nsmekanik
Member
Sooo....it's been a bit of a slog at work for the last few months, which has taken it's toll on my modeling mojo to be sure, and dd to that some one decided(I won't mention any names) there was a rather long "Honey"do list, that was, well, long over due for some attention.... lets just say that by the time I managed salvage what was left of my self esteem and crawl away back to the nether world I really didn't have much of a mind left for anything to complex so I decided it was time to look for something new to maybe help me get back into the swing.
I thought maybe something simple, something cheap and easy(unlike the Prime Director of household chores, duties and posterior placement) to put together as some kind of quick fix to satisfy one of my many urges for some sort of physical gratification in leu any readily available viable chemical cocktail to with which to distract myself with.
So after a long session of browsing the toy section of the local Do$$ar store I finally settled on a Japanese Zero model kit by a manufacturer whose name I could'nt read let alon pronounce.
The kit itself comes well packaged in a cellophane wrapper and consists of three pieces for the propeller assembly, which, thankfully, have been conveniently removed from the sprue, and one sprue which contains the most excellent and delicately pre painted fuselage and wing assembly's, complete with markings. The real bonus is that the main fuselage assembly come complete with the canopy AND pilot figure thereby further eliminating the need for any pesky masking and painting of those normally delicate bits.I couldn't wait to get it home and start construction.
The moment I got it home I went straight away to my bench in my new now compressed work area, and completely ignoring the total lack of disaster and disarray that would normally populate a well used work area, I plopped my new kit right in the middle of my barren work area for a moment of drool.
Once I'd cleaned up the mess and moped the sweat off my brow with the now damp cloth, I proceeded to rip into the cellophane packaging in order to remove the kit in as short a time as possible that I might enjoy a moment of fondle before I viscously set upon it knife in hand. This, however, proved to be in error as I almost broke my new kit in half and eventually had to resort in the use of scissors in order to rid myself of the unwanted packaging. This proved to be a forboding of things to come for what, for all intents and purposes, initially appeared to be a kit easily constructed.
I chose to ignore my gift of intuition and proceeded forward to removing the somewhat less then aligned kit contents from the now mutilated packaging material. Fortunately this went without further incident, and so I began to feel reassured that this was just a minor glitch on the process, unfortunately, later in the build this proved to be in error.
Once I had the kit contents laid out on the work bench I proceed to remove the main parts from their sprue. This also occurred with out incident, the fuselage and wing components broke away from their respective attachment points cleanly and with out difficulty, reassuring me that my initial perception that this was indeed a well thought out and engineered kit by a high quality manufacturer.
I then proceeded to lay out the kit parts to determine an appropriate construction sequence. It's unfortunate, but despite the high quality parts, the manufacturer of this kit really dropped the ball with it's instructions, being little more then tiny arrows pointing to generally where the parts might go, with little else for information to go on, such as which the front and which is the rear of the main wings and tail planes. One definitely need good references when building this kit.
Any way, at this point I decided it would be a good idea to take some photographs of the kit, and it's construction.
Here we can see all the main pieces as they are after having been removed from the sprue.
All in all a fairly simple build by all appearances. Now I do not have any references as to the accuracy of this kit, or the choice of colours and scheme offered, in fact the only information provided in the kit states that it is a Zero, and nothing else. If any of our resident experts here could help me out I'd greatly appreciate it as I would like to know a bit more about this particular aircraft.
Anyway, on with the build. After giving things some considerable thought I chose to begin assembly with the tail plane. I chose this path as I considered that once they were installed and everything was lined up squarely I could use them as a reference point for the rest of the kit assembly, the main wings, to ensure things all inline. I didn't have any real trouble here, although things proved to be a tight fit.
Next I decided to move onto the Propeller assembly, and this is where things went decidedly wrong. First, the propeller hub to shaft has an extremely loose and sloppy fit, I chose to ignore this as I felt once it was pressed firmly into the nose assembly things would tighten up, but this proved not to be the case. In fact, the shaft would not go into the main assembly very far, so I applied even greater pressure which ultimately resulted in the main assembly developing a crack. At this point I gave up and the kit sat languishing on the shelf for several seconds.
After staring it down I decided I was not, under any circumstances, going to let no amount of styrene and Styrofoam defeat me, so I chose to live with the sloppy fit.
Next I attached the nose assembly to the main fuselage, this also proved to be a tight and difficult fit. Once again I almost succeeded in damaging the fuselage assembly, but eventualy I managed to install it with out cuasing any serious harm.
I then moved on to the main wing assembly. This is where once again the meaning of "fit issue" reared it's ugly little head. It was a tight fit and it refused, initially, to go through the fuselage as designed. There is a notch in the centre section of the wing to hold it in place once you get it there, but getting it there is not all that it could be, a very poor fit to say the least.
After much frustration I'd decided I'd had enough, I was so angry I threw the thing at the wall with great force with the wing in as far as it would go. I may have thrown it at the wall, but it never got that far, in fact, it came full circle and hit me right in the face. I took this as a sign, so once again I picked up the gauntlet, and after many hours of meditation(a few dozen beer) I returned with a renewed plan of attack.
After heavily wrestling with the resisting part for a second or so, it finally succumbed to my will and slid into place.
In conclusion, I'd have to say that all in all, despite the sloppy propeller, loose main wing, and kink in the fuselage just before the canopy, it still wasn't that bad of a kit, for the money.
