Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero - Finished

[Dpgsbody55]

The engine is now finished.  The exhausts I painted in flat steel then dry brushed with burnt iron until I got the effect I wanted.  The tips were painted in flat black before this.  I might have drilled out the ends first but they're not round so don't lend themselves to that technique.  Once dry, these were glued in place and allowed to dry.  Each pipe is glued in two places; first at the cylinder head, then onto a mounting ring attached to the back of the rear cylinders.  Next, I finished off the back of the engine, added a little Eduard etch then glued this in place.  Here's the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The camera flash has washed away some of the dry brushing effect as IRL the exhausts look more worn.  Ditto the colour of the crankcase looks more blue than the blue/grey it actually is. 

 

Next step is a little masking and paint.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Dpgsbody55]

The Zero is now painted and I'm presently working towards applying the decals and building the undercarriage.  Here's some pictures of the paint stage.

 

First, all the odd bits not yet added to the model.  This includes engine cowling and undercarriage door parts.  The cowling is painted in cowling black which has a distinct blue tinge.

 

 

Undersides in Mr Color gray/green.

 

 

Topsides in Mr Color dark green.

 

 

With most of the masking removed.

 

 

Those who've followed this build may recall that the yellow wing leading edges were painted and masked before the wings were attached to the fuselage.  Definitely much easier to do this way thanks to the proximity of the fuselage.  I've tried not to get a perfect finish.  We'll see how that turns out after varnish/decals/varnish which is what I'm presently working on.

 

I've also started work on assembling the undercarriage, but no pictures yet.  One leg is fine, but the other has given me some grief thanks to that captive nut between the halves of the leg.  On trying to fit the screw, it just spins so I've had to cut it open and now repairs are needed.     That's for a future update.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

 

[Dpgsbody55]

The next stage is done now.  Markings are on, the last varnishing is done, and all masking has been removed.

 

I've used the kit decals and I think this is the first Tamiya LSP I've built using these.  They're rather thick and needed about five coats of strong decal softener to get them to sit down.  Even then, they're not brilliant.  I seem to recall previous comments about too thick decals from others.  Is my recollection right?

 

This picture shows the model after gloss coat and decals applied.  Note the reflection in the wing of the fuselage marking.  The control surfaces are masked up as I've brushed on a coat of flat varnish to these before gloss varnish was applied.  The rudder has a tight paper mask now as I don't want to rip off the marking that is on the rudder.

 

 

Here it is now after satin varnish.  In each paint and varnish stage, the canopy was in place to protect the insides.  It's removed in these views as I don't want to step on it when it falls off.  All the masking is off, including the masks applied to the back of the rear engine cowlings to stop paint getting in there.  I've touched up a couple of small areas and painted the pitot tip and that small pipe coming out of the rear left engine cowl.  This also falls off a lot so will be put away until weathering and final pictures..

 

 

Underside view.  The tail wheel has been assembled and attached, as has the arrester hook.

 

 

My next stage is final fitment, starting with the undercarriage.  The main legs have been painted and the legs themselves assembled, which involves setting a nut inside the top of the leg than gluing the other half on.  Once these were dry, I tried the screw in place which was OK on the right side, but not on the left.  So I prised off the half and reset the nut, then glued it back together adding a little clamping force.  That force has squashed the leg so now I have to try to repair it.  I've started with a little stock plastic, then I'll add a little filler, then file it back into shape and try the screw again and hope it works.  I can see me chucking the screw and plugging the hole and joint with brass rod, but you never know.  The screw may fit and I might be wrong.  Again... 

 

That's it until next time.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited October 30, 2023 by Dpgsbody55

[MikeMaben]

Good luck Michael 

[Dpgsbody55]

Thanks Mike.  I just wish more people had sent me some positive vibes...    On with the update.

 

The left undercarriage leg is now repaired.  For the second time.   A trial fit of the screw lead to the same cross threading issue of the first trial fit.  I used a spare nut before putting the two halves back together again, then started the repair by gluing two short lengths of 0.5mm stock rod, then applying some filler over the top.  The undercarriage leg is quite complex, with working suspension and oleo scissors.  I'm almost wishing now I'd drilled out all the pivots and added a length of wire as a retaining bolt.  As much as it would have been fiddly, the reasons why will become clearer as we progress on this update.

