Hello all! As you can tell by my profile I don't spend much time building things that don't get dirty. Or have tracks. Or big guns for that matter. However my first models were of aircraft, the old Monogram raised panel lines beasts of the 1980s. Occasionally I'd spring for a Hasegawa kit if I could afford it.

I still have a number of aircraft kits in my pile and just found out my five year old nephew has started to take an interest in old World War 2 aircraft, especially the "Tora Tora Tora ones" ( his words not mine). For his birthday in late October I'll be building the 1/48 Tamiya A6M5 (2008 release). From all I've read it is quite simply the new standard in Zero kits. Should be a fun build, and a nice change of pace from those grungy dirty armor builds.

Great choice, and indeed stay away from the Hasegawa kit, which DOES have a four inch shorter tail...

Gaston

Yup, a point I'm sure his 5-YEAR OLD nephew will totally lament with you Gaston when he is old enough to reach the keyboard. Really Gaston???

Jim

DO be careful and TEST FIT the wing gun inserts, it's the only weakness of this otherwise beautiful kit.

Should be a fun build, be sure to post a build blog so we can all follow along!

Doug

I'll have the first photos up tonight. I planned on having them up last night but this thing called real life reared its ugly head.

OK...so by "tonight" I of course meant tomorrow night, which is today, and I have some progress.

The kit is as advertised; flawless (mostly) Tamiya quality (I build quite a few of their 1/48 armor kits) and engineered like a dream.

That being said, I've only made a small dent in the build; namely the first two steps involving the instrument panel and the cockpit. Here are some photos of my progress:



I became intimately "refamiliar" with Micro Set and Micro Sol when applying the instrument face decals and the seat belt (I'm planning on a pair of the included pilots standing outside the plane). After they were settled in, I went over them with some Model Master Acryl Flat to remove the slight traces of decal film, and then added a drop of Future Floor Wax (yeah, my bottle is so old it still says "Future" on the label) to the face of each instrument panel. Old technique, but MAN do I like the results.





Some more of the cockpit area. If anybody knows a good Model Air/Model Color mix for XF-71 Cockpit Green, I'd be happy to find out. For some reason, when I go to paint4models.com the online chart times out. Maybe it's not up to date with the latest Flash version; not sure.
**EDIT:: I found an updated reference source for conversions and have the correct Model Color and Model Air paints.**












That's the update for now. I'll be out of town for the weekend, but fully intend on getting this one finished by the first week in October, for my nephew's birthday on October 25.