Hasegawa 1/48 Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero (Zeke) Type 52

[Willem]

Well, after facing a set back with my entry for the Shiny Things SIG, I thought I'd start something new and build a Zero.

The kit. I love Hasegawa artwork.



Instructions. Quite busy but looking like a fairly quick build.







Two schemes offered and I think I'll do the carrier-borne aircraft at the bottom.



The plastic.













Decent level of detail.

Decals. Often a weakness in Hasegawa kits but I may try to mask to hinamarus.



Some extras that I bought along with the kit (been in the stash a while now).








Made a start on the cockpit sub-assemblies and the engine this evening and they are now primed ready for cockpit colours and metallics.





I don't know very much about Japanese aircraft so I'll learn as I go. Looking forward to adding a Zero to my completed builds.

Thanks for looking.

[pourquoi61]

Looking good so far mate.

[Lysus]

[Willem]

Cheers fellas.

I've not had a lot of time but this kit isn't so complex.

Cockpit parts were painted using a camo green colour that is probably inaccurate and then dry-brushed and given oil washes. The engine was masked off and received a couple of coats of Alclad dark aluminium followed, once again, with an oil wash.



The cockpit was assembled and then sandwiched between the fuselage halves. Quite a dainty little airframe. Silver pencil to give an idea of scale.



Realising that I hadn't taken any pics of the cockpit etch, I've taken these to give some idea. I don't think much will be visible once the canopy is on.





Wings were assembled. There are some alterations to wing details that I need to do for my chosen scheme but shouldn't be a problem.



A dry-fitting of the wings to fuselage revealed some big gaps at the wing root.







Not too much of a problem. Scrap plastic strip was used to pack the gaps and filler was applied then wiped away using a damp cotton bud.





I've also added the stabilisers at the rear and the airframe now looks like this so far.



My mind is on what I want to achieve with the paintwork now.

Thanks for taking a look.

[Avgas]

[Goose]

Hi will,

I've also got a zero from hasegawa in the stash, began it long time ago and stopped by lack of time but everything was fine, no gaps no nothing almost a click-fitting kit.

hope everything will be fine when i'll tackle it back

The only thing thaht appears compulsory to me is the canopy masks because doing it by hand is a nightmare

Enjoy the rest of the build

Bruno

[Willem]

Thanks chaps.

On to the painting stage and the airframe was given a coat of Alclad grey primer.



Inside of the cowling primed.



Prop assembled, tidied up and primed.



Tamiya metallic blue, pretty pretty. I find it hard to restrain myself when I've loaded the colour cup with this beautiful colour. Perhaps I should build a car at some point.





So this is where I'm kind of winging it. I like looking at pristine Zeroes and I also like Zeroes that are heavily weathered. The aircraft I'm building was part of a carrier air wing that often were operated from land bases so it's going to look used.

I've used Alclad white aluminium on wing panels, prop, leading edges and some forward fuselage panels. Could be too bright but bear with me on this.





Quite hard to see against the grey primer.

The turtle deck was given a Vallejo pale green and other parts of the airframe were painted in the same colour.





What I'm aiming to get is three shades showing through the top paint- the primer, the metallic, and a paler green. It also means a chipping agent and at the moment I'm considering hairspray (never used this before, not even on my hair) or salt chipping (my only previous experience of which I wasn't completely convinced although I will tweak my method a bit).



I'm also going to post shade again as that seems to work for me and use oil dot filters again. Going to get messy on my bench.



PS Tidy job Wales!

[Always48]

Will that zero is looking the biz. such a iconic aircraft that just looks so good battle worn. cant wait till the day i get me paws on building on, till then im glued to watching this bad boy come together.

[Willem]

Cheers Alan. Enjoying following your epic thread too.

Short update as work has kept me busy.

Got some Tamiya grey on the underside. I didn't have the number called out so I just picked one.

