1/32 Tamiya A6M5 Type 52 Zero

by Gary Goddard

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This is my first submission to ARC and is of Tamiya’s superb 1/32 Zero.  Other than being by far the best model I have ever laid my hands on, the price I paid for it was not too shabby either – picked it up for the princely sum of NZ$80 from a work colleague who was doing a garage clean out!!

It’s a straight OOB build, the only additional work I did was to add foil behind the seat belts to give them a more realistic look.  No filler, no sanding…zip!  A genuine shake and fall into place kit.  Painted using Tamiya acrylics only with the pilot being painted using Vallejo paints…my figure painting skills need some serious attention.

My thanks and appreciation go to work mate Chris Sinclair who in a short period of time made the carrier deck for me using model ship wooden deck strips to replicate the deck…I have no wood working skills at all!!  Once the deck was completed, I sealed it with a couple of layers of light varnish then drilled out the aircraft tie downs on the deck and used styrene tube to replicate the tie downs  – a somewhat tedious job but I think it looks pretty good.  The Rising sun area was then done and a final couple of coats of matt varnish to seal everything.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

The kit was an absolute joy to build and I intend doing Tamiya’s 1/32 A6M2b Type 21 kit this year and if that kit is half as good as this one, all the better!  

Thanks for looking and hope you like it  

Gary

Wellington , New Zealand

Photos and text © by Gary Goddard