A6M2b Zero - Attack on Pearl Harbor - 1/32 Tamiya

[kikka]

nice work !

 

i used tamiya's XF-76 for my build , and using black primer , washes and varnish i achieved what i consider the appropriate color for this plane . 

 

keeping in mind also that they were all straight from the factory and maintained perfectly for the critical mission, i did no chipping or discoloration . i also refrained from exhaust and gun streaks since i wanted to represent this subject at the morning of the big day !

[Alex]

Been a while since I updated this - "real" work has been keeping me very busy, so I'm only making slow progress.

 

In anticipation of being ready to join wings and fuselage, I installed the cockpit into the fuselage.  It fit beautifully, which unfortunately would be the last of beautiful fits for a while.

 

 

Before attempting to build out the wheelwells with the PE replacement parts, I glued them into the lower part of the wing.  Unfortunately, a combination of inattention on my part and following the instructions when I should have gotten creative led to a slightly off placement which of course I only noticed once the glue was fully set.  Briefly, Tamiya casts the lower wing half with a couple of stabilizing strips that hold the fragile section in front of the wheelwell in place, preventing it from getting accidentally tweaked or broken off.  They suggest only removing these after the wings are assembled.  Unfortunately, they also make it hard to get the wing part to fully conform to the wheelwell insert itself.  Which was part of my problem.  In retrospect, if/when I build another of these zeros, instead of what I did:

1. Glue wheelwell shell to lower wing section

2. Add PE braces to wheelwell from "above" - from the side that will be inside the wing, which is easier in terms of getting them put in.

3. Glue top/bottom wing sections together

4. Realize that the fit is not great at the wing root because of imperfection in step 1 reinforced by bracing added in step 2

5. Snip out stabilizing braces, accept that gaps would need to be filled with CA

 

I would 

1. Snip out braces from lower wing section

2. CAREFULLY assemble lower and upper wing sections to each other and to  wheelwell shells all at once, making sure all surfaces met correctly (very tight tolerances)

3. Add PE bracing to the wheelwells from below (more difficult, but it has to be done this way if you assemble the whole wing first.

4. Enjoy a gap-free fit and no downstream headaches in getting the wing assembly to play nicely with the fuselage.

 

At any rate, in this timeline, this was the lower wing section with PE bracing added to wheelwell shells.  It definitely looks more realistic and to scale than the plastic that came out.

 

 

And from below

 

Fast forward through several days of struggle to get wings to join fuselage.  The fundamental problem was introducing extra thickness at the wing root (the ~0.5 mm gap I had to fill, plus the imperfect fit of wheelwell to lower wing) leading to me needing to file down the tops of the wheelwells almost to nothing to get the whole assemble to sit in properly without hitting the cockpit.  Eventually got er done.

 

Moral of the story is that this kit is engineered with extremely tight tolerances.  It's great if you are building it exactly as intended.  Going off the reservation requires care.

 

Here working on getting all of that delicious surface detail pulled out with Tamiya PLW (on the bare plastic, a la Chuck, only I do not intend to remove it before painting - I will leave it there and let it shadow through the topcoat).

 

Unlike the exterior surfaces, I did paint the wheelwells ahead as I wasn't sure it would be practical to get them completely covered once the wings were together.  So far I have glossed and PLW'd them and done some detail painting.  If I remain happy with them I'll mask them off and not touch them when I paint the overall exterior color. 

 

 

Closer look at the wheelwells.

 

 

This is still very much WIP.  I anticipate several more hours to get to where I'm happy with the PLW pre-shading over the whole beast.  My hope is to get to where everything aft of the firewall feels done-ish (i.e. all surface defects fixed and fully ready for paint) so I can clear my head and focus fully on the engine build.  Still a week away at least assuming I can find time to work on it.

[dennismcc]

Sounds like a pain in the bum, but the results look great, will have to bookmark this build for when I do mine.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Alex]

1 hour ago, dennismcc said:

Sounds like a pain in the bum, but the results look great, will have to bookmark this build for when I do mine.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

So far all the pain has been due to gaffs on my part.  As far as I can tell, done very carefully everything should go together without problems.

[Alex]

Slowly picking out the insane surface detail on the Tamiya zero.  They really meant it about *every* fastener.  I am going to have to be very careful in laying down a light and uniform color coat to allow this to telegraph through the just the right degree.  I'm now wondering if I need to inverse mask the hinomarus (mask so I only paint red and just make sure I get the border with gray perfect).  Otherwise they will have two layers of paint and the detail PLW will not be as visible.

 

[dennismcc]

Looking good, talking about reverse masking I've just airbrushed red on the wings on my N1K2 ready to apply the Hinomaru masks and will be airbrushing white on the fuselage for the white bordered Hinomaru's next.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[A6M]

Hello Alex,

 

Very nice work so far, but I do have one suggestion. The rear cockpit deck underneath the rear canopy is not the same colour as the interior of the cockpit. Like the forward decking it too is black.

 

I also have a question: I can see the effect it gives and have made note to give it a try in the future but what does the acronym PLW actually mean?

