Mitsubishi A6m2b Zero

Chris Parsons
Nice start

Gordon Sørensen
Made a start on the cockpit with some styrene strips to represent the fuselage formers and square pieces of styrene card stock to represent the radios/instruments. I read (somewhere….) that the Zero interior colour was very similar to the RAF cockpit green. I have 3 tinlets of the stuff, so RAF green is it! 🙂
I cut the wingtips off. The wingtip and end of the wing is solid plastic, so planning on drilling a couple holes to represent the ribs on each piece. Just have to think of a way to mount them…

Chris Parsons
Try gluing wire to the insides of the upturned wingtips (as posts) drill matching holes in the wing upper surface and slide the posts into the holes…that could even allow for slight angle adjustments bending the posts…? Makes sense (I hope)

Gordon Sørensen
Good idea Chris, I was thinking of using Staples. Stiff enough and bendable.

Chris Parsons
Good plan, great minds and all that eh

Gordon Sørensen
Wingtip detail. Drilled the Lightning holes in the wingtip and mainwing. Used a piece of wine for the hinge. Think a staple would look better though, being flat.

Jan Peters
Great start, following this one 🙂

Guy Rump
Looking good 👍

Chris Parsons
Looking good! As to the hinge…perhaps an off cut of scrap photo etch? Like the corner piece of a fret that has a skinny or narrow right angle? I'm sure you'll find something you're happy with.

Gordon Sørensen
Decided a staple would provide the strength to hold the wingtip, without being too 'out of scale'.
First coat of Tamiya Fine Primer on. Need to touch up the wing leading edge a bit.
Finished the seat. Kit didn't supply one, so cast one and dressed it up to resemble a Zero seat.
Painted the prop, and promptly broke one of the blades off trying to remove the masking…

Gordon Sørensen
Painted with Tamiya XF-76 Grey-green, which went on beautifully. Unfortunately it looks way more green than Grey. So, I bought some AK RC303 to paint over. There was some sort of weird reaction between the two paints. Soooo, stripped all that off and started over with only the AK. Didn't like this colour and I couldn't get a nice even coverage. Should have re-primered in White first - lesson learned. Stripped that off…
Primered once again, this time I used Humbrol 168 Hemp. Happier with this colour and finish.

Charlie Spitfire
are the wing tips folded

Gordon Sørensen
Razor-sawed the wingtips off to make them folded. Thought it might look neat. The newer moulded kit by Airfix does have this option.
Broke the right main gear leg 4 times, because the plastic was very brittle. Ended up cutting the leg off just above the lower mounting tab and replacing it with styrene rod.
The antenna included is way too short, so cut a new one out of styrene sheet. The wire is EZ-Line Thin. Great stuff!
Finally happy with the paint, although looking online about the 'correct' colour is opening a can of worms.
Used the decals from a Hasegawa boxing.
But…. finished.

Villiers de Vos
Very nice.

Chris Parsons
Beautiful job Gordon
Now do your 1900