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FINISHED! Mojo Rei-sen - Tamiya Mitsubishi A6M2


tomv87

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  • 1 month later...

Well I'm finished with graduate school, and so they say "idle time makes idle mind." Except I still have many things keeping me busy, but now there is more time (thankfully) to get back to the bench and get back to my Zeke. First things first--decluttering my desk--that took almost a full day, plus cleaning and dusting (want the room almost like a surgical room--no contaminants  :mental:

 

Which means, time to start building!

 

I finally got the wings glued on, but it was lots of sanding and fiddling, and checking and refitting. The port wing side settled in nicely, but the starboard side wouldn't settle down without a lot of finger pressure. A friend on here told me you cant add too much extra detailing to these tight fitting Tamiya kits, and boy, he was right!

 

Anyway I got it as close as I could and glued it up, section by section, and it don't look too bad. I don't have photos of the overall view yet, but I will post some soon.

 

But I have been working on these areas:

sl2YXQo.jpg

aXn2ERi.jpg

 

As you can see in the second photo, I had to shim a large gap in that corner with some styrene. I sanded, and rescribed, and added rivets, then I sprayed on some Mr. Surfacer 1000 to check my work.

 

It looks better, but still needs some work. I will post more pics soon.

 

I also got a chance at the nav lights:

0TrsbPa.jpg

 

Due to the complex curves here, I decided to use maskol. My Vallejo bottle was pretty much dried up, so I had to run to Hobby Lobby and get some Grumbacher Liquid Frisket, which went on real nice with a brush. Once that dried, I taped of the excess and sprayed my clear red and green MM Acryl paints:

 

2Adl2PM.jpg

FcwXLga.jpg

 

They look good, but I'm thinking the green light needs to look bluer. I may back over that with some blue food coloring in some Future. Maybe I'll just brush it on...?

 

l1wRXo6.jpg

 

Anyway, It's great to be back, and thanks for looking!

 

Tom

Edited by tomv87
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Allright....

 

The kit is in good hands...and that gap is fixed easy peasy..tricky, i know and annoying.. work slow and let it cure betwen working rounds and let mind rest..and little by little...then it is suddenly done..

 

As time is is modellers best friend many times.

 

Looking forward to see more of this one buddy.

/Mal

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Thank you Mal.

 

You are right, I have to be patient, and work slow, little by little. It's close to being done, you will see when I post the pics, but still not quite good enough for paint. I still think I need some better (smaller) tools, sanding sticks, etc. But have to wait for pay day before I can order  :shrug:

 

I also had a bit of an "OOPS!" when I painted those tips. I broke off part of the "hinge" on the starboard tip, when i pressed it into the blu-tak (dammit). I am thinking of drilling and pinning the damaged piece. Pics to come.

 

Tom

Edited by tomv87
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Thanks, Tom, I appreciate your kind words!

 

I got in a small amount of bench time today, so I thought I would share where I'm at on this build. I sprayed some Mr. Surfacer on the wing joins behind the engine and it looks like I have a small amount of sanding work to do there still. But it's looking better!

 

Now on to the wing-tip framing break:

 

dQPXL2U.jpg

 

As anyone who has built this kit knows, those plastic parts are connected to the wing tip via PE pieces. I wiggled the part a little, and the plastic part came right off! Nice, because that made it easy to drill!

 

9VgQnQZ.jpg

 

I decided to bridge the broken area with a piece of a paper clip as a pin. It was way too thick, so I filed it down on three sides, into a square-ish profile. I want that area to glue into the PE part:

 

jR5XFUM.jpg

 

I want the PE part to directly attach to the new metal "pin" in-between the plastic, rather than the plastic itself, if that makes sense. I figured it will be a stronger join that way. Anyway, I drilled out both pieces of plastic, and glued the pin into one side and let it dry:

 

y4MyPN9.jpg

 

Once it dried, I cut and filed down the new pin until I could fit on the broken part. Here it is glued and repaired. It needs a little touch up paint, but I will take care of that later. I just know its fixed, and it fits right into the wing like it should:

 

UNGdVHw.jpg

 

Next are the starboard wing tip lights. I thought they were too green, so I decided to blue them up a little. I took Brian's advice, and decided to brush on that blue. Here are the tools I used for this: some blue food coloring and a few drops of Future. The little container is a hot sauce container you get when you buy breakfast tacos anywhere in town. I wash them out and reuse them--they are great for mixing paint! But I may run out of them soon, because I am trying to lose weight...

 

Both are done. I think they look better.

 

yYGIBJK.jpg

 

Thanks again Brian for that tip! and thanks everyone for looking in!

 

Tom

Edited by tomv87
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