 

Ryan

[turbo]

Looking great Alex. The wheel wells look fantastic with the added detail.

[Alex]

10 hours ago, A6M said:

Hello Alex,

 

Very nice work so far, but I do have one suggestion. The rear cockpit deck underneath the rear canopy is not the same colour as the interior of the cockpit. Like the forward decking it too is black.

 

I also have a question: I can see the effect it gives and have made note to give it a try in the future but what does the acronym PLW actually mean?

 

Ryan

Ryan,  thanks for the pointer.  Glad you mentioned it now while it’s still easy to change that rear deck color!  The kit says green, but I’m confident in the depth of your research.

 

PLW is panel line wash.  I used to make my own with mineral spirit and artists oil paint, but the premade Tamiya product is so good that I’ve gone over to just using it now.  Usually the black version, but they have gray, brown, and several others available.

[Alex]

Work (real work) has been exhausting of late, and this model is so exacting that I'm paranoid to work on it when I'm tired.  So it has taken a long while to get to here.  But I've now got the airframe aft of the bulkhead settled, ready for paint.  I redid the decking aft of the cockpit black, per Ryan, finished all of the panel line wash detail, glued the canopy in place, with just tiny dots of white glue holding the movable part so it can be pried out post-paint.  The one folding wingtip is just posed on place on its hinge for now.

 

Here's a closer view of the detail around the cockpit.

 

 

I built the pieces for the main gear, but can't assemble them yet because I need to figure out different tires.  If anyone has a source for appropriate resin tires for this kit, I'm all ears.  Ideally treadless, but even ones with tread could be filled and smoothed.  I don't want to use the rubber ones that came in the kit.

 

On the landing gear, for those who want to build this kit, the main gear legs are plastic cast around chromed steel shafts.  This results in the oleo shafts looking very convincingly like the chromed steel that they actually are, much more so than any Molotow pen on plastic ever will.  BUT, check them carefully.  One of mine was mis-cast, with the shaft rotated about 10 degrees from its proper orientation.  They have slots in them for a retaining pin, so they can't just rotate freely in the upper part of the leg.  Fortunately I noticed this and thrashed around with it to get it straight.  It would have been really annoying to miss it until later and wind up with a pigeon-toed Zero!

 

 

Normally I'm a pretty harsh critic of my beginner model building skills, but I have to say I'm fairly pleased with the below experiment so far.  This is one of the removable wingtips (the deployed versus the folded version) with a judicious coat of my "custom Zero" Mr. Color mix sprayed over the panel line wash.  I am liking how crisp it is.  I *may* decide to add a bit more paint to these, but I want to see the effect on the overall airframe first.  Much easier to add more paint later than to take it away if overdone now.

 

 

 

I'm still anticipating it being a significant challenge to get an adequately light and uniform coat over the entire airframe to get a cohesive look without the detail being stronger or weaker one place than another.  But I'm going to give it my best shot.  Later.  For now, I'm going to shift gears to focus on building and detailing the engine, then come back to final painting and markings.  One that latter note, I pulled the trigger on getting one of these Silhouette computerized paper cutting devices, so I'm going to start playing with making masks to enable me to paint details like unit numbers and insignia, rather than just painting the hinomarus (even I can cut a circle by hand) and relying on decals for everything else.

[turbo]

Nice one Alex. I've had my finger on the trigger for a Cameo 4 for a while now and may well pull it for use on my A6M5 build. What model did you end up running with?

[Alex]

6 hours ago, turbo said:

Nice one Alex. I've had my finger on the trigger for a Cameo 4 for a while now and may well pull it for use on my A6M5 build. What model did you end up running with?

That exact one.  I had gotten advice that the smaller Portrait model would serve just as well, but the Cameo 4 can be had almost as cheap if you shop around, so I figured get the latest one.

[A6M]

Hello Alex, 

 

Thanks for the explanation of PLW; the overcoat of the exterior colour makes for an very effective appearance. Again one detail: the red circled projections on the LG strut are acually part of the lower LG cover. They are made of aluminum, not steel, and are painted the same colour as the rest of the cover. If it's OK with you, I'm happy to jump in and try to catch some of those small details.

 

Ryan

 

[scvrobeson]

I always forget just how good the surface detail on the Tamiya Zeros was.  Looks excellent, the custom paint mix looks really good.

 

 

 

Matt 

[Alex]

5 hours ago, A6M said:

Hello Alex, 

 

Thanks for the explanation of PLW; the overcoat of the exterior colour makes for an very effective appearance. Again one detail: the red circled projections on the LG strut are acually part of the lower LG cover. They are made of aluminum, not steel, and are painted the same colour as the rest of the cover. If it's OK with you, I'm happy to jump in and try to catch some of those small details.

 

Ryan

 

 

Ryan,

 

That's very helpful - please keep mentioning any details that you spot me missing!  I believe that the small projections at the bottom of the gear legs are also supposed to be bare aluminum - I was planning to paint them before assembling the gear.  Does that sound correct to you?