ok, so i took a little vaca from modeling to start college. now im back. and i managed to get my hands on my first 1-32 scale kit. its a Zero thats all i know about it. it came in a brown box at walmart in the clearance ilse for 10$ and it was labeled “132 Plane Model” i just couldnt help myself. Does anyone have any suggestions for good upgrade kits… PE sets, ect.
What im looking for is a new set of wheels, the kits set SUCKS a big one. And then maybe a PE set to dress it up. no resin please!!! maybe a styrene cast engine?! i dunno. and i could use a 132 Japanese Pilot figure.
if anyone is interested in trading or sharing, let me know! Thanks again guys![:D]
Eduard set #32018 contains two nice frets of PE for a 1/32 Zero. They also make PE sets for the Tamiya 1/32 Zero, but the one I listed, which may be a generic set, might be better suited to your model.
You have my curiousity up abot which kit it is. Walmart was selling a 20th Century Toy 1/32 A6M2 in January. It’s molded in milky whitish plastic and has screws to hold the fuselage and wing together. They sold for around $10 and were decent for what they cost.
If it was on close out for $10, I assume it was one of the other kits. Could be the old Revell kit. That was re-released by Revell Germany a year or so back. It has a sliding canopy with fairly deep ravines for rails and a tail wheel that is molded in the down position. The upside is that the fit of the Revell kit is excellent, though the accuracy is not.
I doubt it’s the Tamiya kit. Both versions come with a bazillion parts.
The Hasegawa kit has two cannons in each wing and fairly good detail, though raised panel lines.
There was also a Doyusha A6M2 which had a lot of toy features and I seem to recall the wheels were designed for rolling easily instead of accuracy. The original release, by Tomy, had a motor and the finished kit could taxi.
The Arii looks like a scaled up Monogram A6M5. It has retractable landing gear.
As far as injection molded after market parts, they don’t really exist. One idea is to watch Ebay auctions for junk yard kits. 1/32 Zeros come up in those auctions from time to time. If you could score a built, but trashed kit cheap, you could kit bash the details out of the trashed kit and the new kit with poor detail.
I’ve seen the 20th Century Toy kit. For what it costs, it’s a pretty decent kit. It’s a heck of a lot nicer than the old Tomy/Swallow/Dyusha kit which was going for $100 on Ebay before Tamiya’s kit came out.
The 20th Century kit does need some dressing up. Any of the detail sets for the Tamiya A6M2 should work for that kit.