ya-gabor Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 The Fine Molds 48th scale A6M5 Zero kit is on the table. Besides making some videos of the build here are in between some still photos of what is going on. This is basically an out of box build just for the fun of it! : ) : ) No extras are used apart from those produced by Fine Molds. For the moment it is all about cutting parts from sprues and doing some dry runs. No glue for the moment. I think the photos can speak for themselves. Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
lockheed2004 Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 I did their A7M1 Reppu recently. They make some very nice kits that build up without much fuss. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted January 16 Author Share Posted January 16 On 1/15/2025 at 4:12 AM, lockheed2004 said: I did their A7M1 Reppu recently. They make some very nice kits that build up without much fuss. Have to agree with that. Some more closer views of parts. But of course I did also some work as one can see from the photos. The propeller blades are razor sharp and extremely thin!!! Take care when working with them. One of the questions most often asked concerning a new kit is how do the parts fit together? Is there a lot of work required to make the seams invisible? All I can do is to show as an example the dry-fit of the tail sections. No glue, just a snap fit of parts! It speaks for itself in my opinion. Of course I would do some extra work on the kit, but this is up to everyone’s own taste. For example I drilled out the ends of the engine exhausts, added some detail on the oil tank (mind you little of it will be visible, but still). And here is the decal sheet for the FZ 02 kit. This has not been shown before. It is of course traditional screen printed in perfect register! What else!? Thing is all fighter aircraft or military aircraft are basically a killing machine. A War is not fun for any of the sides. Even if you paint your aircraft in fancy colours, with lots of funny art work there is still a strong chance that at the end of the day the aircraft will not return from the mission and on the other side of the front people will lose their lives. Most aircraft are painted in uniform schemes, plus national marking and individual registration number. Here this is what you get! Of course there were some individual planes with a stripe or two in different places, some kill marks. . . But most were like this. The manufacturer perfectly reproduces these two aircraft and their markings! Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chukw Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 That looks fantastic, Gabor- cheers! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mr.Happy Posted January 18 Share Posted January 18 Gabor, Thank you for posting this build review on the Fine Molds Zero. This kit is going to be a game changer within the industry should everything fit as well as you have conveyed. I’m excited to see how this build will come together and I eagerly await your next update. Take care and keep building, Mr. Happy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 19 hours ago, Mr.Happy said: Gabor, Thank you for posting this build review on the Fine Molds Zero. This kit is going to be a game changer within the industry should everything fit as well as you have conveyed. I’m excited to see how this build will come together and I eagerly await your next update. Take care and keep building, Mr. Happy Thanks Mr. Happy, I am at it. It is fun to build! Like the concept of modular design, building up separate parts, detailing, painting, and joining them together later. One can say that I am a “Zero Virgin”, never before having built an A6M of any type in any scale (have absolutely no background books, publications in my library). But I try my best. Lots of reading and searching for background information and mostly period photos! Have to say that some of the “restored” examples are a bit . . . Contemporary photos (and untouched wrecks) give far more information on some details that I am interested in. Hope to have some up-dates soon as well as a video. Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mario krijan Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 (edited) Great to see Master on work again!! These parts looks like resin parts or 3D printed!! That is great approach to make subassemblies, paint them and assemble in biggeer assembly!! Clever stuff!! Edited January 20 by mario krijan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 A splash of colour is added for the start. Mr.Paint Japanese colours were used but here and there some trusty good old Humbrol tins were also opened. First some basic colours brushed on. The Fine Molds Nano series straps (NC2 in this case) will be added on the pilots seat. Take care, they are truly microscopic and remember the carpet monster is always hungry. The straps are injection moulded from a softer plastic so it is possible to bend them. But once again be very careful for they are like a spring and have a tendency to fly around if caution is not taken. Good thing is that in each Nano box there are four sprues so if disaster would strike it is possible to source a replacement part from the remaining sets. I have bent them all to the shape I was planning to have and after this painted the straps. Also started some painting on the Sakae engine. Of course added some extra bits and pieces based on contemporary photos. Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dai phan Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 On 1/16/2025 at 7:22 AM, ya-gabor said: Have to agree with that. Some more closer views of parts. But of course I did also some work as one can see from the photos. The propeller blades are razor sharp and extremely thin!!! Take care when working with them. One of the questions most often asked concerning a new kit is how do the parts fit together? Is there a lot of work required to make the seams invisible? All I can do is to show as an example the dry-fit of the tail sections. No glue, just a snap fit of parts! It speaks for itself in my opinion. Of course I would do some extra work on the kit, but this is up to everyone’s own taste. For example I drilled out the ends of the engine exhausts, added some detail on the oil tank (mind you little of it will be visible, but still). And here is the decal sheet for the FZ 02 kit. This has not been shown before. It is of course traditional screen printed in perfect register! What else!? Thing is all fighter aircraft or military aircraft are basically a killing machine. A War is not fun for any of the sides. Even if you paint your aircraft in fancy colours, with lots of funny art work there is still a strong chance that at the end of the day the aircraft will not return from the mission and on the other side of the front people will lose their lives. Most aircraft are painted in uniform schemes, plus national marking and individual registration number. Here this is what you get! Of course there were some individual planes with a stripe or two in different places, some kill marks. . . But most were like this. The manufacturer perfectly reproduces these two aircraft and their markings! Best regards Gabor Hi all, Seam lines end on panel lines. Clear Prop needs to see this and improves on their next kit. Dai Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted January 25 Author Share Posted January 25 21 hours ago, dai phan said: Hi all, Seam lines end on panel lines. Clear Prop needs to see this and improves on their next kit. Dai Sorry, but this thread is about the new Fine Molds A6M5 Zero kit. It has nothing to do with the Clear Prop! Sabre kit! Yes, you have stated your point so many times in different posts, everywhere possible how you don’t like the “off-set” joint lines on the Clear Prop! kit. It is your personal opinion, we all respect it. But I have to say that I for one don’t agree with this. “Off-set” joint lines have been used by many manufacturers in the past and will be used in future! Speaking of the Clear Prop Sabre I found absolutely no problem with having a joint line “away” from panel lines. It is an excellent idea and it works perfectly for me! That is all I can say here. This forum is about the new Fine Molds A6M5 Zero kit. There is absolutely no point in going into a futile endless arguments page after page about this! With my reply, please don’t feel that you NEED to answer in anyway about Clear Prop! “mistakes”. This was the first and the very last time that I replied on this forum about Clear Prop! Sabre kit!!! If you have any questions about the Fine Molds A6M5 Zero kit, please fire away! If I can, I be happy to answer them. Have fun!!! : ) : ) : ) Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dai phan Posted January 25 Share Posted January 25 1 hour ago, ya-gabor said: Sorry, but this thread is about the new Fine Molds A6M5 Zero kit. It has nothing to do with the Clear Prop! Sabre kit! Yes, you have stated your point so many times in different posts, everywhere possible how you don’t like the “off-set” joint lines on the Clear Prop! kit. It is your personal opinion, we all respect it. But I have to say that I for one don’t agree with this. “Off-set” joint lines have been used by many manufacturers in the past and will be used in future! Speaking of the Clear Prop Sabre I found absolutely no problem with having a joint line “away” from panel lines. It is an excellent idea and it works perfectly for me! That is all I can say here. This forum is about the new Fine Molds A6M5 Zero kit. There is absolutely no point in going into a futile endless arguments page after page about this! With my reply, please don’t feel that you NEED to answer in anyway about Clear Prop! “mistakes”. This was the first and the very last time that I replied on this forum about Clear Prop! Sabre kit!!! If you have any questions about the Fine Molds A6M5 Zero kit, please fire away! If I can, I be happy to answer them. Have fun!!! : ) : ) : ) Best regards Gabor Of course this is about the Zero kit . I did not discuss about other kits here. Looking forward to see how this kit looks at the end. Would you say this kit is better than the Tamiya kit? Dai Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted January 25 Author Share Posted January 25 1 hour ago, dai phan said: Of course this is about the Zero kit . I did not discuss about other kits here. Looking forward to see how this kit looks at the end. Would you say this kit is better than the Tamiya kit? Dai As indicated in an earlier post above, I am a “Zero Virgin” having never in my life built an A6M kit in any scale what so ever. Know ZERO about the type, have no books, publications about it, but did a lot of reading ABOUT THE ACTUAL AIRCRAFT (and not kits from other producers) in preparation for the arrival of the kit. I had time plenty while the kit was in the post towards me. This forum is about actually BUILDING the kit, it is not about comparing it to any other product, but having fun building the Fine Molds new kit!!! Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 A bit of work in progress in the cockpit. Added a splash of colour. Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted February 5 Author Share Posted February 5 Work is on inside the cockpit. Some basic colours and a little detailing made. Just as with the Sakae engine. Here is what we are starting from in the kit. A lot of small parts to go into the engine build. Some painted while others are in the que to be next. : ) : ) And a quick dry run build of the engine. Of course there is still a lot of things missing. Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted February 6 Author Share Posted February 6 I know one of the most asked question about the 48th scale Fine Molds A6M5 Zero has been about the transparent parts. Let’s have a look at them. 1. First of all the modeller can go down the traditional road with a three part canopy which has all the frames just like with any other kit. 2. Or you can choose the Fine Molds way of getting separate frames and transparent parts. I would call it “Frame version”. The choice is yours, Fine Molds only provides alternative versions depending on creativity and skill of the modeller. So here they are. I hope the photos can speak for themselves. I did show the “Frame version” sprues to a fellow modeller Pál and he confirmed that one needs to hold it in his hand to believe how nimble these parts in reality! Of course there is the usual “text distortion” test of the parts. One and the most important thing is that you should take EXTREME CARE when working with the “Frame version”!!!!!!! The canopy frame parts are ULTRA small and very, Very, VERY thin! Almost a true scale representation of the real thing. Since the plastic parts are so thin they are also basically transparent, so to say. In my opinion it is essential to give it an overall layer of black or very dark grey colour to give it a “body”, make it visible! The real colours of frame can be applied after this. OF COURSE THE PRIME ADVANTAGE OF THE “FRAME VERSION” IS THAT YOU DON’T NEED TO USE ANY PAINT MASKS WHAT SO EVER ON THE CANOPY! Paint the frames separately and then simply pop-in the transparent parts. Paint mask producing aftermarket companies will not be “amused” by this!!!! : ) : ) : ) I am sure those modellers with kinky ideas of building wreck dioramas, where after decades in the jungle only the canopy frame (or part of it) remain will simply love the Fine Molds idea. So here you have the transparent parts from the Fine Molds A6M5 Zero kit. What do you think? Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Miramar Road Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 God... damn.... That's all I can say. I'm not even a big fan of the Zero but even I want to give this kit a try now after seeing your build pics Gabor. This engineering is a true game-changer when it comes to injection molding technology. I only hope Fine Molds also decides to give other Japanese WWII planes a similar treatment with this level of engineering and finesse. Maybe perhaps even other Axis and Allied aircraft too! I'd love to see the Shiden-kai and Shoki from Fine Molds. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted February 9 Author Share Posted February 9 Some more work on the engine. Drilled out all the exhausts and made a trial dry run to see what goes where and how. And what is more important what should I look for, are there any pitfalls in the build. Well, one of the most important thing is that modeller should carefully study the Fine Molds instruction manual. Take some time to read it carefully and understand what is what. Follow the build steps. The pitfall is that if you go ahead skipping some steps then the construction could run into serious problems. The best place to see this is the engine after side. Here everything is connected with everything else and there is only one easy way of doing it. I know most of it will not be visible if you should decide to glue the cowling into place. BUT. For example the engine exhausts are all carefully positioned. There are notches on each of them with corresponding tubs on after ring Part J20. This gives the exhaust the very precise position, angle and distance on the side of the fuselage. THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO FIT THEM. (just as with a lot of other parts in this kit) The kit designer made it completely foolproof. By so doing it is very easy to put things in place with positive location of parts. Good thinking! So you will have to build up the after part of the engine also to make sure that the exhaust stand as they should. This is how it all looks before painting. Of course in real time I am already many steps ahead of all of this. More up-date next time. Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 I don’t have either the technology nor the knowledge of how to use it. But if you look at the Fine Molds Zero kits instruction sheet there are a lot of QR codes next to individual building steps. Fellow modeller friend Pál helped me with this. They are QR codes which take you to Fine Molds website and show a short 2-3 minute videos, a kind of tutorial for the given building step. What is important it warns you of what you should look out for, where particular parts join with others. All in all it is a video build by the company of How to do it. Interesting and helpful. Takes just minutes but show important things. This thread has been so far about building the brand new Fine Molds 48th scale A6M5 Zero fighter. It is also about seeing how the kit builds, any mistakes on the way to warn others about. . . and so far I have found absolutely no problems. But of course time comes with every kit. . . Well, when trying a dry run with the engine I have found that Part A36, I would simply call it a “spider” has a problem with fitting to the main engine body. To be more exact the longer “legs” of the spider are a bit short. Now, if you are building your kit with a closed engine cover and have no intention of showing the Sakae 21 power plant then you can skip completely this post. The longer “legs” about 0.5 mm shorter and they don’t reach to the engine cylinder head as you can see from the photo. The shorter “legs” of the spider are perfect of course. Even if you are planning to show your engine, I am not sure if this will be visible at all. But there is a very simple solution to the problem. Add appropriate thickness spacers to extend the “legs” to make a contact with the cylinder head. What I did was to simply make seven spacers with a Punch & Die set from appropriate thickness sheet of styrene (in my case it was 0.5 mm). Glue them in place, give it a bit of sanding and there you go. Will it fit perfectly, I can only find out when the rest of the engine is truly built up and glued together, but even then I can make some corrections and sand a bit off from the “legs” to make a perfect fit. Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AndrewS Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 Great progress, Gabor. Thanks as ever for sharing your experience, explaining your solutions and illustrating your threads so well! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 12 hours ago, AndrewS said: Great progress, Gabor. Thanks as ever for sharing your experience, explaining your solutions and illustrating your threads so well! Hi Andrew, Good to have you on board with my build. Glad that you like what I show, what I build! What ever you do have lots of fun!!!!!! : ) : ) : ) Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
strikeeagle801 Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 I love your build so far. I too am a "zero virgin", but after seeing your progress, I don't think I'll be staying one for much longer. Aaron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 2 hours ago, strikeeagle801 said: I love your build so far. I too am a "zero virgin", but after seeing your progress, I don't think I'll be staying one for much longer. Aaron Hi Aaron, It is a fun build! : ) OK, I take my time, but as far as I can see it could be built out of box in few days with great result! I do add few things which are not really part of the kit, paint them, waite, add decals, waite, put some gloss over it, waite . . . Still it is fun! More soon on the build. Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ya-gabor Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 When judging at international modelling competitions one of the criteria on the judging list that we have to look for is the correct setting of the different surfaces in comparison to the fuselage. Is the fin vertical, are the wings at a correct angle, are the horizontal stabilizers truly horizontal . . . Not only in competition but also simply at home a kit looks better if they are at the right angles! There are very different design philosophies, ideologies that given kit manufacturers follow. In case of the Fine Molds A6M5 Zero the designers wanted to make construction of the kit as simple and as easy as possible. At the same time getting all the geometry right! And I am not speaking here about producing a kit which is 1/45 or 1/51 in scale simply because someone did not take the time and make proper measurements of the real aircraft or use the right scale drawings. But here it is about getting all the geometry, position and angles right in the first place. The solution is extremely simple and with it, be it a young, just beginning kid with his very first kit or a professional model builder at the other end of the spectrum, they will all get it right at the end of the day simply due to the design of the kit. The design is “fool proof”, the modeller will not be able to intermix parts, even if he wanted to do this. There is only ONE WAY of putting parts together on the Fine Molds Zero. Right stabilizer will be on the right side, just as the left one on the left side. Also, what is important the stabilizers have longer than average tabs and they interlock with each other in the middle ensuring that the stabilizers are perfectly horizontal when assembled. For decades the traditional way for stabs was to have a small tab, or just small pegs going into tiny holes at the base of the fuselage. There was a lot of wiggle room for the parts, they could be very wobbly. (See the attached photos of some conventional design.) Here the modeller had to pay extra attention to getting them right, to get the angles correct. All this requiring extra work and attention and even then you could not be 100% certain of the outcome. The fin is a similar story. On the Fine Molds Zero a very long “tongue” is on the fuselage section onto which the fin is slid at an exact vertical. This is all about some clever thinking ahead a little during design! Have to mention that both with the stabilizers and the fin the fit of parts is exceptional on this Zero, there is no need for any filler, sanding . . . Now to something completely different. So far in construction I have found only few places where the injection moulding tool ejector pin marks are visible. In all cases they are on the inner side of the parts, not really visible at all. Strictly speaking there is just one part where they are visible, so to say, even if only on the inside. But a very strict criticizer could notice them. Well the view on the ejector pin marks is obstructed by the main gear strut. The area is on main gear bay door inner side (Part A9 & A10). Did a little clean up and sanding to get rid of them. Here they are before and after. Best regards Gabor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ikon Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 There is some really great detail on those FM Zero! I have several from Tamiya to Eduard, but not FM and have yet to build any. This is making me want an FM one too! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mr.Happy Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 Hey Ya-Gabor, Man! Oh! Man! Thank you for breaking down this well written approach and tutorial to this Fine Mold’s kit of the Zero. This thread is definitely going to be bookmarked. I’ve out of the loop since December. So I’m catching up and loving this overview/ build. Keep up the awesome work and great synopses too. Mr . Happy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.