Well here is my build blog for Eduard’s 1/48th Tora Tora Tora boxing of the Japanese A6M2 Zero Type 21 fighter.
Hopefully Rowan will be joining in at some point as I split the dual boxing with him.
After waiting a few days for some interior paints to arrive, I finally manged to start the cockpit.
As I mentioned in my review which can be found here, Tora! Tora! Tora! - A6M2 Zero Type 21 over Pearl Harbor | AeroScale, the cockpit is a mix of plastic parts and photo etch and is very detailed.
In fact the cockpit is very fiddly to say the least.
I started with the seat arrangement, which has some nice harness’s in pre-coloured photo etch.
The rest of the cockpit, with the sidewall details took me all day to build, and I haven’t even started with the main instrument panel.
Detail is exceptional with a lot of P.E involved. If you don’t fancy using the P.E then Eduard have included decals or painting the side panels yourself as an alternative.
So current state of play is this.
Great start! I’m just getting properly underway today with my part of the review double-build.
I’ll be using WEM’s Japanese paints and Eduard’s interpretation of the cockpit green is a bit lighter than WEM’s Mitsubishi colour (more akin to the Nakajima colour, but Eduard state that all the Pearl Harbour aircraft were likely to be Mitsubishi-built), so I’ll try a few experiments to blend everything together.
Thanks guys, your comments are appreciated.
No updates today as I had work, but I’m off at the weekend so there should be some more progress.
Looking forward to seeing how you tackle this kit Rowan.
Andy
@betheyn @Merlin
Hi gents - watching with great interest as I am a fan of Japanese aircraft. You might want to check out Nick Millman’s excellent guide “ Painting the Early Zero “ available at a very reasonable cost from his site “ Aviation of Japan “ . It is in electronic format and an extremely scholarly work backed up by years of research .
Highly recommended. Nick is VERY generous with his time and knowledge and certainly deserves our support.
You won’t regret it
Cheers- Richard
Well a little more progress this weekend.
I built up the instrument panel, which consists of two plastic parts and nine photo etch parts. Actually very easy to build.
Andy after seeing the cockpit for myself Saturday it is super detailed and very nice work from you, but on seeing that “Look” set I’m now in two minds as to do I get a Profipack kit or the standard plus “Look”?
I suppose it all depends on what is in the box at the end of the day, I’ll now wait and see.
I’m hoping to get properly underway tomorrow and Friday when I have days off. After that, it’s going to be full-on crazy at work through 'till Christmas - the “joys” of running a charity shop! So, being realistic, I’ll probably be running at least a week or two behind you at every stage.
Hi Rowan,
Great to have you joining in.
Well the cockpit will take you probably both of those days to build, but once that’s done it should be plain sailing (well that’s what I’m hoping lol).
Andy
The last edition of the Eduard e-magazine has two completed examples which the builders said ‘only took them a weekend to complete’.
So what you doing wrong, come on chop chop
I’m just getting properly underway today with my part of the review double-build. 
So, being realistic, I’ll probably be running at least a week or two behind you at every stage.
The last edition of the Eduard e-magazine has two completed examples which the builders said ‘only took them a weekend to complete’.