This has been in my stash way before I started on my first two Hasegawa kits. I'm glad I built the Hasegawa ones first to learn the proper basics because this one has way more parts, hence more chances of mistakes if I chose to build this first.

Anyway, let's kick off with the usual first step, the cockpit. There are already 11 pieces to be assembled for the cockpit area itself which is about 2 cm x 1 cm.

I'm a bit surprised how Tamiya's plastic seem to be less forgiving with cement. I never saw that much melting in my Hasegawa builds.

Anyway this is all ready for painting, but I haven't glued the front part yet since I still have to apply the instrument panel decals. Plus before I can paint I still have to attach all the other tiny parts on the cockpit side walls.



So I just got done attaching all the cockpit side wall parts.



Gotta love the humongous amount of work that Tamiya placed into these cockpit parts. I've even got spare pieces because not all of the parts were used (I bet the others were for the other models of the Zero)

Sadly, even with the option for an open canopy, there's only so much you can see even with the use of a flashlight and magnifying glass. Nonetheless I wish push through with painting the cockpit parts just so I can see how much much you can actually see once the model is finished.



And what I love most about this kit is the fitting. After working on 20-year-old Hasegawa Zeros, the Tamiya series is a definite wonder to build. I did a temporary dry fitting and the parts fit in quite well with almost no wiggle room at all.



So I airbrushed the interior green, handpainted some black parts, did a quie messy panel line wash, then applied the instrument panel decals.



Then I applied a mixture of clear blue + silver for the aotake. The ones applied on the floor and the fuselage walls are very hardly visible, but the aotake for the tail wheel well is very essential.



Somehow I lost one of those very tiny parts that you put on top of the wing. Morale down, so I'm taking a little break to regroup and see what I'll do about it. Most likely I will just finish the model without it because it's very hard to replicated. Even my tweezers can hardly hold it.

So here's what I did with the lost part.

First of all, here's how tiny the said lost part was. Check it out, they're so small even a pair of tweezers have trouble handling them!



So I took out some styrene sheets and cut a bit of sprue just to imitate those little nubs. I thought it was better to try to fabricate crud-looking ones than leaving the space empty.



Now I'm back to the regular building process although I might have to cancel my plan to make this into a Pearl Harbor Zero and just do a Rabaul one since it's one of the 5 additional markings that came with the kit. I want my first Pearl Harbor Zero to look good but somehow the missing part mishap is kinda bothering me. Maybe I can decide on a color scheme once I've placed the primer coat.

UPDATE:

I've managed to finish most of the construction. I love how the landing gear assembly fits together, allowing me to see that I wouldn't be having alignment problems in the final assembly. Only fitting issue I found here was the aerial mast which cannot stand on its own spot unless you glue it or insert the rear part of the canopy.



Some progress from last weekend. I've managed to prime the kit with my usual Mr. Surfacer 1200 thinned with Tamiya Lacquer thinner. Before this I had filled the entire cockpit with wet paper towel as some sort of masking. I'm just hoping that the cockpit will be okay once I remove the masking when I'm done, especially the seat belt decal!



Then I've airbrushed the black-blue for the cowling and cockpit decking, and then the yellow stripes for the leading edge of the wings. I masked the leading edges with Tamiya masking tape, and it's my first time using Silly Putty where the leading edge and wing roots meet. Very good product, easy to mold and it doesn't leave a residue like Blu-Tack.



And I just finished masking the canopy as well.



One of the things I don't like about this tooling is that two of the cowl flaps (where the exhausts are) are in one piece with the oil cooler intake. You've got two small flaps that needs to get painted black-blue while the middle intake part needs to painted in gray. Nothing a little masking can't fix, but for my next Tamiya Zero I might paint this piece separately.




That's it for now. My next aim would be to airbrush in some white stripes on the upper and lower wing surfaces, and then mask them. After that, I will be back on familiar ground with airbrushing the olive gray for the bottom and dark green on the upper surface.

some minor progress for this weekend. I painted the white on the top and the underside of the wings and then used some tape to mask the diagonal stripes. Then the underside was airbrushed with the usual IJN olive gray.



Next week I will be retouching the canopy decking, and then it's time for the dark green. for the upperside, canopy, and the spinner. I'm taking a long time between colors simply because I've had to mask parts so I had to wait hours for the paint to cure. Good thing I'm working on a Fujimi Judy as well.

Current progress:

Masked the gray undersides during the weekdays.



I just finished painting the dark green top today. The thing I didn't like about this kit is that two of the cowling panels are in one piece with the oil cooler scoop. I had to do major masking (see second photo) just so I could airbrush those two panels. I could handpaint it, but the finish wouldn't be consistent with the rest of the cowling.



I've also just removed the masked white stripes. I wanted to airbrush them and the yellow leading edge stripes instead of using decals.



As for the cockpit, I'm glad there was no damage or anything to the paint and decals because I used wet paper towels to mask the entire cockpit off a few weeks ago.

Here is the current look of the Zero with all the masks removed. I've just applied gloss coat on this in preparation for the decals application.

Hi Vincent,

You have there a nice looking zero.

It brings me memoirs of the first airplane I made (Tamiya zero with the floating devices) back in Indonesia in the 80s.

Best regards,
Angel

thank you, Angel.

I can pretty much see the light at the end of the tunnel. Decals have been applied and every color has been painted on.

So far the only mishap that got in my way was some silver paint that got in my finger, and then got transferred to the starboard side of the tail and a little bit at the trailing edge of the starboard wing. I will have to do a little retouch on those before I apply the tail code decals. And then all that's left would be a final flat coat, assembling the entire thing, and taking off the canopy decals to finish.

This has been finished last week, but I only got to take the proper photos just now. I love the fittings on this kit; the landing gear struts needed no glue or cement at all to connect to the wings.

This is based on a Zero of the 201st Kokutai stationed in the Central Pacific in 1943. For my next Tamiya Zero I will definitely build it with the open canopy feature so that the details in the cockpit would be more visible.

Nicely done!

It looks nice!