Halinski A6M2 Zero 3/2005

I decided to finally show some pictures of the Zero that I have been working on for several months now. I've been at college and haven't had a digital camera until now. Being at college also means that my progress has been fairly slow.

I'd say I'm at about the halfway point for the cockpit. I still need to add the walls which include all the radio equipment, and gunsight, and a few other details. I made the seatbelts from layered aluminum foil painted with acrylic paint. I punched buckle holes in the right lap belt, but they didn't show up in the picture. This is actually the first model that I have used acrylic paints to paint the edges instead of water colors. I already greatly prefer acrylic to water colors. Acrylics are thicker and fill in the gaps much nicer. I also think that it's faster to match acrylic shades than it is to match water colors.

I also tried to cover the gauges in super glue to give them a "glassy" effect, but it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. I might go back over them with clear finger nail polish. I hate having a flush instrument panel and normally I would outline each gauge with small painted wires, but the zero instrument panel has the gauges mounted from behind and they are pretty much flush with the panel.

I was tempted to cut out the holes in the seat back, but I decided I didn't want to risk destroying my model. Now I sorta wish that I had cut them out, because I think it would make the seat look much more realistic.

I'll try to borrow my sisters camera and try to get some crisper pictures later. Updates will likely be slow, but there should be at least some progress while I'm on Christmas break for the next month. Enjoy.

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Thanks guys.

You're probably right Mike, but I'm one of those lunatic people who gets joy out of knowing a detail is there, regardless of whether or not it can be seen.

Leif-
College seems like a big waste of time for me thus far. I'm at a big state school with way to much bureaucracy. I really don't know exactly what I want to do career wise. I've had a job and been paying for my own stuff since I was 14, so work ethic isn't really a problem. I just think most degrees, besides a very specialized degree like law, engineering, or medicine, is a big was of time...more of a piece of paper that people put on their job resume than anything. We'll see what happens I guess. Maybe I'll find a nice job restoring cars that actually pays a livable salary.

Dansl-
Yes I've already spent some time contemplating the engine. You're right, it does look painfully repetitive, but somehow I want to find enough patience to make it as detailed as possible. It would be great if my engine turned out the way xalex's P-47 engine did.

I should have posted my references in my original post, but I forgot so here they are.

I've been using the following pages as references for this build. The first one contains pictures of the actual plane, and the next links are builds of the model.

http://www.socalvalue.com/airace/zero/zero.htm

http://forum.zealot.com/t145162/

http://www.mothership-fujifum.com/a6m2zero-sub18.html

http://www.kami-mokei.com/kansei/hal061.htm

http://www.kartonwork.pl/forum…t=6647&highlight=zero

http://www.cardarmy.ru/gallery/avia/zero-hal.htm

The last link shows the model repainted to match that of a zero that would have flown in the Pearl Harbor attack. It turned out quite nicely, but I don't have the patients to repaint my model.

Here's a small update. I did get some pictures with a slightly better camera this time. I'll reshow the seat and the seatbelt so that some of the details are crisper. I noticed a few areas where the foil in the seatbelts was glinting in the photos, so I'll have to go over those with some more paint. I've added the bungie cord and the rest of the seat adjustment mechanism to the bulkhead behind the seat. I've started working on the compressed air and hydraulic cylinders behind the seat.

Hopefully this cockpit will be done shortly so that I can finally start building the rest of the plane. I decided last night that I'm going to attempt to give the model more depth by depressing the panel lines and making the by making the rivets stick out. I basically plan to score the panel lines and poke the rivet marks from behind with an inkless ball-point pen. We'll see how it turns out I guess.

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Thank you Leif. You're always an excellent source for resources. I had forgotten that you had done this detailing to your P-39, so I will have to search and refind your thread to use as a guide. Just by seeing that photo I completely agree with your method. Now I'll just have to find or make something suitable for the job.

Also, that website that you found containing photos of transport B-24s was great. I especially liked some of the photos depicting the aircraft being built and worked on. It looks like women helped a lot.

Thanks for the comments guys. Here's another small update. I had to use the lesser of the two available cameras for this set of pictures. Hopefully next update the better camera will be available again and I'll be able to get another set of good closeups.

