Tamiya 1/48 A6M3 Zero (Hamp) Review

Now that I have a few kits under my belt, I'm starting to be able to compare kits and details between each other. I recently picked this kit up from Amazon and is next on the "bench". This kit wasn't what I had in mind a month ago, and due to dragging my feet a bit, Amazon no longer carries the kit I wanted directly. I have to buy it from a shipper and pay out the nose in shipping. I'll wait on that kit and see how it comes out. I've never done a Japanese aircraft before, so we'll see how it goes. In the meantime here is the review.

Here is the box. So pretty.

There are a total of four sprues. Definitely not too many parts to keep a track of. The instructions have a copyright of 1982. I really don't think the detail is up to today's standards anymore. The detail on the exterior is "soft". I'm not sure I can explain what that means at the moment.You'll just have to deal with that.

The wings as well as the fuselage have a mix of recessed and raised panel lines. I really hate raised panel lines.

The "second" sprue is the lower wing assembly. The bottom of the wings are one piece, similar to Tamiya's Mk. I Spitfire. Again, the details are soft and a mix of recessed and raised detail. The wheel well detail is rather nice. The plastic on the wings and fuselage seems pretty thin.

The "third" sprue. You get seven different dudes.

The pistons that forms the engine. Nicely detailed, albeit plain with a pesky seam line running around the circumference on outside on top of the detail.

The struts are pretty nicely detailed although, there are seam lines and ejector pin marks (EPM's) in hard to reach areas.

The engine cowl. I think it was part of a sprue, but was floating around like an orphan.

The "fourth" sprue. You have two canopy options, open or closed.

Tamiya decals. Pretty standard here. A bit thick.

As far as instructions go, this is it. One fold out, pretty straight forward. I think I'll pretty much not be following it.

You get a few different options for markings.

Some measurements for you.

When completed, I think it will be a tad smaller than the Spitfire.

That's it. Overall, I would say this kit is not too bad. We'll check the fit when it's being built. Tamiya typically hasn't been a problem in the past. Details are a bit of a disappointment with raised and recessed panel lines. Some EPM's in hard to reach areas, but good quality for the most part. What's "quality" you ask? You must have taken a project management course.

Thing One's First Scale Model

Several years ago when I was becoming reacquainted with the art of scale model building, I picked up a few models to start from a national chain arts and crafts store. One of them was Revell's 1/48 AH-64 Apache Helicopter. I began putting it together and quickly got frustrated with a number of things that I now have a better understand of; ejector pin marks, misalignment, poor fits, raised panel lines, raised rivets and flash galore. In short, don't buy this kit, it's terrible. I stopped after I had the engines, wings and wing pylons assembled. I was so fed up, I put it on the shelf of doom. It was about $15 so I didn't invest much into it.

Fast forward about six or seven years. My oldest son, which from this point forward shall be referred to as "Thing One", has reached an age where he has started showing some interest in model building. He has been building Legos for about 3-4 years at this point and I thought, "what a great opportunity, he can learn on this kit and I can be rid of it!" Here is the journey of Thing One's first model build.

Here is the kit that you should avoid.

Do you see all the lighter plastic around the parts? That's flash. It's irritating and takes extra time to clean up the parts.

Look at all the flash on the end of that one piece, it's ridiculous!

The first thing we did was attach the engines that I built, puttied and sanded all those years ago.

Both engines attached.

I previously had all the cockpit parts cut off and trimmed up last time I opened the box, so it was just a matter of assembly.

Completed cockpit.

My original intent was to just have Thing One build the model, but he really wanted to paint it. So he picked out the paints he wanted to use and we set to it. It would have been easier to brush paint the cockpit had it been primed, but we'll worry about that when it comes time to paint the exterior.

The completed, painted cockpit. Not bad for a first attempt for someone who is not even 8 yet. I'm sure it would have turned out better had it been primed.

The instrument panel actually has some pretty nice detail. I showed Thing One how to use dry brushing to make the details stand out.

Here we added the propeller blades. There were some fiddly parts here that even irritated me.

Thing One is gluing the cockpit into the fuselage.

Why stop with just the cockpit? We decided to put the fuselage together.

After we added a good amount of glue, I rubber banded up the model until the glue sets over night.

Here is where it sits at the moment.

Unfortunately, we don't have the opportunity to work on the model during the week as I get home fairly late these days and he goes to bed early. I'm not even in the mood to work on my own stuff at the end of the day. We'll keep at it and slowly but surely we'll get it done. Then, hopefully on to the next one! Thing One is already eying up a Spitfire in a model catalog I received in the snail mail last week. He's been counting the money he's saved from the Fairy, Keeper of Teeth, a number of times to make sure he has enough. We'll address that when it comes.