KIT #:	61016
PRICE:	CAD$16.00
DECALS:	Five options
REVIEWER:	Pablo Calcaterra
NOTES:

HISTORY

Scott recently previewed this kit. I can add that this is the venerable but surprisingly good 1973 Tamiya Zero. Details are not as complete as those like of Eduard but for me these are simple and accurate enough (for my standards!).

Instrument panel is a flat piece onto which a decal has to be applied. There are no holes in the seat while this has the straps molded into it.

Part count is very low but fit is also very good with only some issues that I will describe below.

Decal sheet is very good with 5 different Model 21 planes including that of Sakai.

After cleaning most of the parts I sprayed those for the landing gear, landing gear bay, engine and cockpit in Vallejo Light Grey Primer.

Cockpit parts were given a coat of Model Master Interior Green with boxes and throttles in black. Some details were picked in red per pictures found on line. The decal for the instrument panel was attached using a dilution of Future.

After marking the position with a pin I gently and slowly opened the holes on the seat (I started to see some white crack lines forming on the plastic towards the end of the process!) The seatbelts were made with a combination of foil taken from a bottle of wine and painted in a beige colour with buckles made of small rectangles of aluminum foil.

With the cockpit ready everything was enclosed in the fuselage halves that had a very good fit.

Landing gear bays and interior of the engine cowling were painted in a mix of aluminum with some drops of dark blue, building the colour in thin layers.

Engine was painted aluminum and then a very diluted mix of water and black was applied with a brush and let it run over all the grooves and parts of it.

I had to open a hole (only marked) for a vent (?) that comes from the engine straight down thru the intake at the end of the engine under the nose.

Wings were attached and some gaps were found between top of wings and fuselage and behind the wings under the fuselage. The first were covered with strips of Evergreen followed by some Tamiya and Vallejo plastic putty. The latter was fixed with some sanding and several coats of Tamiya putty.

Some rescribing had to be done at top and bottom of fuselage as I had to sand these areas a bit to get a smooth surface.

Tail planes were attached with no issues. Cowling halves were glued in place.

With all the openings masked (cockpit with foam) and the wheel bays and engine cowling with blue tac (a very good method I find as it is very accurate and leaves no gaps) the plane was ready for painting.

I primed the model with Vallejo Light Grey Primer. For the fabric covered surfaces I sued a mix of 10 drops of Vallejo Hemp with 3 drops of Light Grey primer and 1 drop of Vallejo Sand Yellow. One it had dried I masked them.

The plane was painted with a mix of Vallejo Hemp 871040 with some drops of Vallejo Sand Yellow 270817 (to give it a caramel tone). Ratio was 20:2 (probably should have used 20:1).

The engine cowling was painted with a mix of Vallejo Black and Vallejo Dark blue 70.899 in a 12:4 ratio.

Propeller was painted aluminum with the back face in a mix of brown and red brown. Wheels were painted with Vallejo Dark Grey Primer.

I then added the landing gear legs having removed the Blue Tac masks.

After several light coats of Quick Shine it was time to apply the decals.

I used the information seen in profile #6 from Eagles and printed the numbers and text on the fuselage on clear decal paper. As the company/group that had donated the money for this plane is unknown I used the text from profile #7 in the same book. Not accurate but better than 3 black squares as seen in profile #6. I also printed the manufacture code of the plane 1640 and after looking for a similar font in PowerPoint I found one that was very close to those seen in the book. With this font I printed V-104.

I stated by adding the large text on the fuselage. Using it as a reference I cut small sections of the red band for the Akagi Zero supplied by Tamiya and created the red V on the fuselage. Then it was the turn of the manufacturer information close to the tail followed by the meat balls. I had to reprint V-104 because I had applied a coat of Decal solution that was too thick and it developed white areas on top of the black ink. Once these were reprinted I applied them to the tail followed by 1640 inside the manufacturer plate close to the tail (I had removed the Tamiya supplied number as they give you a single but this number was different for each plane!)

The engine was attacked to the cowling which in turn was added to the fuselage. Navigation lights were painted in Chrome Silver and then clear red and green. Formation light on the tail cone was painted Chrome Silver.

Placing the plane upside down I started by adding the wheels followed by the landing gear doors, the arresting hook, painting the small details on the tail wheel, the air intake after the engine and the drop tank that I dirtied a bit around the cap using extremely thinned dark paint.

Moving to the top I corrected the colour of the fuselage under the canopy per Scott’s directions (black instead of green), bent up the aluminum made cocking handles for the machine guns that I had scratch built, cut a small rectangle of clear plastic for the gunsight and added the windshield, back of the canopy and with some white glue the hood. A drop of black paint very diluted with Vallejo Thinner was used to apply some dirt on a very few access panels on the wings. I know…it looks too clean…let’s assume it represents the plane when it arrived in New Guinea.

Finally, it was time to add the pitot and add the propeller. The last detail was to paint in red the landing gear position indicators.

Remember…no antenna mast or loop…these Zeros had no radios (nor parachutes!) to save weight.

CONCLUSIONS

Simple, no headaches. Tamiya…without having to be a Museum quality model like Edward’s. A pleasure to build the Zero that I wanted for my “Air War over Port Moresby combo”

PS: In parallel I built the traditional Matchbox Zero. (See the above image) Memory lane…building again a kit that I put together 50 years ago…but this time using the proper tools (no heavy brush streaks of thick white Humbrol paint…). The only deviation from the instructions was the propeller (in aluminum with the black I red brown).

REFERENCES