Hasegawa

Zero Fighter Egg Plane

Kit Number: 60119 (TH8)

Reviewed by  John R. Lee, IPMS# 11172

MSRP: $8.95 Imported by Dragon Models USA Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com The kit comes in a sturdy top opening box - great for holding the parts as you work on the model. There are fifteen dark green plastic parts and a one crystal clear canopy and windscreen with rather heavy framing but it made it easy to mask with Tamiya tape for the Zero and a colorful decal sheet with two schemes. There isn't any indication as to whom the two schemes belong to and with the limited reference material on the Zero I have I was unable to figure out who flew these two aircraft. On the color call outs the #33 color for the cowling is not listed in the "paints used" list. Most of us that have been around model building for a while will know that the #33 in several paint bands is Black. I used Model Master #2040 Interior Black for the cowling. One thing of note about the cowling is that one side has three exhaust pipes and the other side has four. The marking and painting guide has four exhaust pipes per side. The construction notes and the box top show four to starboard and three to port. Also of note is the hole in the top of the fuselage for the rear of the canopy is very much oversized. I filled it with a tapered piece of stretched sprue and sanded it to match the top of the fuselage and drilled a hole of the correct size for the pin at the rear of the canopy. Now let's get on with the build. I used Tamiya's extra thin glue that causes the plastic to melt and will fill small seams/gaps in the plastic parts. For what little filling that was needed I used Mr. Surfacer 1000, as it polishes out very smooth. When I glued the fuselage halves together there was a very rough surface where the instrument decal was to go. I covered it with a piece of Evergreen .005 sheet and later painted it dark Grey, so the instrument decal would show up better. To get them all on the panel I had to lower them a bit. All in all it looks ok (to me at least). For some reason or other there was a 1/8h Ø hole in the bottom of the fuselage about an inch in front of the tail wheel which I again filled the hole with a tapered piece of stretched sprue and sanded it to match the bottom of the fuselage Next came the horizontal tails and wings. I used a little Mr. Surfacer 1000 that had thicken a bit as filler as my bottle is ancient on the horizontal tails and wing to fuselage joints. Drying overnight and a little bit of sanding with some "Stevens International" sanding sticks made things right. They come in various grits of 100 through 800 and are color coded, but for some reason they used Black for both the 100 and 600 grit sanding sticks. Next I painted the prop and spinner "Propeller Color as per the instructions. I use some Humbrol #133 satin Brown for this and added two or three coats of Future and when dry put the two yellow decals per prop blade on and brushed on a coat of Future to hold them in place. After all the sanding and everything was right I washed the model with some warn soapy water and let it dry overnight, covered to keep the dust off it. I then airbrushed the lower surfaces with Model Masters #2117 IJN Gray. Next using my printer I scaled the Marking and Painting plans to the model size. I then placed some Tamiya 18mm wide tape over both sides of the plan on the curved demarcation line between the wing and tail. I then placed this over my car's headlight that was on bright and was thus able to trace a line with a black pen and cut the pattern out. By doing this I had two identically cut pieces for both sides of the model. Tamiya tape peels off of paper very good. Works great for other types of camo patterns too. After these pieces were on the rest was easy but used a lot of tape and time. I them proceeded to airbrush the upper surfaces Model Master #2116 IJN Green. As these two colors are gloss there was no need for a gloss coat. I proceeded to put on the decals and noted that the White decals let the paint underneath show through a bit so they automatically look a little weathered. I now added the nice little engine that is keyed to orient it correctly, and then the cowling, landing gear and lastly the canopy and all is good in Modeldom. All in all another fun build. My thanks to Dragon Models USA and IPMS for the addition to my egg plane air force!