Gave the underside a couple of coats and then highlighted panels with a very thin mix of Tamiya white.



Sprayed a darker mix into panel lines.



Then misted another thin mix of the original grey over the top.



Painted the prop using Alclad aluminium, Tamiya yellow for the tips that were then masked of with thin tape and Tamiya dark earth over the top. I chipped the paint with a toothpick while it was not quite dry.



I decided to give the hair spray trick a try. The cowling is my test bed so it received a couple of Alclad coats followed by some cheapo hair spray. I then painted Tamiya rubber black onto the cowling and once dry, I brushed water on then attacked it with an old and flat, stiff brush.











Not too bad for a first go. The beauty of this technique is that it takes some effort to scrub away at the top coat before it comes off therefore giving you time to step back and evaluate the effect. Looking forward to doing the same on the topside of the fuselage now.

[Lysus]

Wow, that looks awesome! I really want to try a zero some day just to do this, could only hope it comes out half as good as yours. Great job, dude!

[TommyKillander]

Awesome!

Looking good sofar, keep up the good work!

The prop and cowling looks amazing


Tommy

[Nev]

Looking awesome Will! Picking up some handy tips here

[privatepete]

Hi Will looking good so far, don't known how you plan guys paint those cockpit's there brilliant , I have trouble with a hole tank ,good luck with the rest of the build. I'm having bash to though I get back in the saddle so to speak

[Willem]

Thanks for all the comments guys. Very much appreciated.

Further hair spray adventures.

Feeling quite pleased with how the cowling turned out I turned to the topside. I had dipped the canopy parts in clear and this had tidied them up quite nicely. Here is a dry fit.



The R/T mast comes through the canopy so needs to be glued in place first. This I did then dry fitted the rear canopy to hold it in place while the glue dried.



After it had set in place I removed the canopy and hand painted the mast. Bit of a boring morning masking up but would have been so much more painful if I hadn't used a mask set.



Used a tiny bit of sponge to mask the aperture at the rear.



I sprayed the cockpit frames with the interior colour then used rubber black to add some depth.



First came the cheap hair spray then Tamiya IJN green.



Panel centres were picked out by adding a drop of yellow to the mix then panel lines were given a thin coat of rubber black.



Then a very diluted (more tinted thinner than paint) mix of the original was sprayed over.



This was left to dry for a few hours then I soaked the paint in water and scrubbed away with a number of old brushes. Cowling is just a dry fit for now.















I lost the tiny actuators/aileron horn balancers? that go on the wings some days ago so these were replaced with some scrap plastic.

Unmasked the underside and there is a touch up or two to do. This will need some staining and chipping too but I'm thinking of going in with a sponge and using a dark grey.



So there it is. Sorry for the long post.

I think I was trying too hard to be random but I like how different shades come through. I'm not totally sold but there will be markings, filters and pastels to break things up a bit. I've also realised that I forgot the yellow leading edges so I'll have to spray those in and weather separately.

Thanks for looking.

[privatepete]

Hi Will, love the weathering affect you got also some serious tap work ,its certainly coming to live now keep up the good work

[martin57]

just read through your thread Will, you have made an excellent job , loving the weathering.
Grat all round job

[Willem]

Cheers guys.

Bit of a long update, I'm afraid.

Got on with glossing and decaling. Decided that I wasn't going to spray the markings as I'm lazy. To be fair, the Hasegawa decals were ok though I cut the tail numbers and stripes into several pieces to avoid too much carrier film and the same goes with the wing walk markings.









Of course, I forgot the leading edges so I carefully masked up and sprayed white then yellow. I then weathered these with a sponge.

















I tried a bit of decal sanding though I got carried away on one trailing edge. Will have to do some sneaky dry brushing.



After leaving a flat coat to dry overnight it was on with the oils.







They worked ok on the wings but something went wrong on the fuselage and it took the flat coat off so I reapplied a flat coat and used pastels here instead.



