This one has been in the stash for a lot of years. It was a gift from a friend in Japan who has since passed away, and I felt it was time to build it for him

It's a Japanese issue kit, so nothing on the instructions is in English. All the major subassemblies have been done, and what you see in the pics is about two hours of work. I drilled out the lightening holes in the seat with a pin vise, and will add my usual masking tape seatbelts.

The first goof has already occurred. There is no landing gear as this is a floatplane, so being a tailsitter was the farthest thing from my mind when I got started. After I assembled the main float, I finally got around to reading internet reviews on the kit, discovering that some weight was needed in the nose of the float to keep it from tipping back on the beaching dolly. Wooops...Solution was to drop some BB's into the float, followed by some finishing epoxy from my RC supplies. The epoxy is thinner than most, being used for final finishes on the fiberglass covering on big RC models. It flowed into the float just fine, sealing up the BB's nicely.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Goos start Jaime, looking forward to following your progress. I had to add weight the same way to the floats on a Testors 1/48 Curtiss R3C-2 racer. It worked fine till I dropped it while I was adding the 2nd to last piece of rigging.

It should make for a distinctive display model, Jaime, looking forward to seeing your progress and the finished model.

The cockpits on those old Tamiya Zeros really build up nice with just what's in the box and following the extra detailing suggestions in the instructions. Yours is looking great.

Rick, when I first got the cockpit assembled, I thought it looked a little sparse. Once I test fitted it to the fuselage, it all came together and looked much better. There are extra detailing hints in the instructions? I'll have to take your word for it because I don't read Japanese!

Simon, I got the fuselage together by trimming off the offending locator pin and gluing in sections using thin liquid cement. It will still need some filler, but it's not as bad as it could have been.

Rick, there aren't any additional pictures on this instruction sheet apart from the normal assembly sequence. The info I got for the little detail stuff came from an internet search of photos of completed models and the real thing.

Fuselage and stabilizers have been assembled, filled and sanded. Had to use a filler on the main float as well, though the tip floats went together very well. For some reason, the cowl was molded in two parts and there were seams to be filled there also. Back to work tomorrow, so that's it for this week...

Got in a few minutes after work today. The cockpit was installed and the wing glued on at the forward and aft fuselage. Fit there was not too bad. Going to let that dry before I pull the dihedral in and glue along the roots. Sanded all the float seams, painted and assembled the cowling. Then I stuck it all together to see what it looks like. I was happy to find there was enough weight in the main float to keep it level on the dolly. I'm hoping to get far enough along to paint it this weekend...

2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Rick, I found a lot of weird info on these airplanes! That purple caught my eye, but I figured there was no way that was accurate. Seeing pictures of models built that way just made me want to do that one even less! Apparently the prevailing wisdom was that purple was the color the primer turned when it weathered...Mine will be in the more traditional green over gray.

The airframe is now assembled and after a little cleanup, will be ready for paint.