Hasegawa 1/48 A6M1

John, great job on that kit! I like the color, and I think you are right to minimize the weathering. All the accounts I have read indicate the airplane was pretty trouble free, aside from the brakes and the vibration issues that the 3 blade prop solved. So, there wouldn't be any visible mods one could model such as added area to a wing or stabilizer, or a cowl scoop riveted on.

Nice job on the canopy as well, it is hard to get a 1/48 Zeke's frames delicate enough to look right.

 You can be proud of that one!

I love it John. Yours is the only one I have seen build. I did not even know until recently that there was a kit of this bird. Very well done you are to modest..

                                                                                 Soulcrusher 

This one is ready for the display case.  I see I forgot to paint the tail light.  Oh well.  Someday.  This is just a nice kit and I think a great effort to make an accurate kit with all the needed options and great fit. 

The model has a monochromatic look, but I want it to represent the airplane as it was on its initial test flight so I did not do any weathering.  Hopefully it looks as it did when Jiro Horikoshi described its color as a dimly shining Ash Green.  To get the dimly shining look I mixed a little Tamiya flat base in with the Future top coat.  There was no overcoat prior to decals, I just applied Future in decal locations.

I painted strips of decal for the canopy framing, and painted the perimeters only on the canopy parts.  Now what will be next.  One down and still thousands to go.

Decals were very nice in this kit, too.

Nicework you have going on there, John!!

Take care,

Frank

Great stuff John, I like the Aotaki bluey colour in the wheel wells, what did you use to achieve that? I like the grey -green top colour as well. This is deffo shaping up to a 'must see' build.

...Guy

Thanks for the head-on view, Ashley.  I'm too far along to do the intake ducts, cowl and engine are assembled.  Unless I can find some parts in the scrap bin that can just be inserted.  We'll see.

I have the fuselage painted, so here are some photos, one color, the other in 8-bit black and white.   The color shift is dramatic, I would not have thought it would come out this way.  Jiro Horikoshi called the color "dimly shining Ash Green" in his book, and it is easy to see why the conventional wisdom indicated early Zeros were grey, since common photos were black and white.  The paint I used is Aeromaster Nakajima interior gray green.

The air intake would bee all internal, under the cowl. Google Image the Laird Super Solution, and you will see this arrangement, only at the bottom of the Laird's cowl. I incorporated mine more into the lip

The aileron counterweights are kind of confusing, but neither prototype Zuiesei powered airplane had them. They came about as a band-aid. On the 127th airframe, an A6M2, they tried to lighten the roll stick forces by installing servo tabs on the ailerons. One of the modified airplanes (#140) shed its ailerons in a dive after the pilot noticed skin wrinkles in the wing during high G, and decided to investigate further. So, the test pilots tried dives with an airplane which had the servo tabs, and one with the original, bendable trim tabs. The servo tab bird disintegrated midair. These external bob weights were retrofitted to all the airplanes in service, whether they had servo tabs or not because the fleet pilots were spooked by this time.

When you are modeling a Model 21, you really have to go with references because these balance weight and tab configurations were all over the place, and you can't make a generalization.

We'll need to tackle that A6M8 later, that kit has some problems, too!

John, this build is looking oh so good! I think from now on, I'm just going to shelve any conversion ideas and wait until Hasegawa releases the kit! I currently have the trainer versions and the A6M8 under way, and the devils released kits of both!

I noticed Hasegawa elected not to address the air intake issue in this kit. I have a book  of engineering drawings of the Zero fighter, and one shows a Y shaped intake plenum on a Zuisei engine installation. I modeled this by filing two rectangular slots in the upper lip of the cowl, about the 10 and 1 o'clock positions, then boxing them in with styrene. These would lie just outside of the gun troughs, and the plenum ran over the cylinders until it cleared the rear bank, then curved downward and inward to join into a single intake pipe attached to the carb on the rear accessory section so as to clear the gun troughs.

I think this kit provides you the option for a two-blade or three-blade propeller. From what I can find, they did install a three-blade on the Zuisei engine to combat vibration, but it is imposible to determine exactly when that occured in relation to changes in the oil cooler configuration and the anti-spin strakes.

But, ain't that the fun of modeling a prototype? By definition, the thing changes appearance almost every day as the flight test data comes in! By the way, love your builds, you are indeed a skilled modeler and it's a pleasure to watch your work!

The big parts are together.  It does take some careful fitting of a few parts to avoid gaps in a few places, just because of the optional parts that are necessary to allow building of both prototypes at different points in their lives.  With a little care things fit very well.  I filled the spots where the aileron counterweights attach, filled and rescribed the inboard ends of the ailerons and the outboard flaps.  The optional parts are for the oil cooler types, and they have to fit in the wheel wells, at the leading edge wing roots, and the front lower fuselage.  I used the eyeball method to get it right and avoid a misfit in the wheel wells.  There is a lot of detail there which would not like any filling and sanding.  There aren't any pins or ledges that estabish the right location, but it's not that hard.  I painted the wheel wells Aotake, and the oil cooler burnt metal, and sealed them with liquid mask.

I am using colors according to J-Aircraft.com which concludes that the early Zero's were not Gray, but a color that is most closely matched by Aeromaster Nakajima Interior Gray Green, not gray as is most often seen.  It is said this color looks gray in black and white photos.  I guess I will take some pictures and convert them to black and white and see what it looks like.  Looks a lot like a North African airplane right now, the top surfaces are painted.  I'm going to have to do more filling at the stabilizer/fuselage join, it is more evident than it should be right now. The last photo is this series has the Nakalima color on the nose, with the Mitsubishi interior green further back around the cockpit.

looking great so far john,

keep it up,it looks like a good kit.

jason.

Very nice work on the Pit John.  Keep us posted.

Regards,  Rick

Nice start to a good looking bird.

Thad

Hey jeaton! You'll have fun with this little kit! I picked up one the other day, and they did a pretty good job on the fuselage. It has a new rear canopy, all the right oil coolers and a new radio mast. Still has a couple of issues, though. You may want to correct the wings. The ailerons are molded with a combination of fixed trim tabs and servo tabs, so the lines that represent the servo tabs need to be filled at the very least. To be spot on, the ailerons actually need to be shortened by one rib bay from the inboard end, and the flaps lengthened accordingly. As far as the cannon drum blisters on the bottom, I chose to get rid of them, but you are certainly free to install weapons on yours, if you are in a particularly belligerent mood.

They included two ventral spin recovery strakes as well. It started out with one large one, then got two rather like the later Lears. I've never seen documentation on the shape and exact placement of these, so I'd be willing to take Hasegawa's research at face value.

 Post lots of pics, often!

That should be a cool build John. I have always been partial to the A6M2 painted in the early overall grey with the blue-black colored engine cowl. I saw one of these on eBay and almost grabbed it. Looking foward to seeing more pics. What is the overall finish of the airplane?

                                                                                           Soulcrusher