Tamiya A6M2 Zero-Sen (Rabaul base)

[MikeMaben]

Wow !  Excellent work Joachim 

[Fanes]

Thanky Michael and Mike - I'm on it and looking forward to get this one over the finish line.

After the fun part, meaning assembly of the cockpit which just falls together, I decided to tackle the next milestone:
The Wheel Wells

Well, Tamiya-San decided that the landing gear needed to be tetractable and therefore the assembly is overly complicated and fit is not perfect.

My biggset issue was and is that the wheel well's ceiling is made up from three parts: the wheel well insert (with horrible ejector pin marks), the inside of the upper wing and a small strip on the fuselage - just beneath the wing root. Some crazy guy - ahem Sean - dressed those parts up nicely.

Then, there's a replacement part from Aires. Have dealt with resin from them before. Fit seemed to be hit and miss.

This time it sucked really hard.

I had to shave huge amouints of resin from the top, so that it became paper thin. Some of the recessed rivets are now holes..

Still, it took me multiple hours to get a halfway acceptable fit:

 

 

The resin part is tacked into place with CA and will be epoxied to the lower wing half, when the other side is finished.

The wing's leading edge will be repaired last - yup, broke it off on both sides

I was thinking about trashing the whole thing only about three to five times, but I don't give up easily (might even finish my Revell Spitfire FR IX one day).

 

Before being able to commit to the starboard wheel well, I wanted to have some fun.

Since the Tamiya drop tank features recessed rivets and panel lines, I decided to add the weld seams from stretched sprue and to add some Archer rivets.

Some of the decal strips shattered and I had to place single rivets to repair it - funfunfun

But hey - they look good. A coat of black lacquer is currently drying. We'll see how they look under some paint.

 

Another quick thing was replacing the barrels of the Type 97 machine guns with brass parts from RB model.

The guns aren't highly visible but I just liked the look of the brass muzzle better.

 

More news from the wheel wells soon!

Cheers,

Joachim

 

[Fanes]

Still scraping resin and plastic. Nothing pretty to show so far.

So, here's two photos from different areas.

I painted the machine guns black, gave them a grey dry brush and glued them to the cockpit.

Assembly was smooth and easy.

 

 

After the black coat on the drop tank had dried, I spotted some blemishes.

Out came the 1000 grit sand paper. Since I was already on it, I decided to add a fuel filler cap made of a punched styrene disk.

Another layer of black will follow soon.

 

[Fanes]

Back to the wells

 

After loads of scraping and sanding both wheel wells were an okayish fit.

With the upper wings taped in place, I fiddled both resin parts in place. Positioned them as good as possible

and tacked both them in place with a little amount of CA. Afterwards some 5 min epoxy was apllied around the whole seam to get a strong and tough connection. Not pretty, yet functional.

 

 

Well, that's what it is now. I'm not happy with the overall fit but decided to call it done and will live with steps and fill in the gaps later.

 

Back from rough work to a little more delicate things:

Tamiya got the small windows above the ammo drums confused with fuel filler ports. They were drilled out - clear plastic disks will be added in the end - and the oval recess from the latch was filled with CA.

 

Another small detail is the contour of the rear wheel cutout. Tamiya has moulded the rather straight one form Mitsubishi. Nakajima did a more wavy outline, which I tried to reproduce with a half round file and some careful swipes with a sanding stick.

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Fanes

[MikeMaben]

[Fanes]

This seems to be my slowest build so far.

I don't know what the exact problem is, but there seem to be endless amounts of rabbit holes.
Maybe choosing a Type 52 Zero from Hasegawa would have been the smarter choice.

But it is what it is and I might lear a thing or two on the way..

 

 

The following is a loose collection of small things, that I tackled in the last weeks.

Starting with the placards. There is quite a lot of placards on the actual airframe. On the fabric parts, they are below the fabric (which then has a transparent cover).

To reproduce them, I shamelessly copied Sean's approach with 0.1 mm styrene sheet and CA to get a smooth transition.

Here they are on the ailerons (before sanding):

 

And of course one on the rudder and one on each elevator.

