Is the ZM Ta 152H-0 a fairly simple easy build

[monthebiff]

9 minutes ago, Violator1991 said:

Definitely not a "fairly simple easy build", but rather a "it was a bumpy one but I enjoyed the flight" kind of kit.

 

Yep, definitely! I can say that the flaps and control surfaces fitted perfectly 

 

It's an early ZM kit and has plenty of issues but when built up looks so good and well worth the hard work.

 

Regards. Andy 

 

Regards. Andy 

[Paul2660]

The H0 is an improvement over the H1 as several parts were modified or changed.  Namely the Engine block was change to fully cover the cam covers as on the H1 they are open on the back end.  There might be a slight better fit but I did not see much difference overall.  Issues I ran into that you would want to really dry fit first.  It's also not in the terrible multicolored plastic.  However if you want to build the H1 it's still your only option.  However I believe you could add the H1 wing to the H0 to have an overall H1.  The wing is standard plastic, not the crappy silver they use for most of the engine and wing spar. 

 

Edit: You cannot use the main wing flaps interchangeably between the H1 kit and H0 kit.  ZM inexplicably moved the main attachment point on the main flaps.  This is if you wish to leave them open. 

 

I would recommend mounting the engine to the fuselage before you add the wing.  You cannot easily get to the lower attachment points on the engine supports where they attach to the firewall.  They are basically blocked by the wing.  This attachment is critical to getting everything to line up correctly later on. 

 

The mount of the 30mm motor cannon to the engine block and frame.  I have never really gotten this to fit just right on several different builds. 

 

The mounting of the main instrument panel to the cockpit.  There is very little material to glue to here and the fit has to be just right or the side walls won't come together correctly.

 

If you use the ZM Photoetch cockpit (Eduard) instrument replacements, I found that it made fitting everything together harder as the photo etch edges can slightly stick out to far and again cause the side walls not to fit snug.  Trying to grind down the edges can lead to disaster as the parts will just pop off.  The Quinta Studios set works much much better and has a better color.  The ZM set looks purple on the kit against normal RLM66.  The Yahu instrument panel is very thick and IMO since it's in one piece has to be cut to fit.  I never got this to work and had to replace the part.  The cockpit is by far IMO one of the hardest since areas to get right at least for me.  By comparison the FW-190 A4 cockpit goes together like a dream.

 

You have to attach the exhausts to the engine before you add the engine cover panels.  Especially a problem if you are not going to have one of them open for display so the  exhausts have to be covered before you paint the kit. 

 

The attachment of the outer cowling to the cowling flaps can be tricky, I recommend attaching the separate top piece first as that sets the correct spacing.

 

The Radiator into the the outer cowling is IMO a mess and once the radiator has snapped into place you will have a hard time getting it back out i.e. if you test fit it. 

 

The separate parts of the wings can be made to fit with very small gaps, but I used a different process, adding G7 to G5 first, setting the correct gap then adding that to the  lower wing surface already attached to the spar.  

 

I found that putting all the wing components together first then attaching E19 last is easier (at least for me).  This is one of the most critical parts of the wing, and it can lead wing root misalignment if not assembled correctly.  Also again make sure there is no paint on the leading edges of the wing root and E19 when you paint the wheel wells.  I screwed up here on my first build and tried to assemble said parts with silver paint on them, never got a good solid glue bond and had to re-glue multiple times which  just made a mess.  

 

The wing spar is very critical to overall fit, I made the mistake of painting all of it the first time, and you really only need to paint the front and maybe the rear.  Paint on the part makes it hard to get a solid glue bond. 

 

Main landing gear is unique in design and I find it's still difficult to get the parts to fit, but they will eventually.  The ZM concept note has some good pictures of how to get the legs in correctly.  Note on the new FW-190 A4, landing gear has to be on during painting due to the way the wing panel that covers the legs is attached. 

 

Attachment of the main gear covers to the landing get, again I would mask the areas where the parts are joined (what I mess if you paint the entire parts and try to get glue to hold all of it together.  Also I never could figure out the brake lines that they have and IMO they are way too large and thus get the way of the gear cover I ended up not using them. 

 

If you are going to display one or both of the engine covers open, there are not any support posts in the kit to hold the part open, so that is a scratch build. 

