Pretty Mediocre Modeller Posted September 23, 2016 Share Posted September 23, 2016 Hello again everyone,Now that the P-40 has been finished, I've moved onto the Zero from the same set. Again I've already build this kit once, back in December 2011, for the 60th Anniversary of Pearl Harbour, and had no problems then, so anticipate none now. The kit has good cockpit detail, with moulded on sidewall structure, a good seat, containing representations of lightning holes, and floor detail as well. Be careful with the joystick though as it is very fragile. The surface engraving is a little on the heavy side, this being one of Airfix's older new tool kits, but is fine for me, as I brush paint anyway, and that fills the panel lines. The only problem I have is that I have already built this scheme from the gift set boxing, but I have found a similar scheme on the internet, that only requires the coloured carrier bands to be changed, and the code and formation markings on the tail to be altered./media/tinymce_upload/a80232233cba9622e09d995bef109ec8.jpgThe kit contents. For the most part well moulded, except for a little flash around the engine cylinders,and some heavy mould seams on the one piece, slide moulded engine cowling, but these were easily cleaned up./media/tinymce_upload/207fd2e391e933ccdf8c5f23f19aece5.jpgThe fuselage and cockpit parts painted and ready for assembly. I used US interior green, dry brushed with light grey, details picked out in black. The instrument panel has three separate decals. The two part engine was painted black with a aluminium dry brush, and looks the part. Finally the part on the right is the top deck from in front of the cockpit,this is a separate part so as to include more detail, and also another part with the machine gun breaches fits on the bottom, and when assembled pokes through the cut outs in the instrument panel./media/tinymce_upload/7b10fdebd21ce5e8a2666d0f3f137258.jpgBefore cementing the wings together I painted the inside of the top wings black around the area of the spent cartridge case cut outs in the bottom wing to prevent naked plastic showing through. I also cut out the slot for the fuel tank./media/tinymce_upload/6dbf6af957d6c481fda219d33f53572b.jpgThe fuselage and wings assembled. The instructions would have you install the top deck piece in front of the cockpit after fixing the halves together, but I found during a dry fit that this was very problematic, so I assembled it to a fuselage half before joining them. That was the only fit issue I had./media/tinymce_upload/3d92697175ef7cb8a159c9d39a56f0a5.jpgThe basic airframe assembled. Again no fit issues, the only place a little filler may be needed is the underside join to the rear fuselage. That's it for this instalment. I'll post again soon with an update. Ps sorry about the image sizes John the Pom, I've had some issues reducing them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenneth ONeill Posted September 27, 2016 Share Posted September 27, 2016 I have the impression that Japanese (all services) colours were very standardised, so that only official unit markings would differentiate , say, aircraft from different IJN units, and kill markings just didn't happen.On the more general point about image sizes, they show as 924x524 pixels (full colour?). If you want to reduce the size, try loading them into Microsoft Paint, or maybe GIMP, and zooming them down that way, then save as JPEG under new file names. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pretty Mediocre Modeller Posted October 5, 2016 Author Share Posted October 5, 2016 The next step in my Zero construction was painting. For the main colour I used Xtracolour IJN Grey, which has a slight greenish tint. The colour provided in the set was Hu90 Sky Type S, and when I compared this to the 'official' colour they were both practically identical, apart from one being matt and the other gloss! Pretty soon I was ready for the decalling./media/tinymce_upload/009fdec0a17c281608326b712ce9ecc7.jpgAs I had changed the markings slightly the blue carrier bands were masked off and painted by hand. I wasn't sure if the decking under the canopy should have been in the airframe colour or cockpit colour, and after some research I came up with examples of both, so went with my gut and cockpit green./media/tinymce_upload/8e5acb84affed8544c8e723ee298a934.jpgYou may think the wheel wells are a strange colour, but apparently A6M's had their natural metal wells coated in a blue/green anti corrosion compound which I've tried to replicate, although I might have got it a bit bright./media/tinymce_upload/229cb524c6ade72f2ee9f1befeb68406.jpgDecals applied, mostly from the kit. The tail number was written onto clear decal film with a permanent marker. I wasn't to happy with this attempt and later removed it and had another go which has come out a bit better. I might have also left to large a gap between the blue bands, but to late now! After the decalling the last few bits and pieces went on like undercarriage and prop (which does not turn I'm afraid to say). I used a fine drill bit to open up the wing gun ports and hole for the pitot, then it was a coat of varnish and a little weathering and I have a pretty colourful addition to my collection./media/tinymce_upload/66140334da9ec58067d52cef023a9193.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/0a74291e5f961009dc827defedb6bc93.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/3ee1495cc07fd0efe3c606929fb65f64.