1/32 Tamiya A6M5 Zero Part - 1

by Adrian Koh

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Here is my rendition of the Tamiya 1/32 A6M5 Zero (standard edition) – The kit was lying about in the closet with the rest of my stack of “nothing to build”. I started this kit some time in February last year then lost inspiration after cementing the fuselage halves together and installing the cockpit as I had started on a 1/32 Hasegawa Oscar and wanted to make a resin copy of the Sakae engine’s cylinders and backend using the Zero’s. Unfortunately I misplaced the front end row of cylinders so shelved the whole thing till about 3 months ago while on a trip to Tokyo managed to convince the kind folks at Tamiya Japan to send replacement sprues (2 of them) to my favourite hobby store (yellow submarine at Akihabara’s Radio Kaikan building 7th floor).

Searching for inspiration again after the brief hiatus, I set to work on the engine yet again and completed that mass using the very good Eduard set for additional details. I also had a reference engine rear detail by CMK as a basis for additional detailing and locators for various hoses, pipes and control rods. The rest progressed easily  with the wheel bays detailed again with Eduard, as was the cockpit. I scratchbuilt a number of brackets and hose attachment points but all of it becomes quite invisible inside the dark interior of the plane.

The gun sight was scratchbuilt using the kit part as a base and replacing the lenses with 0.1mm clear film and some Eduard photo etch from the leftovers box. I also installed an “aurora” lens from M-Workshop “ http://www.themworkshop.com/index.php “ that when you look through the gun sight will look as if an image is projected on the reflector glass.

Initially I had the landing gear in working condition to facilitate painting.

Painting:

Paints used: Gunze Lacquers – Dry fast, go on beautiful and very “hot” meaning they take to the plastic extremely well and are not affected by other paints (such as enamels, oils etc) – The downside is that they are very difficult to hand paint, so everything using Gunze lacquers were shot through my Tamiya Pro-Con  at medium pressure.

First coat after surface preparation was Gunze Silver (H8) and let to dry for about fifteen minutes – with the aid of a hairdryer (Lacquers dry from the inside –out meaning when the surface is dry, it is dry!, as opposed to enamels that dry from the outside in). I used Eduard’s paint mask set to mask and spray the Hinomarus and other details including wing walks and leading edge yellow identifiers, and those pretty coloured bars on the landing gear to give a visual indication on the state of compression on the oleos.

All of these were masked off then the first coat of Gunze IJN Mitsubishi Green straight out of the jar. I lightened the coat with Gunze Tan and randomly sprayed between the panel lines to give a post-shading effect. Followed by even lighter coats sprayed at random at LOW pressure and high dilution. Then I airbrushed H35 IJN gray on the undersides.

Chipped paint:

Actually quite simple – I have tried this with ENAMELS and FAILED! But you can look at my results with Gunze Lacquers and decide for yourself…. First step is to get fresh Tamiya masking tape OR wider tape (the Japanese Yellow coloured stuff) from 3M and firmly pat down on the surface. The edge of the tape should sit directly on a panel line. One very quick tug should get some of the paint off. You have to repeat this procedure until the desired amount of paint has been removed.

Additionally you can “guide” the chipping by using a scalpel blade and scrape off some of the top layer till you come to the silver paint. This should be really small nicks and best along rivet lines or next to panel lines. Cover with tape and pull again. This should encourage more of the paint to come off. When you are happy with the level of paint chipping you can take your time with the wash. I use MIG production’s premixed wash – a brown / black solution that needs to be shaken up really well before use. This highlights the panel lines and any rivet holes. I use an old t-shirt to clean off the wash and because Gunze is REALLY “hot”, have no problem of the original paint being affected. Typically I then buff the model up using Tamiya rubbing compound again applied with the t-shirt (do not use much of it as it would then clog up any surface detail and appear “white” – not good!...

Whole model was top-coated with Gunze’s Clear top coat (flat) lacquer spray (in the can) light coats please!

Final weathering – using a super fine brush and Tamiya Enamels XF-16 Flat aluminium, I simulated more paint chips – especially along rivet lines to blend everything in. Exhaust stains were brown / flat black shot through the airbrush very thin, very low pressure. Followed by tan + H35 also very thin and very low pressure, finally touching up with flat black (also extremely thin) to cover up any mistakes.

Landing gear was finally dropped and super-glued into place just as the ailerons, elevators, rudder and flaps. The transparent parts were then fitted on and the plane made ready for the shelf. I still have a couple of tiny parts to put on like bomb racks under the wings, the drop tank and some other odds and ends. That will come in Part - 2  

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I hope you enjoyed this article. Special thanks to Murayama and Kuroda of Yellow Submarine Akihabara Tokyo for the weathering idea.

Materials:

Kit: Tamiya 1.32 A6M5 Zero

Aftermarket accessories: 

  • Eduard Big 1/32 A6M5

  • CMK A6M5 Zero Engine Details

  • Pas-i-struct 0.4mm round styrene rod

  • 0.3mm solder, G-Wave 0.4mm springs, 0.8mm springs 2.2mm spring set. 1/24 ignition wire for Car-kits (yellow and black)

References: 

  • Model art Zero Sen

  • Aero Detail: A6M Zero

  • Tamiya Modelling Magazine (December 2002)

Adrian 

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Photos and text © by Adrian Koh