I've finished the tanks behind the pilots seat. From pictures that I've seen of the cockpit, the kit's tanks aren't very accurate. My building of them also got to be a bit sloppy. But oh well, these details will be almost entirely hidden when I close the cockpit.

I've started work on the left wall of the cockpit. I added a wire which I attempted to crimp and then painted black to replicated the chain in the picture below.

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This photo is from http://rwebs.net/avhistory/history/Zeke32.htm. I THINK this wheel and chain device is the elevator trim adjuster. Regardless of what it really is, the real plane had it and so does mine.

Beyond that I've been working on a "box" that goes on the left wall. Again, I don't know what this box does. As far as I know, the radio equipment went on the right wall of the cockpit, so this box's function eludes me. But, I still have a few photos showing that it had on/off toggle switches, and below that it had three black bulb like turn knobs. I'm replicating the toggle switches from small pieces of copper wire which will be painted silver, and the bulb knobs will be built up from glue drops and painted black.

The other pictures just show other little do-dads that go in the cockpit like the fuel mixture adjuster on the tip of my finger.

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Hopefully another update will come soon!

Thanks Norm!

@Leif,
I guess the lack of glue is just pure luck, or perhaps it's just not showing up because I don't use a flash. I haven't coated the paper in anything. I just cut it out as it comes and start building. Though I think it would be wise to start coating my models with something just to preserve them for years to come.

I'm ALMOST done with the cockpit. In fact I may finish it later tonight, so another update will be coming soon. My sister is taking a photography class at her high school and the school provides a very very nice digital camera with an adjustable lens and all of that. I was lucky enough to be able to use it for these pictures. It has a bit of a learning curve, but I think I was eventually able to get some good shots with it.

The pictures really say it all. The left wall of the cockpit is done. The right wall is almost done. I've started depressing all of the rivet marks and panel lines with a dead ball-point pen. So far the rivets are creating a very subtle effect which is exactly what I was going for. I didn't want my model to look like it had the chicken pox. In my opinion it's just enough detail without being distracting.

On a different note, I'm taking my first German class this semester. So, maybe in another year or so I'll be able to post in German.

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I've finished the cockpit. Now it's time to start skinning.

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A rather small and boring update, but at least progress has been made. I started to make the wings. Punching all the rivets into the wing took FOREVER, but I'm pleased with the appearance. I've already detached the wingtips so that I can make them movable. The kit allows for you to make them in the stationary up position, but I'm planning to hinge mine so that they can be folded or extended.

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I've spent quite a bit of time working on my model recently, but visually there isn't much to show for it. I hoping that progress with move a little faster once the wings are done. The only really boring repetitive part left will be the engine, and I have yet to decide how overboard I want to go on engine detail.

Now that I have part of the wings in place, I am extremely happy with how the rivets are looking. It's hard to capture in a photo, but here I'm trying to show the contrast between punched and not punched rivets.

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Wheel well details

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I did run into a few adjustments that needed to be made with the wings. First, everything "inside" the wing skin fit just fine within the cardboard wing frame. However, the blue wingtip rib, which is only used when making folded wingtips, came flush to the edge of the wing skin. It needed to be sunk into the skin about 1mm to leave room for the blue border. In the picture below I've already trimmed off a bit of the wingframe cardboard and pushed the blue rib back so that it is properly aligned.

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Everything else lined up pretty well.

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I'm thinking this is builder error. I'll patch the problem with some acrylic paint and hopefully make it "go away".

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Now we come to the second issue I ran into with the folded wingtips. The part 2fP and 2fL have "male nobs" as they should. However, 2P and 2L do not have "female notches" to accept them. The actual wing skins have the notches like they should. I simply had to glue 2P and 2L to the wing skin first, and then cut the necessary notches.

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Things are starting to take shape!! The second half of the wing should move a little faster now that I know exactly what I'm doing.

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Yes...punching all of the rivets is quite tiring. I feel the burn more in my wrist than in my forearm. My progress would be much much faster was I not punching all the rivets. I'll sit down and punch rivets for 5 minutes, get bored, and decide to come back to the model later.

To punch the rivets I'm just using a dead ball point pen. As a surface I'm using a plastic kitchen cutting board. It's a fairly hard surface and allows me to push quite hard without punching all the way through the paper.