 

ZM's decals for then H1 and H0 are IMO not that good the white crosses especially.  Consider getting one of the EagleCals sets of decals.  

 

I used the Eduard Spinner masks to get the white spirals as again the decals for this were not easy to work with.  Also you need to apply the decal or paint the spiral before you complete the Propeller assembly.  Paint the spiral or apply the decal first then put the two parts together.  If you don't the propeller blades get in the way of masking or the decals for a spiral. 

 

Overall the kit will build up to a nice looking TA-152.  The H0 doesn't have the multicolored plastic of the H1.  The H1's silver parts IMO don't take to glue well at all and also have trouble with painting.  H0 is all one color. 

 

I also wish that ZM would add rivets to their kits. I have send pictures on this site and others where the modeler has added rivets and it looks to me so much more pleasing to the eye.  However doing this is not my cup of tea,  as one mistake and there goes a part out the door. 

 

Paul C 

Edited February 12 by Paul2660
spacing

[CRAZY IVAN5]

I just pulled mine out of the stash and it's an H-1. It's also got some rather strange cartoonish boxart like it's an Anime issue[ ???], It's a black with a JG 54 green hearts insignia[ ?]. So I popped open the box and the whole thing is in black plastic! Oh and they gave me an anime figure to go along with it. Pretty strange. 

[CRAZY IVAN5]

I gotta admit an all black TA-152 does look sinister but I'm quite sure they never wore this scheme, I won't be doing it up in black however

[Paul2660]

Just curious, is it all black plastic or green, black and silver?  You have the slipstream edition where ZM tied the plane to a anime character. But you get the drop tank also. Not sure if the Ta-152 ever had one fitted but it’s a nice tank with all the fittings.   Slipstream came out after the original H1.  I believe the H1 non slipstream used tan plastic where the slipstream edition used green. but still had the silver and black. 
 

Paul

[CRAZY IVAN5]

10 minutes ago, Paul2660 said:

Just curious, is it all black plastic or green, black and silver?  You have the slipstream edition where ZM tied the plane to a anime character. But you get the drop tank also. Not sure if the Ta-152 ever had one fitted but it’s a nice tank with all the fittings.   Slipstream came out after the original H1.  I believe the H1 non slipstream used tan plastic where the slipstream edition used green. but still had the silver and black. 
 

Paul

Ok, I just checked again and all of the sprues save 2 are indeed black , The other 2 are silver[ engine sprues]and it does have the drop tank. I can't find anywhere that it's a "Slip stream edition" , unless it's in Japanese [if my daughter was here she'd be able to translate]. It does say on the box" Japan only". So do I have some limited edition rare type thing going on here or what? I'm gonna build it anyway[though I maybe in a strait jacket by the time I get it done].

[thierry laurent]

2 hours ago, CRAZY IVAN5 said:

Ok, I just checked again and all of the sprues save 2 are indeed black , The other 2 are silver[ engine sprues]and it does have the drop tank. I can't find anywhere that it's a "Slip stream edition" , unless it's in Japanese [if my daughter was here she'd be able to translate]. It does say on the box" Japan only". So do I have some limited edition rare type thing going on here or what? I'm gonna build it anyway[though I maybe in a strait jacket by the time I get it done].

No it was not that rare. This was the standard edition when the initial boxing was not available anymore. They did the same with the Shinden.

[nmayhew]

12 hours ago, Paul2660 said:

The H0 is an improvement over the H1 as several parts were modified or changed.  Namely the Engine block was change to fully cover the cam covers as on the H1 they are open on the back end.  There might be a slight better fit but I did not see much difference overall.  Issues I ran into that you would want to really dry fit first.  It's also not in the terrible multicolored plastic.  However if you want to build the H1 it's still your only option.  However I believe you could add the H1 wing to the H0 to have an overall H1.  The wing is standard plastic, not the crappy silver they use for most of the engine and wing spar. 

 

The mount of the 30mm motor cannon to the engine block and frame.  I have never really gotten this to fit just right on several different builds. 

 

The mounting of the main instrument panel to the cockpit.  There is very little material to glue to here and the fit has to be just right or the side walls won't come together correctly.

