Sweet 1/144 Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero

SWEET 1:144 MITSUBISHI A6M2B ZERO

Reviewer: Jon Hudak (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 10 September 2009

Kit Details:

Aircraft: Zero Fighter Mitsubishi A6M2b
Scale: 1:144
Kit #: 7
Parts: about 27 parts per kit, molded in light gray and clear plastic
Surface detail: excellent with beautiful recessed panel lines
Price: currently around $15 but in most cases you get two kits in a box
DECALS: Markings for no less than eleven options!
Accuracy: excellent

Aircraft History:

The Japanese Zero is really an airplane that needs no introduction as it is so well known. It was the mount of many a Japanese ace such as Saburo Sakai and Hiroyoshi Nishizawa as well and a lot of these aces had cut their teeth during the China War before the outbreak of WW2. The A6M2b or Type 21 Zero is what I think of as "the clean Zero" in that it was the embodiment of all the major criteria that were called for in a modern Japanese fighter and that is lightness, agility and speed. It also had tremendous range and was quite the "fuel miser" of its day. During the early part of WW2 the Zero basically dominated the skies against its Allied opponents and we had to develop tactics to fight it as our early planes couldn't match its agility. You were told to never engage a Zero in a dogfight and for good reason. Eventually with newly learned tactics it was also discovered that a few well placed spurts from the good ole' fifty cals was all that was needed to bring it down as these early Zeros lacked armor plate and self sealing fuel tanks. With the arrival of such warbirds as the Corsair and Hellcat coupled with the high losses of skilled Japanese pilots the death knell for the Zero was tolling in the distance.

The Kit:

A couple of years ago or more I did an inbox review of this kit here on SMAKR. To see that review click here.

Construction:

Though it was tempting at the time to start on it right away, I never did. You know how easy it is to be overwhelmed with other projects on the bench and although we often have good intentions, many times these kits just end up getting put to the side. Well, fast forward a couple or several years later and here we are! The first thing I did was brush paint the insides of the fuselage halves (on both kits) with Tamiyas XF-71 Cockpit Green (IJN). There really is no cockpit detail on these other than what most likely is the seat. Even if there was more you wouldn't see much of it with the one piece canopy over it.

Soon after the fuselage halves (on both kits) were joined together and set aside to dry. About a day later I joined the wings in place (again on both kits) and a previous dry fit showed there would be a bit of a step at the wing roots between them and the fuselage. I tried trimming in a couple of areas beforehand but couldn't seem to get rid of the step so I figured I would just sand away at it. There seemed to be no other way around it and in the end I didn't end up losing too much detail anyway. The horizontal stabilizers came next and these fit like butter and are even lettered L and R so you don't goof things up. Very clever. Then the wing tips were added. These you can pose either up (folded) or down. Since I would be doing two land based planes I decided to glue them in the down position. Around this time the cowling halves were joined together and cleaned up. These fit very well as did the drop tanks.

The insides of both cowlings were brush painted with some flat black as were the engines and set off to the side. Some more work was done with the seams, mostly for the wing roots and the area underneath where the edge of the center section of the wing blends in with the bottom of the fuselage. The fuselage halves closed and cleaned up very nicely but I did have to go over the area in front of the windscreen a second time. Be careful here as it is easy to obliterate some of the fine detail when sanding. After this the first of the two kits was about ready for painting. See how quickly these go?

Painting:

The cockpit was masked off and some small strips of Tamiya tape were wrapped around where the cowling glues on at the front of the fuselage. Then, this, the drop tanks, wheel rims, antenna masts and gear doors were painted using my own custom mix of Ameiro through the airbrush. I used Tamiyas recent XF-76 Gray Green (IJN) and added some of their XF-60 Dark Yellow. The latter is more of a tan color similar to RLM 79 Sand. The famous "Ameiro" color is a bit of a mystery but I have read it supposedly had a bit of a caramel tint to it. Since a lot of paint wasn't needed, I remember distinctly counting 48 drops of the XF-76 color to about 6 to 8 drops of the XF-60 color. (and still had some left over) The Tamiya paint worked beautifully and I had no further problems with the first airframe. (Added note, most Japanese Navy planes were not gray green in color and that was more readily seen on their Army Air Force/JAAF aircraft.)

Originally I had hoped to be able to mask off the canopies and spray the framing as I was a bit leary of using the supplied decal strips on them. I was able to get about half of the first canopy masked using Bare Metal Foil. Maybe my piece is starting to show its age (I've had it about 5 years now) or its just that the very small pieces I was cutting just didn't have enough adhesive strength on their own to stay down. With a deadline of one day left to get this model finished for a local club contest I had to come up with something that was gong to work. I decided to use the method that worked for me on the Arii 1:144 scale Zero I did a while back and that is spray one side of a piece of two sided Scotch tape and cut it into thin strips and do the framing that way. Just lay it down on a smooth surface, in my case a piece of old plexiglass. To avoid overspray on the plexiglass I put lengths of regular masking tape around the piece of Scotch tape. This was easier than trying to mask it anyway. If you think 1:72 scale canopies are hard to mask try doing one on a 1:144 scale kit. Then go back to a 1:72 kit and you'll think you're working on something more like 1:48 scale!

