1/32 IMCTH Zero Type 21 Fine Structure - 20/07 - Finished!

[John F Smith]

Engine Build - 08/02/14

 

Lessons Learned so far—Part 1

 

 I think this was the first kit from IMCTH.  And though some would call the instructions for the Mustange nothing more than exploded drawings, they were at least very clear.  That's not the case here; unlike the Mustang kit, for example, there are very few indications in the instructions where holes will need to be enlarged or deepened.  You should assume that any hole that exists will need to be slightly deepened and enlarged.  A 1 mm and a 0.5 mm drill are essential. Diagrams are not as clear as in the Mustang kit, yet they are accurate.  You are simply going to have to study the parts against the drawings to determine their correct orientation.  The information is all there, but it certainly doesn't leap out and grab you.

 

Cylinder drilled and ready to connect Intake and Exhaust Manifolds

 

CA will NOT stick to self etching primer whether on top or underneath the color coat.  So, you have one of three choices. (a) Don't paint the model at all and build it in bare metal as the manufacturer intended.  (   Mask the parts carefully before priming to prevent any primer from coating a surface which needs to be glued.  ©  Prime everything to be painted and remove the paint coat and primer coat with CA Debonder from surfaces to be glued.  I have chosen item © primarily because some of the masking would be too complicated to do well, and the Debonder really eats through the primer and paint and leaves a very clean surface for gluing.  As an aside, I think I pointed out in my Fine Structure Mustang build log that I really favor CA Debonder made by CMK.  It seems to be a lot “hotter†that any of the others that I have tried and does an excellent job whether I'm using it for removing paint and primer, or for separating glued parts when  a rework is necessary.

  

Primer Removed from Mounting Stub

 

Removing Paint and Primer from Crankcase Part

 

The Sakae engine is quite a project, as you will see in a few minutes.  About 100 parts plus or minus a few, and a lot of painting to be done.  Take your time and enjoy it.  As you will in the rest of the kit, your general modeling skills will be invaluable when you build this or any other IMCTH kit.  Test fitting, filing, and testing are perhaps even more important here than in a plastic kit.  The only real difference is that you will be working with White Metal and Stainless Steel PE.

 

First Cylinder in Place

 

First Row of Cylinders Installed
 

With a few exceptions, this kit is engineered in the details of the engine and cockpit in almost the same way as the Tamiya 1/32 A6M2 Type 21.  I'm using this to my advantage to get a better idea of what final assemblies should look like, and what paint colors to use for the things I am painting.  And, with a couple of exceptions, I'm mostly using Tamiya Acrylics for the build.  I think that their formula for Aotake anti-corrosion color is really excellent, in spite of the fact that there is a fair amount of controversy out their about what Aotake really looked like.  Tamiya have taken a position on it and stuck with it… .Bravo!

The Alclad “Exhaust Manifold†color is really excellent!  I used it on the exhausts for the Mustang and liked a lot.  I've used it on the exhaust manifold here and liked it even better. 

 

Note Aotake Color on Cowling Mounting Ring & Exhaust Manifold Color

If you have difficulty getting lots of pieces to line up and mate correctly, as in the case of he intake and exhaust manifolds, and mounting rods on the engine, remember that this is white metal and it will BEND.  Just don't get too enthusiastic about it.  Take it gently and you can absolutely have everything line up in the correct position.

I think that the order of installing the cowling ring, and exhaust manifold on the engine are done in the wrong order.  It's much easier to shape and glue in place the exhaust manifold before you mount the cowling ring, not after (as the instructions indicate)

 

Intake and Exhaust Manifolds in Place
 

Edited February 8, 2014 by John F Smith

[John F Smith]

Engine Build - 08/02/14

 

Lessons Learned so far— Part II

One of the tasks in this part of the build is to drill 0.5 mm holes in the crankcase where indicated, and at the ends of the rocker arm assemblies, 2 per cylinder, 7 cylinders per row on the engine, 2 rows of cylinders for a total of 28 push rods on the engine.  Doubling that yields 56 holes to be drilled.  The instructions call for these holes to be 0.3 mm deep.  NONSENSE.  Go ahead and drill through, if you have excess piano wire it will end up invisible in the crankcase because you can push it through the top of the rocker arm until it is flush and need only minor filler or CA to rid yourself of the small hold.

 

Ready to Drill for Pushrods

 
 

Crankcase & Rear Cylinders Complete

 

Crankcase & Cylinders Complete - Note Pushrods in place

With the addition of the Ignition Ring, the Prop Shaft, and the front of the crankcase, the front of the engine is now complete.

I have the Eduard Engine Detail set for the Tamiya Kit and I'm thinking about using at least parts of it to spruce up this engine a bit.  At the very least, I'd like to get Ignition Wires installed.  So, I'm probably going to test fit some some of the PE parts and see how it goes.

So, here is the complete front portion of the engine.  Next time, I'll report on what happens with the Eduard set and we will finish building the engine before moving on to the first part of the fuselage and the cockpit.

Happy Modeling, everyone!

