A6M3 interior Self Adhesive

Hasegawa's serie of A6M Zero kits are probably still the best on the market except of course for the A6M5/5a variant which has been covered recently by Tamiya (see review here). Now if you have built the latter, you may think that the Hasegawa kits suffer from the comparison detail wise. Fortunately, Eduard comes to the rescue with a photo etched set which will not only bring the Hasegawa kit to the level of Tamiya's, but in some places even higher!

Eduard's 1:48 scale A6M3 Zero Type 32 S.A. set is composed of two photoetched frets, one small acetate sheet and instructions. Everything is bagged within Eduards usual type of plastic bag and the content is protected by two cardboard sheets to prevent it from damage.

The first PE fret is self adhesive and pre-painted. This means that most of the parts won't require any glue or paint! You just have to free them from the metal frame and put them in place in the appropriate location. All of the 55 parts are destined to the cockpit: instrument panels, side consoles, seat belts, levers etc...
It is to note that it is also available separately as reference FE456 (see here).

The second PE fret, while not self-adhesive and not pre-painted, adds some more detail to the model and this is what makes this reference more interesting and more complete than a simple ZOOM set. Not only the cockpit, but also the exterior, especially the landing gear bays, will benefit from the extra parts. Included are a new seat, new rudder pedals, parts to improve the gunsight, wiring and details for the engine, landing gear bays details, new landing gear covers, a new cockpit decking (very nice!), replacement gun barrels, etc...

A small acetate sheet is provided as well for the gunsight's reflective glass panels.

The instructions are printed in black and white on a single A4 sheet of paper. Once folded in the middle, a small 4 pages A5 size booklet can be obtained. I have noticed that page 5 of 5 was missing. It is the "how to use self-adhesive parts" explanation and if you think you must absolutely read it, you can dowload it, as well as a color version of the assembly instructions, at the Eduard website (click on Instruction Sheet to download the PDF file).

Conclusion

The quality of both PE frets included in this set is excellent throughout. This is another example of an excellent quality product made by Eduard. With the parts of this set, the Hasegawa 1:48 scale A6M3 Zero kit will certainly support the comparison against more recent plastic kit productions. Beware though, there are many smaller parts included, and with an overall count of more than 200 parts it is only destined to experienced modellers.

Please remember, when contacting retailers or manufacturers, to mention that you saw their products highlighted here - on AeroScale.