 

 

Once dry, this was filed back into shape and the whole lot painted, then the wheel brake and cable attached, followed by the upper U/C door.  Sorry, no photo of this.  While this was happening, I attached the right undercarriage leg using the retaining screw, which was quite straight forward.  To do this, you rotate that part of the leg that was installed when the wings were being made, using the part supplied in the kit.  The outer door has to be opened first, and it's lucky that has a double pivot as it swings through large arc.

 

 

The leg is inserted into this then the screw put into place and tightened down, as you can see with the screw head just visible in this picture.  I also glued the two parts of the undercarriage leg together as I have no desire to take these parts of ever again.  I haven't finished the U/C leg assembly as the wheel and lower U/C cover are yet to go on.  That's the cannon you can see to the left of the undercarriage, with the barrel yet to go on.  If you'll compare with the photos above, you'll also see something now missing.

 

 

Yes, this dropped off.    One half of the oleo scissors.  It's so much fun trying to put back in place once the leg is attached to the model and the upper door and brake pipe are in the way.

 

 

On to the left side and attaching that repaired leg.  First, I tried the screw in the leg before attaching, and it screwed in OK, but wouldn't come out.    I quickly decided that cutting the retaining screw out again was a mug's game, so I simply cut the screw head off with wire cutters.  Lowering the upper part of the leg as above lead to another small problem in that the extension that the provided tool goes onto just twisted, so the kit supplied screw driver was inserted and both used to lever the upper leg into place.  Then the leg was glued and inserted into place and allowed to dry.  Some CA glue was later dribbled into the screw hole at the top for extra security.  No screw head visible here, but I have added the cannon barrel for this picture.  Oh, and just to make this side a bit more difficult, the outer door got in the way as it wouldn't swing through it's proper arc.  A length of tape held this out of the way while the leg dried in position.

 

 

The reason I've left the wheels off so far is that I wanted to "weight" the tire a little so these need to be carefully positioned.  The kit part is rubber, so these were duly sanded back.  This has the advantage of making the wheel easier to put on, as the inner edge of the leg curves down to surround the tire making it a jiggle to put into place.  Flattening it a little means it can go on easily, then get rotated into place.  I think these are supposed to rotate, but that wouldn't work if you do as I have, so they have been glued in place.

 

 

Here's the right side installed, together with the lower U/C door installed as well as the right cannon barrel and wing cover, complete with etch "down" indicator.

 

 

Notice what fell off again??

 

 

Now you know why I wish I'd drilled out the pivots and used a little wire.   This is going to be even more fun trying to get back into place.   I would glue them, but this won't work as the oleo's compress under the weight of the model.  Shoulda CA'd them in a middle position using a length of stock rod at half spring length instead of fitting the spring.

 

So the undercarriage is almost finished, with the left wheel and lower door still to go on, and the pesky oleo scissor half to slip back on to the right oleo.

 

And now for something completely different.  No, not sport.   The propeller, so far.  The spinner is being painted at the moment.

 

 

This needs a little "scratching" before it's put into place, but that will be one of the last things that gets done on this model.

 

For the next update, the engine will be installed, along with cooling gills and cowling.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited October 30, 2023 by Dpgsbody55

[scvrobeson]

I remember struggling with those gear legs way back when I did mine, it was definitely an odd decision from Tamiya. Hope you can get it finished

 

 

 

Matt 

[Dpgsbody55]

10 hours ago, scvrobeson said:

I remember struggling with those gear legs way back when I did mine, it was definitely an odd decision from Tamiya. Hope you can get it finished

 

 

 

Matt 

 

Oh, I'll finish it for sure.  I haven't come this far to consign it to the Shelf of Doom .  I think Tamiya made a poor decision in making this too toy-like, but I still think the result will be better than the old Hasegawa kit.  For my next project, I will probably try something simpler, like a Z-M kit.    If I remember correctly, the Spitfire MkIX was the next release (??) and a much better model.  I can live with all the screw in bits on that model.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Fanes]

Keep up the good work, Michael!

What an annoying feature that undercarriage is..

I'm taking notes for the time my Zero will get its legs on 

[Dpgsbody55]

18 hours ago, Fanes said:

Keep up the good work, Michael!

What an annoying feature that undercarriage is..

I'm taking notes for the time my Zero will get its legs on 

 

When I first started the legs, I thought "this looks interesting".  Now I think .

