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

[Guest Peterpools]

John

What a fantastic update; as your constant progress is amazing. My preference for the photo setup is the off-white paper towel.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[John F Smith]

Part I

 

As I mentioned last time, the aft fuselage was complete at the start of this phase (and I have a white background photo to prove it:

  

So it was time to move on to the difficult part of this section of the build.  Assembling and aligning the Vertical Stab, Rudder, horizontal Stabs and elevators.  We essentially had completed the Vertical Stab and rudder, so I won't spend much time there except to mention that the skins for the rudder are a spectacularly bad it, and there isn't much to do except to try to keep them from looking too unrealistic and retaining their strengthening properties.

I guess I didn't do a very good job of documenting this part of the build; apologies all around.  Here is what I do have;  It's a photo of the aft fuselage with the formers which will extend up into the vertical stab in place which you have already seen at the start of this update. 

So, let's let that subject RIP, and move onto the elevators and horizontal stabs.  The elevators should not have been too difficult because the ribs were twisted into place and a nice little leading edge skin was bent into place.  It turned out to be pretty ugly because there was quite a long continuum where that leading edge skin could be glued and it had to be right, or else the elevators wouldn't mate up with the horizontal stab. Would also have been a lot easier if the trim tabs had been in white metal instead of built-up; classic over engineering, but, then again, isn't this entire kit a case of classic over engineering!!???)))  In any event, they went together given about 2 hours of effort for each one and then on to the horizontal stabs:

Here is one of my classic parts layouts for the left horizontal stab:

  

Note that at the bottom right of the photo there is a little piece of white metal which the instructions tell us is a wingtip.  There are two of them, and they are close to identical, but not quite which means we have to figure out which is which.  Well both of these parts came out of parts bag "L", both are wingtips, both are the right size, but which is 9 and which is 10.  As we have learned before in this build, let the parts layout be your guide.  Looking at them, we see the following:

  

Looking at the parts guide, we see that L9 is a part marked with an "B" and L10 is marked with an "A".  Why A and B....why not just stamp them with 9 and 10, or even better, let the lower number be "A" rather than "B".  Oh well.  Just to verify, here are the two parts;  I used a little Magic Market to "color" the letter on L9 so it would stand out just a bit.  Keep in mind that these photos magnify the parts by 10x or 15x, so you can see it isn't easy to pick out with the unaided eye.:

  

The wingtips correctly identified, we can move on to the assembly of the horizontal stabs which turns out to also be a bit problematic.  If you had referred to this set of instructions for guidance while building the horizontal stab, you would have been dead wrong.  What looks like it should be a right angle in the diagram isn't, and it isn't until you actually use an assembly manual that you discover this rather egregious bit of misleading information.

  


all of those right angles between the ribs and the trailing edge apart......aren't.  We'll see it in a moment.  First though, not that the leading section of each rib is bent slightly to form an angle which is roughly 90 degrees with the leading edge spar.  Gentle bends, all of them requiring some amount of care.  Here they are before assembly.:

  

If you look closely, you can see the slight upward bend in most of the ribs of the horizontal Stab.

So, how did we figure out how to get the rest of this aligned and installed?  The saving factor was another diagram in the instructions which clearly shows critical ribs installed at acute angles and one merely has to glue in accordance with the life sized model:

  


From this point, it went rather smoothly to complete the stabs and elevators.

[John F Smith]

Part II

 

As a side note, for those of you who have given me sainthood status for my work on this model, it just ain't so.  Notice the libation I keep handy when working at all times......and, no, it isn't Coca Cola!!

  

The stabs are actually mounted to the fuselage using 4 rods which mate into 4 holes in the innermost wing rib.  Here you can see the rods in place:

  

And, it's a simple matter to mount the stabs to these rods and attach the elevators:   

Finally, we mount the tailwheel and box with it's arresting hook in the tail:

  

And, as a final farewell to this phase of assembly, a detail look at the tail feathers of our Zero.

  

So, now it's on to the cockpit and equipment compartments and the final assembly to make it complete.

Hope you've enjoyed it and thanks for reading.
 

