to delay it after I reviewed the instructions, and I was anxious to check the fit after my mishap that I mentioned a couple of posts ago with spar alignment, so I went ahead and attached the wings together.  This turns out to be quite a firm joint because of a PE locking assembly on both the leading and trailing edge spars which lock the wings together at the correct dihedral.  Turned out to be very easy to do, and I'm really happy with the completed wing:

  

(note that I have the port side wingtip folded in the 'up' position)

  

I hope you've enjoyed this part of the build... Next up will be the cockpit area of the fuselage and the rear section of the fuselage with the tail feathers (I'm not sure which I will do first).

But, I will be taking a break from this for 2 or 3 weeks because I'm involved in a Group Build, and I have to get that completed by the end of April.  I'm building the counterpart to this kit using a conventional 1/32 scale Tamiya kit.  I've made good progress on it so far, and I expect that things will move quickly to a conclusion with that build soon.  If you would like to see it, it's in the Works in Progress section of the Forum.

I'll be back on this project with you as soon as I am able.

Take care everyone and thanks for reading.

[Guest Peterpools]

John

Wonderful progress on the  Zero - the completed wings as a single unit look fantastic. Following your assembly procedure and comments; it's quite evident, the over sized parts and errors, are just part of the build and living with them, is the sane and only way to go. Still totally amazed at the delicate nature of the Zero and how you are able to take each step into stride. So very well done.

Looking forward to you picking up the project again after your GB

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[Fabster]

Wow!  Magnificent work on the wing!

 

You've gotta have the steady hand of a brain surgeon and the patience of a SAINT to be able to put all those tiny little pieces together!  

 

My hat's off to you, John!

[LSP_Kevin]

That's awesome John! I admire your patience, as well as your skill.

 

Kev

[John F Smith]

Thanks guys for your  comments.

 

Your support goes a long way to help keep me motivated.  I appreciate it very much.

 

John

[Hubert Boillot]

Awesome work on an outstanding kit. Well done 

 

Hubert

[John F Smith]

Thanks for all the kind comments, gentlemen

Well, I'm back with an update; I've had some time to work on this Fine Structure Zero since I'm almost complete with my Group Build project (and the due date got extended a month!).

So, next up was to start the rear fuselage.  This is a pretty fiddly part of the build because the PE is extremely thin, sometimes very long, and difficult to trim and file the attachment "nubs" off.  I heartily recommend holding these long pieces with some flat jawed pliers close to the nub, and file gently to remove the excess attachment point.

This part of the build is different from the Mustang in a couple of respects.  First, the entire rear fuselage including vertical and horizontal stabilizers, rudder and elevators and former and stringers are all built as a single piece.  I like this method a lot because it will be a lot stronger, I think.  Second, they actually supply you with a PE jig to start the rear fuselage construction, something that was completely absent from the Mustang.

Here it is:

  

The photo shows the front and rear formers in the jig with the top two stringers in place.  Something to note here is that like every other assembly in these kits, the first few parts to be glued in place are a pain because you have 2, 3, or even 4 pieces not yet glued together all moving in different directions at the same time.  The jig helps but not completely.  All I can suggest is a patient heart and some persistence and you will get it right.

Also, note that the large former on the right in the photo is the front part of the rear fuselage; ultimately it will mate with the cockpit portion of the fuselage.  For now, it's only a single former, but soon, it will be 3 laminated PE pieces which makes it quite strong.  The only issue with this is that when you glue the stringers to it, the instructions make a big deal out of keeping CA off the front of the former (obviously, so that the laminations will fit completely flat to one another).  Well, this is almost impossible working with thin CA, so my advice is don't worry about it.  When you are ready to install the laminations, you can just remove any excess CA with debonder and a micro brush and you'll be ready to go.

It's still pretty fragile, but we take it out of the jig and add the lower two center stringers:

  

The instructions would have had you mount more formers before the lower center stringers are in place, but that's just too unstable a way to do it, so I mounted both top and bottom stringers and carefully fit the remaining formers by setting them at an angle and sliding them into place in their slots.  Here's the result:

  

Note that I added the 3rd and 4th stringers on both top and bottom to give enough attachment points to keep the formers stable when I mounted them and glued them in place.

Now, it's time to attach the first parts of the vertical stabilizer.  Be careful here to bend the pieces as shown on the instruction sheet.  It's important because these pieces have to line up correctly and be attached to the vertical rudder post:

  

A few more formers and a LOT more stringers to attach before this part of the rear fuselage assembly is complete, but when it's done, it came out looking like this:

  


As you can see, I bought a cheap photo booth on eBay, and this is my first shot with it...I would appreciate any comments you have on whether you prefer this kind of lighting and backdrop, or would you like for me to go back to the photos on white paper towels.  This is all about you being able to see clearly what is going on, so don't worry about hurting my feelings if you don't care for the image above.

Time now to move on to completing the vertical stab, rudder, horizontal stab and elevators.  I might even get some painting done on all of those cockpit parts so I'll be ready to do that assembly when the time comes.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you are enjoying it.

John

[DougN]

Thanks for the update!  I have this and the Mustang kit, so this build is very helpful.

 

Photo-wise, I prefer the "paper towel" photos as it is easier to see the details that way.  With the photo booth the back ground makes it harder to see everything.

 

Doug

[Hubert Boillot]

Exceptional work John !

 

Ditto, I prefer the old style pics .

 

Hubert

[LSP_Kevin]

I've been experimenting with different light and dark backgrounds for my own photo set up, and am finding I generally get better results with the lighter coloured backgrounds. A darker background seems to work better for small, lightly-coloured objects though, but a lot of it is down to your skills as a photographer, and I'm afraid no background is going to help me there!

 

Kev

[John F Smith]

Thanks guys!!  Paper towels it will be in the future, or at least a white non-reflective background.

 

LOL, Kev, if we want to talk about skills as a photographer, I wouldn't know an f-stop from a bus stop!!

 

I made some more progress last night and completed the Vertical Stab and rudder, so I'm going to do a quick post this evening that will show the detail you may have missed on the blue background shot.

 

John