 

I have managed to fix that errant scissor half, but in doing so I found that my earlier idea of drilling out all the pivots and substituting a wire won't work, because of the metal in the lower part of the leg.  So if I was ever to do another, I'd cut a length of stock rod, 1 or 1.2mm to about half the length of the spring, put that in place of the spring and CA the lot together.  Might have to experiment a bit to get the proper loaded length first though.

 

I was interested seeing yours with the resin undercarriage bay.  I'll be following to see how you attach the kit legs to that.  Or do Aires provide a different solution?

 

Progress on mine?  The engine is now on, as is the other undercarriage leg finished.  I think this one is drawing to a close.  More soon, with photos.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[dennismcc]

What a pain. what were they thinking, mind you I owe you a big thank you as I have one of these lurking in the stash, forwarned is forearmed.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Dpgsbody55]

17 hours ago, dennismcc said:

What a pain. what were they thinking, mind you I owe you a big thank you as I have one of these lurking in the stash, forwarned is forearmed.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

It's something that might work better in a larger scale like 1/24 as the parts would be bigger and more robust.  I like the idea, even though it's not something I'm likely to play about with and does offer the ability to vary the model's display, and I was intrigued enough by the concept to want to build it.  It didn't work out for me, though.  Perhaps I'm just not a good enough modeller.  It's still a good kit, with great detail and the usual Tamiya parts fit, so now that it's almost done I can say I'm glad I've built it.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Dpgsbody55]

The last few days has seen plenty of progress on this.  There wasn't a lot left to do but the first thing was to get that undercarriage lower scissor half fixed and back on the model.  I had the brilliant idea of drilling the pivots out so I flattened out the detail and duly drilled a 0.6mm hole in both sides.  Then I tried drilling out the undercarriage leg.  I did manage to deepen the pivot hole, but the middle of the leg is metal so the drill would only go so far.  Never mind; at least I'd made it deeper.  A piece of 0.5mm stock rod was inserted and glued in one side and allowed to dry.  Once dry, the the piece was manoeuvered into place and a second piece of rod pushed home and glued on the other side.  Here it is as installed, after trimming off the excess rod and before touch up painting.  You can just make out a white dot where the rod was inserted.

 

 

Sorry about the image quality but that was about as good as I could do.  The scissor was then painted up.

 

Next step was mounting the engine.  At this point, I'd also started some weathering so my first step was to work out where the exhaust pipes sat in relation to the fuselage.  From pictures I've researched, this model left only small exhaust stains on the fuselage side, but much bigger stains and probably oils stains as well on the undersides.  This is quite logical given how oil pools in the lower cylinders and most of that would be burnt at start up and come out of the lower four pipes.  So for a better result, and to align with the pipes, I put those stains on first before trial fitting the engine.  The engine mounts via four small pins to the engine mount already installed in the airframe and it has to be absolutely exact or it sits wonky on the model.  I made this a little easier by drilling out the holes a further 0.1mm, put the cowlings on the motor, then glued it in place and used some tape to retain it.  The exhaust gills had gone on earlier and these are separate from the cowling itself.

 

 

You can see a little bit of scratching has been done on the fuselage here.  While that was drying, the sliding canopy received two tiny operating handles, and the prop received some wear too.  Here's the engine now on, with the prop and a bit more dirt on the airframe.

 

 

The drop tank has also been fitted after painting a red filler cap and adding a little spillage.  More dirt was added to the fuselage, as were some more scratches to the cowling and the canopy put in place.  And now it qualifies for the shelf of done.

 

 

Cowling refitted.

 

 

 

To scruffy it up a bit, after the scratches were added, I used the Tamiya weathering master set applying light sand and darker sand by the sponge applicator in places, and also using the brush to give the model an overall used look.  I've never been very confident in my weathering abilities, but I'm happy with this one, though I've seen better on these pages.  It's still got a bit of the satin sheen left from the clear coat.  The one mistake I made was not dirtying the tires before I put them onto the model.  Here's the undersides.

 

 

There is some scratching here, but the camera flash has washed it out against the light colour of the paint.

 

So that's a wrap on this one.  It's a relief to get it finished, as you may have previously gathered.  Overall, the kit is worth building despite the toy like features.  If I ever did another, perhaps the A6M2, I'd know how to deal with them better.  It's definitely a better model than the older Hasegawa kit with much more detail.  BTW, this is my first LSP Japanese plane in about fifty years, the last one being the old Revell kit though it, like me, wasn't so old back then .  I will be doing an RFI, with more pictures of the finished model, but not tonight, Josephine .

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

PS.  RFI is here.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Dpgsbody55