For the cowlings I used Gunze H55 Midnight Blue which is a very close match to the blue black cowling color of the Zero and other WW2 Japanese aircraft. It worked perfectly and looked the part. Next I shot the airframe with a mix of about 80% Future floor wax with about 20% of 91% Isopropyl alcohol. This makes the Future cure a little faster and thins it down a bit.

Decals/markings:

This would be my first time working with Sweet decals which are printed in Italy by Cartograph. On the sheet they look excellent and of the highest quality. They performed almost the same as well, settling down with Micro Set. I was afraid to use Micro Sol given its tendencies to wreck some decals (like Hasegawa ones). Even though these aren't Hasegawa decals I decided to be a little cautious. On some of the decals especially the hinomarus it took quite a few applications of the stuff (Micro-Set) to get them to settle down into the panel lines. Just be patient and your efforts will be rewarded here. The hardest ones to get to snuggle down were the hinomarus on the upper wing surfaces since these were painted over one the control horns at the back of the wing. Couldn't those people back then at the factories have painted them just a little bit smaller so they didn't overlap like that? It sure would make it a lot easier for us modelers some 60 plus years later! :-) (on the second kit I just might shave those off and sand them smooth as it won't be as noticeable in 1:144 and would make applying those hinomarus so much easier) For the first of the two kits I decided to do legendary ace Saburo Sakais plane from the Tainan Flying Group from August of 1942. The only other decal that gave me problems was the diagnol blue fuselage stripe. Again it just took lots and lots of applications with the setting solution but in the end it settled down beautifully.

A second coat of Future mix was applied afterwards followed by an oil paint wash using some Burnt Umber. This was followed up by a coat of Testors Dullcote (also through the airbrush) thinned with some Lacquer thinner.

Final Bits:

The landing gear units were brush painted in flat black along with the back sides of the propeller blades. For the tires and tailwheel I used an old friend, Testors Rubber in the little square bottle. This paint can sometimes be a little thick right out of the jar so I thin the amount I use in a little mixing tray with a drop or two of lacquer thinner. This thins out thick enamel paint better and makes it cover more easily. The wheels were then glued to the main struts (beautiful perfect fit here) and then these were glued to the main gear doors. Always a bit apprehensive when it comes to doing landing gear I didn't have any real problems this time, whew! I didn't bother adding the small secondary gear doors that attach to the main ones. These are small enough in 1:72 scale let alone in 1:144! I remember dropping one on the floor the first time and as I probed about down on all fours desperately trying to find it I passed it up at least once thinking it was just a small shaving of scrap plastic! I decided as said to leave them off as they were a bit "wonky" to get on. The secondary lower part of the cowling was glued on and the little "scoop" on the bottom was painted with some of the leftover color from the airframe.

I glued the rod in place (make sure it dries nice and straight) that holds the engine in place. This was followed by the engine and the cowling was such a nice, tight fit it merely had to pressed into place. The antenna mast was added around this time too. The wheel wells, insides of the inner gear doors, spinner and fronts of the prop blades were brush painted silver and the wheel wells and insides of the inner gear doors were painted with a coat of Aotake. This was made from using a few drops of Tamiya X-23 Clear Blue and X-25 Clear Green. (The wheel well detail for this scale is unbelievable and you'll be amazed when you see it.) You're basically shooting for a sort of teal or aqua shade here. The inner gear doors pushed right into place in their respective slots in the wheel wells. They almost didn't even need any glue their fit was that good. Again the fit and engineering of this kit is amazing for such a small scale and rivals many kits in 1:72 scale. NOTE: If you plan to add the drop tank do this first before adding the inner gear doors as they'll interfere with the fit of the said drop tank. You are better off to add the drop tank first then add those parts. I didn't think of this and wanted to add the drop tank but with those gear doors already in place I didn't want to mess things up by tearing them out. The hole on the back of the prop and spinner assembly had to be enlarged a bit and was such a snug fit it too only had to be pushed into place. Lastly the canopy was tacked into place using some white glue applied with a piece of really fine wire and with that the model was now finished.

Conclusions:

Though I don't like to really use that teenybopper term "sweet!" very much, in this case these kits really do live up to their name. It was an absolute joy to make and really builds into an impressive little model. Modelers and non modelers alike will be very impressed with the level of detail in these kits and once you build one, you'll more than likely want to do more. Accuracy looks to be pretty much spot on. There is no pitot tube provided, a minor nitpick if you want, but scratchbuilding one shouldn't be to difficult. The super detailers will probably have no problem doing this as well as drilling out the holes in the wings for the 20 mm cannons. I did neither of these, maybe some other time, some other kit. My only mistake I made on this kit was not paying close enough attention to the colored diagrams. You see I added the antenna whereas it shows Sakais plane without it. D'oh! Oh well, maybe at one point it did have it in place I'm sure before it was eventually removed. I would have to say that working in this scale the hardest part of this kit was doing the canopy. Even though the framing is excellent and quite prominent, nevertheless the item is very small and can be hard to work with even if you're wearing a pair of "cheaters" (magnifiers) like I was. All in all an excellent little kit and now SWEET have introduced an A6M3 Type 32 clipped wing Zero and rumor has it they're going to do an A6M5 series next. So now Zero fans will have more than one to choose from and should be quite happy. Definitely recommended and SWEET deserve an A+ for this kit.

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