[Fabster]

You have the precision of a swiss clockwork, John!

The aft fuselage and tail job looks beautiful!  Love it.

 

Fab

[Guest Peterpools]

John

Absolutely incredible work. Just fantastic.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[Out2gtcha]

LOVE it!

[John F Smith]

Thanks, guys for all the kind words and encouragement.

 

I'm currently working on the last assembly for the model which is the fuselage section for the cockpit.  It's a very tough piece of work and it's taking me some time to get it together properly.  I'm going to stop by Radio Shack tomorrow and buy some of those smooth jaw mini clips to help hold the pieces together while I apply the CA so as to do my best to get it all aligned correctly.

 

New Update with photos coming in a few days.

 

John

[John F Smith]

Well, I finally finished the Tamiya Zero (which is the companion piece to this one) , so I can return to this full time.  Believe me, I'm happy to be working on this again.

Next up is the final subassembly to complete the kit, so we're entering an exciting time here.

We are assembling the portion of the fuselage which contains the cockpit and equipment bays behind it.  This section has been a bit dodgy to work on and I had to resort to some odd clamps and so forth to make it work, but it's coming along quite well.  Pre-painting the bulkheads for this section really paid off and I think it's going to look really good when complete.

Here is a series of photos which depict the build:

  

  

  

  

One of the somewhat difficult and head scratching parts of this build is to install the lower skin on the bulkheads of the equipment area.  If you notice in the photo just above there is nothing on the bottom of the bulkheads.  Well, that won't do so we have to put the outer layer of skin on.  However notice that there is no support down there as yet and that those bulkheads might have ended up in all sorts of unusual positions, and the likelihood that they will match up to the stringers on the skin is pretty poor.  I needed some kind of clamp which was small and strong, and without alligator teeth to mar the finish.  Radio Shack to the rescue!

Here are some photos of the clamps and them being used in action, as well as some date if you want to get some of these little goodies for yourself.  They're pretty cheap.



  
  

  

Sorry, all, but I'll have to finish this in another post because photo bucket is giving me fits and I don't want to lose everything that I've entered.....

Stand by for the completion of this report

[John F Smith]

Okay, PhotoBucket seems to be behaving again, so I think I can finish this progress report.  When we left off I was showing you a photo of how the micro clips can be used to hold the bulkheads and the lower skin in alignment while the two are glued together.  (It doesn't help that there are compound curves along the bottom of the bulkheads!).  Here's another photo of the clips in action.

  

Just as I did with the 20 mm cannon on this kit, I replaced the 7.7mm Japanese MGs with Master parts from Poland, and blackened them with Blacken-It.  If you have any questions about how to use this stuff, PM me and I'll give you a complete rundown.  Here's the nitty gritty on the MGs:

  

  

And, after treatment with Blacken-It

  

So, now that the structure is complete, it's time to install the cockpit and equipment in their bays, and I am well along on that process.  Many of the items were painted while other painting was going on, and require only detail painting to finish them off.  You may notice that the instrument faces look a little bit brighter than those found in this kit.  I used the Eduard parts for the instrument faces and a drop of Future to give it a "glass" coat.  The Eduard Parts worked very well in this kit requiring only minor trimming to get them to fit.

So, as usual, I have all my parts laid out and numbered on my workbench, as well as some of them divided into left, center, and right sides of the cockpit.  Lot's of detail painting to do in the coming days and installation of the parts, but we are truly in the home stretch.

  

Once this sub assembly is complete, we can put it all together and call it "done".

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

[Guest]

Excellent ! Love watching this unfold.....Harv

[Guest Peterpools]

John

Brilliant update as we have come expect. I am constantly amazed at your organization and building skills.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[LSP_Kevin]

Awesome work John! I really admire your patience and perseverance.

 

Kev

[mywifehatesmodels]

Incredible.

 

I'm not normally one who is into cut-away or skeletonized stuff, but this is an awesome build. Bravo!

 

John

[dodgem37]

Pretty danged amazing.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Loic]

Impressive indeed (I myself am absolute cr*p when it comes to PE stuff...)