I unmasked the cockpit and some paint came off with the mask. Should have gone round the frames with a new blade.





There is also a little bit of overspray on the insides.

On with the exhausts. I painted these on the sprue using Alclad exhaust manifold.



Added the nose guns and glued the cowling on.



Here you can see my clumsy attempt at retouching the canopy. Shouldn't have had a third coffee this morning but I'll tidy it up with a cocktail stick later.











The prop is just a push fit for now.









It's a lovely little kit to put together. The build has been fun and I'm not aiming to mess around any more with the weathering as it seems to have reached a place where I'm kind of happy although it's not quite the picture I had in my head.

Underside to finish off and odds and sods to add but I'm putting it to one side as I'm going away for a few days. Thanks for sticking with a long update.

[Lysus]

Paint is marvelous. I need to try that--dot filter?--some day. And yeah, that third cup of coffee...it always seems like a good idea. It talks to you, "drink me," and you think, sure--one more sounds great.

20 minutes later you wish you hadn't.

[OliveDrab]

The Zero is looking so AWESOME! The chipping effect is superb
Oh, and painting canopies scares the heck out of me, which is probably why I've only built one aircraft recently

[Avgas]

Looking great Will. Chipping is excellent. What do you reckon to the dot filtering? Haven't tried it yet.

[Willem]

Looking great Will. Chipping is excellent. What do you reckon to the dot filtering? Haven't tried it yet.

Thanks, Dave. Oil dot filtering is something that I've used twice now. I think that I go at it like a Bull in a China shop but I'm sure, with some more practise, that subtler effects can be achieved. I use Windsor and Newton's and odourless thinners.

Thanks Lysus and Olivedrab. Dudes.

[Willem]

Probably the final build update on this as I've been busy on this build over the last two days.

Lysus calls these greebles, I call them odds n sods and, one of these days, I'm going to learn how to prime and paint them during the build rather than at the very end.



The wheels are a resin set.







I thought about how to display this model as my tatty old general base just didn't seem right. One late night internet shop later.........



Stop laughing at the back. It's an old Eduard section of Japanese Carrier deck for a fiver. Yes, it's mahoosive. Yes, it is 1/48.

Spot the sink mark. Not too much of a problem to sand and fill though there is some quite nice detail that has been lost.







I primed the base (and some garden furniture as collateral damage) with a rattle can of Halfords grey primer and sprayed some Tamiya dark earth as a base colour.



Next up; deck tan.



Then sprayed the elevator section with a series of greys.



Just another check for size.... yep, still too big. I've had to change my camera settings too.





I wanted to add taxi ways etc so I measured and masked up.







Followed by several coats of flat white. Although the weather has been hot over the last few days, I keep a cheap hair dryer by the bench to reduce drying times. The base has been glossed using an old bottle of Johnson's Klear as I wasn't going to use half a bottle of Aqua gloss. Next up is a clay wash for the base followed by flat then scuffs, chipping etc. I'm not too bothered by the size as I've really enjoyed my first WW2 Japanese aircraft and I think it would be nice to add a 'Kate' or 'Val' to the deck too but not yet.

The Zero is virtually done as all it needs is a bit of dry brushing here and there and the wingtip lights.

So, hopefully, the reveal will be some time tomorrow.

Thanks for all the comments and, as always, I've really enjoyed taking part and building along with some amazing modellers and friends.

[Lysus]

Lysus calls these greebles, I call them odds n sods and, one of these days, I'm going to learn how to prime and paint them during the build rather than at the very end.

You and me both, man. I ALWAYS seem to have a bevy of wheels and stuff left undone--I get so wrapped up in the main part of the kit I just forget about them.

At first that base seemed comically large, but honestly once the plane is on it and with your splendid painting it looks perfect, a machine in context. How's your shelf space?

Again. awesome work.

[demarcation]

Fantastic work mate. Weathering looks spot on!!