 

Engine Front Section - Rear View

 
 

[Guest Peterpools]

John

WOW, what an update! and simply some brilliant detail work. Years ago I built quite a few white metal 1/43 scale car models and none came close to the level of detail and intricacy of the Zero Aotake engine. Absolutely has to be more difficult than building the Tamiya injected molded version. Absolutely appreciate all the step by step tips and how to's along the  way. I'm in total agreement that the Eduard detail PE set should feel right at home on the Aotake engine

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[John F Smith]

OK, I think we've spent enough time on this engine now.  Time to move on to more interesting things like the first part of the fuselage structure with the cockpit installed.

 

But, first, let's visit the engine one last time and see what was done to change it between the last report and now.

 

First, I did install the Eduard set for this engine, but I have to confess that it didn't do a lot for it except for the funny little "hats" on the cylinder heads and the engine wiring.  I had a bit of a conundrum when it came to the wiring.  The wiring itself is aluminum.  All of the photo evidence I could find supported that.  But, there were several photos with differing takes on the ignition harness; some had it aluminum, and others in that blue gray color of the crankcase.  I opted for the blue gray color because it made sense to me, in spite of the fact that Tamiya disagree with this interpretation.  The instructions for their kit clearly call this part out as "aluminum".  Oh well.

 

So, here is a photo of the front of the engine with the wiring installed and the cylinder heads attached. 

 

 

Please note that this is still unweathered.

 

I decided to weather the engine pretty heavily from a lot of training use in preparation for Pearl Harbor and a rough transit of the north Pacific prior to the attack.  I used grey, grime, and rust washes and simply rubbed off what I thought was too much.

 

Here are the final photos on the engine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I don't know why PhotoBucket is squishing my photo but it is.  I'm sorry)

 

OK, next update we will look at the first portion of the fuselage to be completed with the cockpit installed.  It may be a week or so before I get measurable progress done on this because of the amount of priming and painting to be done.  Please accept my apologies for the delay.

 

Thanks for visiting and checking in.

[Guest Peterpools]

John

Terrific work on the Aotake engine, as the weathering looks dead on the money and the PE ignition wiring looks right to scale. Super work on a very demanding part of the build.

Looking forward to the next update and the start of the fuselage.

Keep 'em coming

peter

[John F Smith]

Thanks, Peter, I appreciate it.

 

Not sure yet how I'm going to handle the Eduard PE engine stuff on the Tamiya kit engine.  I'm going to be having a closer look at that in the next few days as I start my general parts painting for that kit.

 

Just like the Mustang, it will be a dual display so I'd like to keep the level of detail similar between the two kits.... We'll see..... no decisions yet, but I will be posting a WIP log on it.

 

Looking forward to the "The Huff", Peter; my favorite -86

[Guest Peterpools]

John

Just love the way you're doing the builds when done, both kits make a perfect display. I would try and add all the Eduard PE to the Tamiya engine, just to see what level of detail can be achieved.  Looking forward to the first part of the Tamiya half of the project being posted soon.

Sure hope I won;t let you down with the Huff.

Peter

[John F Smith]

Can't imagine I'll be disappointed in the Huff, Peter.  You've set a high mark on NMF along with a lot of great advice on your 'Stangs, and I'm sure all those lessons learned will carry over to the work on your -86 build.

 

Actually, the engine is almost the last item done in the Tamiya build, so you'll be seeing a lot of cockpit first, but I'm planning the Eduard treatment there, too.  And, I agree, the engine should look really good with the PE touches; the Tamiya engine is VERY basic and not very inspiring, so we shall "tart her up" a bit, I think.

 

Sorted out all the parts today to begin the painting and I'll start the WIP log after a day in the paint booth!

[Guest Peterpools]

John

It's a shame how spoiled we are getting. I'm willing to guess that when the Tamiya Zero first came out, we all marveled at the brilliance of the details. I have all the confidence you'll bring the  Zero Aotake engine up to high standards with the help of the Eduard PE set. Looking forward to seeing the cockpit come together first, as it's my favorite part of any build.

Making slow progress on the Huff, as I'm finding out, cutting in all the resin upgrades takes a lot of time and the worst fit so far, as been closing up the machine gun bays ... way a fussy job. Hope to have an update this weekend.

Peter

[John F Smith]

If you build this kit like the manufacturer intended, it would all be stainless steel PE and white metal.... no painting.  But, Ross Armstrong paved the way on his Fine Structure P-51 Team Build by painting some of the internal parts to enhance the over all appearance.  It was a great idea, and I followed suit with my own P-51 Fine Structure.  (See Ross's Build in the Team Build area and mine in the Air Gallery)

So, I'm doing the same on this kit, and I am going to paint the cockpit, fuel tanks, machine guns, and cannons.  That's a lot of priming and painting and I don't want this build log to get bogged down waiting for an update, so I decided to skip ahead in the instructions to build the wings where we could make some real progress while I do the cockpit detail painting on the side.