 

If you use the ZM Photoetch cockpit (Eduard) instrument replacements, I found that it made fitting everything together harder as the photo etch edges can slightly stick out to far and again cause the side walls not to fit snug.  Trying to grind down the edges can lead to disaster as the parts will just pop off.  The Quinta Studios set works much much better and has a better color.  The ZM set looks purple on the kit against normal RLM66.  The Yahu instrument panel is very thick and IMO since it's in one piece has to be cut to fit.  I never got this to work and had to replace the part.  The cockpit is by far IMO one of the hardest since areas to get right at least for me.  By comparison the FW-190 A4 cockpit goes together like a dream.

 

You have to attach the exhausts to the engine before you add the engine cover panels.  Especially a problem if you are not going to have one of them open for display so the  exhausts have to be covered before you paint the kit. 

 

The attachment of the outer cowling to the cowling flaps can be tricky, I recommend attaching the separate top piece first as that sets the correct spacing.

 

The Radiator into the the outer cowling is IMO a mess and once the radiator has snapped into place you will have a hard time getting it back out i.e. if you test fit it. 

 

The separate parts of the wings can be made to fit with very small gaps, but I used a different process, adding G7 to G5 first, setting the correct gap then adding that to the  lower wing surface already attached to the spar.  

 

I found that putting all the wing components together first then attaching E19 last is easier (at least for me).  This is one of the most critical parts of the wing, and it can lead wing root misalignment if not assembled correctly.  Also again make sure there is no paint on the leading edges of the wing root and E19 when you paint the wheel wells.  I screwed up here on my first build and tried to assemble said parts with silver paint on them, never got a good solid glue bond and had to re-glue multiple times which  just made a mess.  

 

The wing spar is very critical to overall fit, I made the mistake of painting all of it the first time, and you really only need to paint the front and maybe the rear.  Paint on the part makes it hard to get a solid glue bond. 

 

Main landing gear is unique in design and I find it's still difficult to get the parts to fit, but they will eventually.  The ZM concept note has some good pictures of how to get the legs in correctly.  Note on the new FW-190 A4, landing gear has to be on during painting due to the way the wing panel that covers the legs is attached. 

 

Attachment of the main gear covers to the landing get, again I would mask the areas where the parts are joined (what I mess if you paint the entire parts and try to get glue to hold all of it together.  Also I never could figure out the brake lines that they have and IMO they are way too large and thus get the way of the gear cover I ended up not using them. 

 

If you are going to display one or both of the engine covers open, there are not any support posts in the kit to hold the part open, so that is a scratch build. 

 

ZM's decals for then H1 and H0 are IMO not that good the white crosses especially.  Consider getting one of the EagleCals sets of decals.  

 

I used the Eduard Spinner masks to get the white spirals as again the decals for this were not easy to work with.  Also you need to apply the decal or paint the spiral before you complete the Propeller assembly.  Paint the spiral or apply the decal first then put the two parts together.  If you don't the propeller blades get in the way of masking or the decals for a spiral. 

 

Overall the kit will build up to a nice looking TA-152.  The H0 doesn't have the multicolored plastic of the H1.  The H1's silver parts IMO don't take to glue well at all and also have trouble with painting.  H0 is all one color. 

 

I also wish that ZM would add rivets to their kits. I have send pictures on this site and others where the modeler has added rivets and it looks to me so much more pleasing to the eye.  However doing this is not my cup of tea,  as one mistake and there goes a part out the door. 

 

Paul C 

Very helpful thank you

saved for future reference

Nick

[Steve Eagle]

The Ta-152 is the first Z-M kit that I have built. It was an initial issue with multicolored spruces. I have also built the Ki-45 and Skyraider. 
The Ta-152 was a bit of a challenge. I had to carefully dry fit and think through how to glue it all together. 
Follow the instructions. I tried to do things out of order ONCE. Learned my lesson. 

[Thunnus]

The black Slipstream edition is the kit that I built...

 

Black and silver are my least favorite plastic colors to deal with but like I said, the effort is worthwhile...

[monthebiff]

When I sanded back the instrument panel detail I found that what I thought was black plastic was in fact a coating and it is clear plastic underneath! Thank goodness they stick to just grey plastic now

 

Regards. Andy 

[Rick Griewski]

Please check out the ZM site for an explanation about how to manage the difficult areas of assembly.  
 

https://www.zoukeimura.co.jp/en/sentiment/oyajiblog_134.html

 

IIRC the “Old Man” has acknowledged the challenge of this earlier kit release.