 

 

Next up on the tweak list:

The Zero's airframe is covered in flush rivets for aerodynamic reasons, of course. Under the canopy, rivets with dome heads were used. Tamiya gives us nice, small, and shallow rivets all around. Adding insanity, I decided to add raised rivets in the appropriate areas. First of all, the rivets were filled with Perfect Plastic Putty (going by the Archer instructions). That worked only so so, because the putty lacks adhesion and I ended up pulling it out of the rivets. My tests were done on my shelf-of-doom Spitfire FR IX from Revell, where the deep rivets really helped to retain the filler. Will use another product next time..

 

 

The cover under the windscreen has rivets as well and so I started there to get accustomed with the rivets from Quinta.

 

 

First note: don't ever buy the white ones!

They are incredibly hard to see on the decal sheet (which doesn't have a blueish hue) and that makes cutting strips unnecesseary complex and timne consuming.

The application on the plastic is a little bit more simple compared to the Archer rivets I've used before. The transparent film is quite thin, yet not overly delicate in handling. Maybe alittle bit too stiff for tight curvatures.

 

Putting all the rivets on, really tested my patience (and sanity). So I turned to somehting else inbetween.

The wheel well covers are quite thick and are mostly void of any detail. So I thinned them down and added a small stiffener from stretched sprue.

A necessary improvent? - hell no, but I enjoy doing that stuff.

 

The landing gear legs have some heavy mold seams, which aren't completely removed in the picture (painful macro), and lack the characteristic spot welds of the real thing.

Luckily the welds aren't raised, but look more like small depressions. So I marked the six spots with a riveting wheel and gave them a slight drill with a 0.25 mm drill bit.

Perfect? - no, but I can alwys improve!

 

Did someone mention rivets?

Yup - there they are:

 

It took me four sessions over a whole week to apply them all.

Currently they are left to dry completely and will recieve a coat of lacquer black afterwards.

Everyone who uses these raised rivets on a whole aiframe has my highest esteem.

 

 

[Troy Molitor]

Lovely efforts going on here.  

[Dpgsbody55]

Nice work.  I finished Tamiya's A6M5 a while back and felt rather like you at this stage of the build.  But in the end, I am very happy with mine and I think it's a much better kit than the Hasegawa version.  Glad I persisted with it.  I think yours will be better than mine too.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Fanes]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:59 AM, Dpgsbody55 said:

Nice work.  I finished Tamiya's A6M5 a while back and felt rather like you at this stage of the build.  But in the end, I am very happy with mine and I think it's a much better kit than the Hasegawa version.  Glad I persisted with it.  I think yours will be better than mine too.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

I saw your finished A6M5 and really liked what you did. Hopfeully the undercarriage won't fight me as hard as it did with you.

 

As for now, there's just a splash of gloss black on my rivets.

 

Nothing spectacular, in fact I'm not happy with how much carrier film is still visible.

There was plenty of setting solution applied. Maybe it will be less visible once the area is a flat black.

 

[Grunticus]

You're perseverance is admirable and the results are starting to show. Very nice work on the rivets (and the rest as well of course). I would have gone mad a while ago.

[Fanes]

1 hour ago, Grunticus said:

You're perseverance is admirable and the results are starting to show. Very nice work on the rivets (and the rest as well of course). I would have gone mad a while ago.

Thanks a lot - well, I'm not sure I'm not slowly going insane with all the small details to be considered..

Very much looking forward to see spray some paint on my Zero.

Eventually, there might be a quick build snuck in to build up confidence. I thought of getting a Hasegawa Storch - until I saw your build thread

[Grunticus]

14 minutes ago, Fanes said:

Thanks a lot - well, I'm not sure I'm not slowly going insane with all the small details to be considered..

Very much looking forward to see spray some paint on my Zero.

Eventually, there might be a quick build snuck in to build up confidence. I thought of getting a Hasegawa Storch - until I saw your build thread

 

You're doing just fine! The Storch is a cute little plane, but I keep finding things that I want to improve. Tonight I started on a new back seat as Hasegawa just copied the front seat which is wrong, I just hadn't registered it. The list keeps growing

 

Oh, and get the Revell one. Hasegawa's plastic - at least in my example - is rock-hard and brittle.