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/903a9e2f27aa4f5ad06494f27cf636ca.jpgSeen with it's Dogfight Double partner the P-40B/media/tinymce_upload/295617c357d9a1291056736abacb3e90.jpgWith the 'Kate', how about a 'Val' Mr Airfix to complete the line up? This may not be the very best 1/72 A6M2 on the market, but it is well up there. The Airfix kit is a straightforward build and results in a nice looking model, and for value for money it can't be beaten in this scale, compared to competition from Japan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Discostu Posted October 6, 2016 Share Posted October 6, 2016 Mediocre modeller I think not, nice job of this dogfight doubles set. Cheers, Stuart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pretty Mediocre Modeller Posted October 6, 2016 Author Share Posted October 6, 2016 Mediocre modeller I think not, nice job of this dogfight doubles set. Cheers, Stuart. Thanks Discostu, but I always like to think that I have plenty of room for improvement! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joest962 Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 Excellent work!!!I am Japanese, so I am very grad to British "AIRFIX" develop my home country's fighter aircraft.I expect much from your good quality model from now on.PostScript:I must apologize for my crude sentences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Symmons Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 Hi PMP.Thanks for showing your build of the A6M2 Zero, Well done and a very nice build. I have one waiting in the wings & will be refering to your build when I eventually get round to building it. Looks especally good with the pairing you've done, looking forewards to seeing more.Now if only Airfix could do a release A6M2-N Ruff Float plane, Shouldn't take too much effort just add blanking-off parts for the wheel wells and add the floats, and you have what I consider to be the best looking Zero ever made.Remember we do this for fun John the Pom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussie Jeff Posted December 27, 2018 Share Posted December 27, 2018 Following on from my additions o PMM’s Warhawk thread I am now updating on the progress of my Zero.The colour for the cockpit internals was supposed to be ‘interior green’ which I didn’t have so, as I’m not a stickler for accuracy, I used a green I did have. These details don’t bother me at the moment and by the time everything is assembled you don’t see much of it anyway. The fuselage and engine went together well and I painted the engine matt black with silver ‘dry-brush’ highlights./media/tinymce_upload/9730fcf26ba9c00727cb0d5dd233496b.jpgThen it was onto the wing assembly which was a bit tighter than the Warhawk but I still clamped and braced until the cement fully cured. This reduced the gaps at the joins a bit – I haven’t got into using filler yet. The tailplane was assembled at the same time but I did omit fitting the engine cowl as I could fit this later once the bulk of the plane was painted./media/tinymce_upload/0b00c66e8d6eeeae4653e7c3ec9ec11e.jpgI purchased some new, better quality, brushes and what a difference that makes! The paint called for the plane was Hu90 (the same as used for the underside of Spitfires) and it went on like a dream. Only trouble was that I thought it didn’t look quite right so I mixed in a bit of white for the final coat to lighten things up a little./media/tinymce_upload/27736fddb5a43cf7426f295d26285d7e.jpgI had another go at painting up the pilot but I’m afraid all my pilots are beginning to look alike no matter what plane I’m building – oh well. Then there was the issue of fitting said pilot. There was no way I could get him settled into the seat so in the end I had to perform surgery by cutting his legs off below the knee. Problem solved. The painting of the canopy framework defeated me rather than totally mess it up I removed what paint I could and left it at that. The finished prop and cowling were dry fitted just to check alignment for later. The holes in the side of the drop-tank are for the display stand. I actually forgot to drill these out before I assembled the tank so I had to unassembled and reassemble which was a bit of a pain. These pics also show the lighter colour I ended up applying before putting on the decals./media/tinymce_upload/0d8398efb9078fdde960609add616342.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/5c431f18411b729caf068177833d6ee7.jpgOne of the new things I am trying is using Humbrol DecalFix and it seemed to go okay. I still dipped the decals in plain water but applied the DecalFix to the area required and adjusted placement with the brush. This is supposed to settle the decal into the panel lines, reduce ‘silvering’ and give a ‘painted on’ look. We’ll see about that./media/tinymce_upload/db346c99a1d2dc8498472d9dda352a97.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/6b07a08009a20803e8b632d7860fc564.jpgThen, as I normally do, I like to photograph the end result including some props. This time I used the box art (see below) as inspiration and found an image depicting the Pearl Harbour attack that I enlarged to use as a backdrop (you can see the tape) and staged the planes in a similar way. Thanks PMM for allowing me to add to your thread. Cheers, Jeff. /media/tinymce_upload/a925454b042eac850e2708ae00cb74e0.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/bea4bf4c2240d74a28034d58d2439db6.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joest962 Posted June 30, 2019 Share Posted June 30, 2019 Dear Mr.Aussie JeffYour "ZERO" is very cleanry finished.It is past I build "ZERO" made of HASEGAWA(1/72).Of course, I possess your "A6M2b ZERO" (A01005).Now I am building your "GLOSTER METEOR F8"(A09182).Next time I challenge AIRFIX's "ZERO". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now