1/32 Zoukei-Mura Ta152H-0 White 7

[jkim]

I'm gonna let the sprue filler cure for a while. In the meantime, I've worked a little bit on some details. The tail wheel assembly forces you to trap the wheel between the two fork halves. Makes it more complicated to paint so I replaced the little pins that the wheel rests on with an axle made of brass tubing. Now I can paint the strut and the wheel separately.



The composite resin/metal legs by Synthetic Ordnance Works have been painted. The data stencils are from the Eagle Cal decal sheet. Unfortunately, no text just lines and dots but better than nothing.

[Floki]

Looks good, I was thinking of doing the same thing on my current build but didn't have anything small and strong enough for 1/48.

[jkim]

More detail work on the Ta152...

I'm not going to deal with the Eduard Origami metal flaps and will simplify this build somewhat by using the kit flaps. But first, I have to address the sink marks on the outside surface of the flaps.



The molded ribs on the fabric covered control surfaces have been sanded down.


I made wheel masks using an Olfa circle cutter.



A few views of the painted Barracuda tires mounted on the SOW landing gear. Hopefully, these pieces of resin convey the impression of metal and rubber.

[Floki]

Your paint mix and weathering for rubber is spot on, I've been trying to tweak mine to also have that hint of green. What's your mix?

[jkim]

Thanks Clint! No green in my mixture. Mine is black, brown and dark grey. Just eyeball it and it is different each time I mix it, which is ok.

[Floki]

Thank you John.

[speedgraflex]

John, everything you are doing on this page is simply wonderful. I was taking notes on almost every post you made! I need to go back to look a third or fourth time at what happened when you mated the engine assembly. I didn’t really understand what happened. I know you don’t want to revisit that stress, but I was thinking that you pulled out a great save for the good of the entire kit. I remember during your 1:48 Ta 152 build you wrote about how there is a cascade effect if previous assemblies are not carried through to perfection. Given the extraordinary high quality of your work this must be a design issue with the kit. I know you will prevail. All the best.

[jkim]

Thanks Bruce! I don't think it is a design issue per se. It's just a possibility that one will have some fit issue given the vagueness of plastic to plastic connections and the ambitiousness of the Z-M inclusion of interior parts. I think these things CAN be avoided with more careful work and a bit of luck but I guess I struck out on both counts. Still the errors are too significant and I would never refer to this kit as "junk" as someone over at LSP so eloquently described.

[speedgraflex]

There is definitely a balance struck between careful construction and the demands of the kit. You’re definitely the expert here in both building skill and kit familiarity! I am not a fan of judgments such as “junk,” from anyone; I think everyone should build a ZM kit to support a Mom and Pop company. Hideyuki Shigeta and his wife literally started selling model kits together in a small shop.

[Stuart]

Cracking progress John - I'm sure you'll get the best of those gaps!