[Madmax]

Hi Joachim, this build thread takes me back a couple of years, but I see you are improving on some of the things I didn't do! I still haven't used any raised rivet decals (but should really try some), and I wasn't brave enough to try the resin wheel wells. Well done on getting them in, and actually managing to glue the wing halves together. No easy job... 

[Fanes]

On 12/26/2023 at 10:15 PM, Grunticus said:

 

You're doing just fine! The Storch is a cute little plane, but I keep finding things that I want to improve. Tonight I started on a new back seat as Hasegawa just copied the front seat which is wrong, I just hadn't registered it. The list keeps growing

 

Oh, and get the Revell one. Hasegawa's plastic - at least in my example - is rock-hard and brittle.

 

Keep up the good work on your Storch - it's a pleasure to watch!

But for sure, I won't be getting that kit for a quick build

 

On 12/29/2023 at 11:09 AM, Madmax said:

Hi Joachim, this build thread takes me back a couple of years, but I see you are improving on some of the things I didn't do! I still haven't used any raised rivet decals (but should really try some), and I wasn't brave enough to try the resin wheel wells. Well done on getting them in, and actually managing to glue the wing halves together. No easy job... 

 

Nice to have you chiming in Sean! Your build thread, together with the tweak list, is my main motivation to tackle all the small details of a Nakajima build A6M2.

Still hoping, that my Zero-Sen turns out as elegant as yours. Btw. your current Hunter build is entertaining and educating as well! I will try a different brand of raised rivets in the future (already have two eduard sheets in the stash). Looking back, I think your choice to imrove the wheel wells by scratch and PE parts was a much wiser one than the resin parts - scroll down to see why...

 

Back to the rivet job. I did some testing of colour modulation for the engine cowl and therefore applied a blue mottle over the gloss black, followd by a 50/50 mix of Gunze rubber black and Tamiya gloss black. The result - not so much visible after all, oh well.

The other thing I learnt was that the raised rivets are so low, that they don't really hold a pin wash.

Enough complaining - with the cockpit in place, it does look rather good!

 

 

In my opinion, the work and especially the painting together with the Quinta bits, really make the cockpit pop out from the black framing.

Me likey.

Unfortunately, there is aghost seam on the rear deck (visible in the picture below, just aft of the opening for the loop antenna).

Cleaning that up will be fun 

 

 

Talking about seams: The front and the wheel wells are a new challenge to master.

There's a fairly large gap between the lower wing and the fuselage parts.

 

Of course on both sides, since the resin wheel wells push that part downwards. Even though I removed a lot of material.

 

The wing is only dry fitted at that stage and I can make minor adjustments.

My plan is to bend the lower wing a tad upwards, then glue the wing along the wing root to the fuselage.

When that's settled, the parts with the gap will be pressed together, as hard as I can, then tacked in place with CA at the front - followed by a big splurt of plastic glue from the inside along the seam. We'll see...

 

The wing root on the port side is just fine, while there's a very small step on starboard. Since the mating of the fuselage to the lower wing is pretty tight, a slight sand of the locators might do the trick.

I couldn't resist to make a first overall shot. It slowly starts to look like a Zero now.

Consider this a morale boost.

 

[Fanes]

Remember that nasty gap at the lower fuselage?

Well, it's no more!

 

With some brute force and a huge amount of CA, I was able to reduce the canyon wide gap to a small step, that should be easily blendable with some filler and a little sanding.

I will do so, after I have blended the wing root/wheel well transition. This will need more than a drop of CA - thinking about some Milliput followed by some reshaping.

 

 

What did the trick, apart from the ridiculous amount of CA, was putting in a piece of sprue to spread the fuselage at the front and thereby preventing it from pinching inwards.

 

The test fit with the engine reveals some minor gaps at the lower firewall.

I did some sanding after taking the photo and now the seam can be closed with light pressure.

Should be okayish, especially because I plan on adding the engine at the very last step, after painting the whole plane.

 

That's it for now, progress in the next days will be slow, since I'm back at work as of today..