And, I made a discovery.  Just out of curiosity, I wondered if Tamiya paints would adhere better to metal than the Vallejo since I'm using Tamiya for this build.  So I airbrushed one of the bulkheads behind the cockpit area without priming and when it was completely dry, tried to scrape it off with my finger nail.  No way!!  So, Tamiya paints can be used for the PE parts anyway without priming.... Wow, that will save a lot of time.  I haven't tested it with the white metal parts, but that's next on the list.

 

The wing build can move quickly since there is no painting except for the cannons and the fuel tanks, so let's get to it.

First on the list is to get the parts off the "sprues" (I'll use that term for the PE Sheets), and clean them up ready for installation.  They have to be completely smooth or else it will interfere with the CA join.  So they require close trimming and some filing to get there.

Here's a photo of the wing rib sprue, we are not installing all of the ribs for the wing in this step, but it's a start.

 

And here are the instructions for this step.  Note that the instructions only show the left wing installation, but give the part numbers for the right wing next to the left wing part numbers.  You have to visualize the mirror image for the right wing and install the ribs accordingly.  It pays real dividends to pay close attention to the orientations shown in the instructions and to think ahead about what may be connecting to the assembly you are currently working on.



 

Here are the wing ribs for this step after being cut from the sprue.  Note the stubs that need trimming and, again, it's really necessary to stay organized by numbering the parts on the paper before they are installed.

 

And, one of the ribs after clipping and filing the stubs off.

 

 First off, are the leading and trailing edge spars.  And another short discovery.  CA accelerator has a shelf life!!!  I had just refilled my small accelerator bottle and it simply didn't work when I started installing the wing spars.  Wow, I was befuddled about the problem until I considered the that accelerator I was using was from a pretty old bottle.  Used some new accelerator and everything worked just fine.

Having everything trimmed and ready to go, it's time to start building (Finally!!!).   Here's the left wing lower skin with the LE and TE spars in place.

 

At this point, it's very fragile, but as we install the wing ribs it gets stronger and rigid as you might expect.  

Wing ribs glued in place: 

Now, a short story about why it's necessary to think ahead on these Fine Structure kits.  I think the biggest difficulty is that the English translation of the Japanese instructions is pretty poor.

As an example, rib A26 which is the outermost rib on the wing (at this point) has instructions that say to glue it on the "face" of the "frame", which begs the question of what on earth are they talking about.  What does "face" mean and this is the first (and only) use of the term "frame".

I know that this isn't a square wing Zero, so I looked ahead in the instructions to find out what the wing tip looked like and how it was installed to give me a clue about what to do with rib A26.

Here's what I found:

 

Note that the wing tip is built-up and is actually movable for aircraft carrier storage just like the real thing.  That means that A26 has to be at the outside edge of the lower wing skin for the wingtip to be flush when it's folded down.  If you look closely at the instructions above, it shows that correct orientation.

Now, I knew how to install A26:

 

And, just one last quick note.  I mentioned at the start of this build log that I was going to use RB productions seat belts for the pilot seat.  Well, I changed my mind after seeing the HGW item.  The RB item is great, but this HGW set is more pleasing to my eye.  You may feel differently.  Something to work on in my spare time LOL.

 

See you next time!

Edited February 21, 2014 by John F Smith

[Guest Peterpools]

John

Terrific progress on the Zero's wing. It's easy to see that one of the keys to building these kits is organization and patience. Totally enjoying the thread and learning the how to's as you go.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[gfiend]

Hi John,

 

I'm enjoying following your build and taking notes along the way.

 

I particularly like your idea of building the equivalent kit in plastic at the same time. I recently bought the 109F and would like to build it in tandem with the Hasegawa 109F-4 and all the associated aftermarket goodies. (I have a particular weakness for the 109F)

 

Originally I was going to keep everything natural metal but I'm now keen to paint the interior components. Your Mustang shows just how good this approach can turn out.

 

Keep up the great work

 

Paul

[Fabster]

Great Job!!!   I am not brave enough to even attempt to tackle a project like this.  I applaud your effort and excellent results

 

Fab!

[John F Smith]

Thanks Fab,  I really appreciate the support.

 

And, Paul, I'm thrilled to hear that you will be doing the 109F; I just received mine in the mail the other day and I'm planning on the same display as you.  I've bought the Hasegawa kit but, I haven't looked at either the IMCTH or it, so I'm clueless as to how that project is going to be.  I just know that I really enjoy working on these 'cutaway' models, and I'm planning on doing a whole series of them with the accompanying aircraft with skin and markings.

 

The possibilities are endless; the Hasegawa Sopwith Camel, the Model Airways kits, the vintage Hasegawa 1/8 museum series, even the new Eduard PE "Strip Down" versions... All of them are begging for this kind of treatment.

 

And, of course, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for more releases from IMCTH.  For example, wouldn't a Corsair "Fine Structure" look just great alongside the new Tamiya Corsair?

 

Cheers and happy modeling!

[Loic]

That's quite a kit you are tackling here and you are doing good !

Can not wait tosee more of it