So with my J2M3 build slowly winding down, I decided to start on the A6M2 from my Pearl Harbor box set (A6M2, B5N2, D3A1). I plan on this being a quick, OOB build with little to no additional details added past maybe a few wires in the cockpit.
Compared to @fiveten and @johnb A6M2 mine looks to have been injected on a Friday. The moulds didn't properly align up, causing the tail to be shifted. Similarly, the cowl was shifted in the same manner. This seems more of an improper setup than poor moulds, but it is not a good sign of Hasegawa's quality control. even the 1980's vintage Tamiya A6M5 I built last year was far better than this. Good thing Eduard is releasing a new A6M2 later this year.
Moving on to the fuselage, I sanded it to remove the misalignment with 600 grit Infini sanding stick. The panel lines will have to be re-scribed, which is probably a plus as they were wobbly and net well defined (perhaps a result of how the part was ejected from the mould?). I did the same for the cowling, removing the raised panels and sanding smooth the air intake (there was a panel line created from the mould misalignment there as well). I thinned the cowl flaps on one side with a combination of a scraper, knife and sandpaper. I think the result looks better , you can actually see inside the cowl from behind when it is installed on the fuselage.
The weakest feature of this kit is the fact that the oil cooler is a separate piece from the wing, and that the attachment is right through the landing gear. Again, this part suffered from bad moulding. I dry fit it and glued it in place, with the lower wing leading edge (the front of the oil cooler piece ) needing to be sanded down to fir the main wing. I think this was better/easier to do then have a gap in the landing gear bay.
I drilled the holes for the aileron mass balances and the drop tank (the latter to 1.2 mm, not 0.8mm, to fit the drop tank), and removed the aileron trim tab control rods from the lower wing. The fit of the wings to the fuselage leaves the wings higher than the wing roots and the front lower fuselage (that nasty oil cooler piece) about 1mm too far aft and 1mm too low of the fuselage firewall. I considered moving the wing forward to make the firewall flush, but that would leave a gap at the rear of the wing/fuselage mating area (easy fix) and a misalignment of the inner leading edge area (harder fix). with the cowl on, the firewall misalignment is not visible, so I think that is the route to go (and shim the lower firewall/oil cooler piece).
As for the upper wings being higher then the wing root, I will use @lgardner method of gluing the upper wings to the fuselage and then glue the lower wings on. I'm still not sure why the upper wings are so high, unless the lower wing needs to be dropped down (but that would leave a gap at the leading edge).
Anyways, what a mess. I either messed up the oil cooler alignment or this kit is worse than I thought. So much for a quick build.
6 attached images. Click to enlarge.
