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Paulo Castro
33 articles

Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero (Tamiya 1/72)

September 27, 2022 · in Aviation · · 20 · 0.9K

Hi all
Just finished this little gem from .
It was the time build the Tamiya and I was really impressed.
The overall fitting and crispy details makes hard to believe it's a 1/72nd scale kit.

Kit built OOTB including the seatbelts decals. The only addition to the kit was a scratch built pitot tube using syringe needles and the IFF antenna made with stretching line 0.1mm from MIG.

The Tamiya decals continue to disappoint. I don't really understand a company that makes the most beautiful kit to assemble and can't get good decals (to be clear, their decals are way too thick), in this case I think they should benchmark Airfix or Eduard. Even using tons of decal solutions I couldn't get a excellent result.

Comments and critics are welcomed and appreciated.
Cheers
Paulo

Reader reactions:
12  Awesome 2 

11 additional images. Click to enlarge.


20 responses

  1. An amazing model that surely fools the scale, Paulo!
    Well done!

  2. Excellent result on this tiny scale, Paulo @armouredsprue. The weathering does make it look like she did flew quite some missions.

  3. It could easily be taken for a 1/48 scale model, Paulo, partly because of the great photographs.

  4. Fantastic build! I'm fan of zero!

  5. I based the underside weathering on this attached photo of a A6M5 captured by the Americans and evaluated.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

  6. As it was in WIP

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

  7. Well done, Paulo (@armouredsprue). Tamiya decals can be really thick. Have you tried either Tamiya Mark Fit Solution (Strong) or Walthers Solvaset? Both are really strong, but I have had some good results with thicker decals. I have actually had Solvaset eat a thin decal, so experiment before using.

  8. Looks fantastic and it does larger than 1/72! Well done. You've convinced me to try a 1/72 plane!

  9. Yeah - some of these are even impervious to Solvaset! Still a great looking model though - well done!

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