It's unfortunate, but like so many other kits out there on the market these days, it looks really cool in the box, but it ain't so purdy when you go to put it together. Still, at the end of the day, it's not the worst kit I've suffered through, and for all the issues it still looks like a Zero to me, however your mileage may vary.
Kit recommended for inexperienced modellers only.
:drinks
I thought maybe something simple, something cheap and easy(unlike the Prime Director of household chores, duties and posterior placement) to put together as some kind of quick fix to satisfy one of my many urges for some sort of physical gratification in leu any readily available viable chemical cocktail to with which to distract myself with.
So after a long session of browsing the toy section of the local Do$$ar store I finally settled on a Japanese Zero model kit by a manufacturer whose name I could'nt read let alon pronounce.
The kit itself comes well packaged in a cellophane wrapper and consists of three pieces for the propeller assembly, which, thankfully, have been conveniently removed from the sprue, and one sprue which contains the most excellent and delicately pre painted fuselage and wing assembly's, complete with markings. The real bonus is that the main fuselage assembly come complete with the canopy AND pilot figure thereby further eliminating the need for any pesky masking and painting of those normally delicate bits.I couldn't wait to get it home and start construction.
The moment I got it home I went straight away to my bench in my new now compressed work area, and completely ignoring the total lack of disaster and disarray that would normally populate a well used work area, I plopped my new kit right in the middle of my barren work area for a moment of drool.
Once I'd cleaned up the mess and moped the sweat off my brow with the now damp cloth, I proceeded to rip into the cellophane packaging in order to remove the kit in as short a time as possible that I might enjoy a moment of fondle before I viscously set upon it knife in hand. This, however, proved to be in error as I almost broke my new kit in half and eventually had to resort in the use of scissors in order to rid myself of the unwanted packaging. This proved to be a forboding of things to come for what, for all intents and purposes, initially appeared to be a kit easily constructed.
I chose to ignore my gift of intuition and proceeded forward to removing the somewhat less then aligned kit contents from the now mutilated packaging material. Fortunately this went without further incident, and so I began to feel reassured that this was just a minor glitch on the process, unfortunately, later in the build this proved to be in error.
Once I had the kit contents laid out on the work bench I proceed to remove the main parts from their sprue. This also occurred with out incident, the fuselage and wing components broke away from their respective attachment points cleanly and with out difficulty, reassuring me that my initial perception that this was indeed a well thought out and engineered kit by a high quality manufacturer.
I then proceeded to lay out the kit parts to determine an appropriate construction sequence. It's unfortunate, but despite the high quality parts, the manufacturer of this kit really dropped the ball with it's instructions, being little more then tiny arrows pointing to generally where the parts might go, with little else for information to go on, such as which the front and which is the rear of the main wings and tail planes. One definitely need good references when building this kit.
Any way, at this point I decided it would be a good idea to take some photographs of the kit, and it's construction.
Here we can see all the main pieces as they are after having been removed from the sprue.
All in all a fairly simple build by all appearances. Now I do not have any references as to the accuracy of this kit, or the choice of colours and scheme offered, in fact the only information provided in the kit states that it is a Zero, and nothing else. If any of our resident experts here could help me out I'd greatly appreciate it as I would like to know a bit more about this particular aircraft.
Anyway, on with the build. After giving things some considerable thought I chose to begin assembly with the tail plane. I chose this path as I considered that once they were installed and everything was lined up squarely I could use them as a reference point for the rest of the kit assembly, the main wings, to ensure things all inline. I didn't have any real trouble here, although things proved to be a tight fit.
Next I decided to move onto the Propeller assembly, and this is where things went decidedly wrong. First, the propeller hub to shaft has an extremely loose and sloppy fit, I chose to ignore this as I felt once it was pressed firmly into the nose assembly things would tighten up, but this proved not to be the case. In fact, the shaft would not go into the main assembly very far, so I applied even greater pressure which ultimately resulted in the main assembly developing a crack. At this point I gave up and the kit sat languishing on the shelf for several seconds.
After staring it down I decided I was not, under any circumstances, going to let no amount of styrene and Styrofoam defeat me, so I chose to live with the sloppy fit.
Next I attached the nose assembly to the main fuselage, this also proved to be a tight and difficult fit. Once again I almost succeeded in damaging the fuselage assembly, but eventualy I managed to install it with out cuasing any serious harm.
I then moved on to the main wing assembly. This is where once again the meaning of "fit issue" reared it's ugly little head. It was a tight fit and it refused, initially, to go through the fuselage as designed. There is a notch in the centre section of the wing to hold it in place once you get it there, but getting it there is not all that it could be, a very poor fit to say the least.
After much frustration I'd decided I'd had enough, I was so angry I threw the thing at the wall with great force with the wing in as far as it would go. I may have thrown it at the wall, but it never got that far, in fact, it came full circle and hit me right in the face. I took this as a sign, so once again I picked up the gauntlet, and after many hours of meditation(a few dozen beer) I returned with a renewed plan of attack.
After heavily wrestling with the resisting part for a second or so, it finally succumbed to my will and slid into place.
In conclusion, I'd have to say that all in all, despite the sloppy propeller, loose main wing, and kink in the fuselage just before the canopy, it still wasn't that bad of a kit, for the money.
It's unfortunate, but like so many other kits out there on the market these days, it looks really cool in the box, but it ain't so purdy when you go to put it together. Still, at the end of the day, it's not the worst kit I've suffered through, and for all the issues it still looks like a Zero to me, however your mileage may vary.
Kit recommended for inexperienced modellers only.
:drinks
