**** DONE: 1/48 Ta 152H - Allied Advance and Defense of the Reich WWII.

[JKim]

Username: JKim
First name: John
Category: Advanced
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Zoukei-Mura
Model Type: Focke-Wulf Ta 152H-1
Aftermarket addons: None

 

[JKim]

Alright... here we go! This is a 1/48 kit of the Focke-Wulf Ta 152H-1 byJapanese maker, Zoukei-Mura. Presumably, it is patterned after their 1/32 version of the Tank fighter, which was released earlier to very positive reviews. This kit was mailed to me by a friend living in Japan two years ago and it's been sitting on my shelf since then.

This will be my first kit by Zoukei-Mura, which is a fairly new company. Their kits are characterized by extenstive representation of interior structure and detail which, for modelers that like their planes buttoned up and battle-ready, not necessarily a selling point. Let's see what's in the box... the instructions are black and white and printed on regular paper.

The paint callouts reference Vallejo paint numbers (which I don't use) but they also give the appropriate RLM numbers.

Construction is laid out via 3D- drawings and seems to be easy enough to follow.

The decal guide is certainly less than optimal. Calling out decal locations via low resolution photos without the benefit of panel lines might be acceptable for a toy but not a precision scale model.

The painting guide includes the scheme of a single aircraft, Green 9, even though markings for multiple aircraft are included on the decal sheet. Z-M should have invested more effort on the decals and painting guide, IMO.

The decal sheet is of unknown quality. I don't know how usable they are, never having built a Z-M kit but I there are plenty of choices in terms of aircraft codes. I wish white numerals were included and that the yellow numbers didn't have that black outline.

The gauges on the instrument panel decals are a bit vague and might be difficult to punch out. I'm certainly not going to try and apply the entire decal over the molded details of the instrument panel.

The clear parts look good, maybe a little on the thick side.

The gun sight is depicted as a clear piece. I prefer to use clear acetate for the reflector glass so this part might be modified or replaced with piece of scrap plastic.

On to the sprues... Z-M uses a typical light grey plastic. The wings are divided into two similar sprues and they feature (oh joy joy) modular construction

Molded detail is very good. Not as refined as the state of the art you'd find on the newer Eduard or Tamiya kits but very good.

The wheels are molded in a single piece and the landing gear struts have a brake line molded in place. There appears to be a bit of excess plastic flash around the edges of all of the pieces... again, not quite state of the art.

The interior sides of the landing gear doors have nice detail on them.

Here is the sprue of the other wing...

Nowhere is the characteristic shape of the Ta 152 recognizable. The fuselage seems to be broken into sub-components. This is the big negative when it comes to kits showing interior detail. Open panels mean separate parts and more separate parts means more glue seams and potential fit issues.

One of the first orders of business will be to remove the grate on the supercharger intake. The remains of the Ta 152H in the National Air and Space Museum has a supercharger intake with a grate on it but informed sources (including Jerry Crandall) believe that the grate was added after capture and was a not a feature of Ta 152H aircraft in service.

The interior side of the fuselage pieces feature interior ribbing.

To be continued...

 

[Wurger]

 

[rochie]

Nice choice John, will be doing a Jg 301 Fw 190 A-8 in this build !

 

[Crimea_River]

Wow, you're just itching to start, aren't you!

 

[A4K]

Great choices John and Karl!

 

[JKim]

Heh heh heh... yeah I'm locked and loaded on this one. Gonna lay off the aftermarket stuff and TRY to keep it simple for this build. My favorite planes have always been the inline versions of the Fw190 and the Ta 152H being the pinnacle of that design, I've always wanted to build this aircraft. I was given this kit as a birthday gift a couple of years ago from a friend in Japan who shared my passion for WWII aircraft back in high school but haven't been able to get to it until now.

 

[Wayne Little]

Excellent....

 

[destrozas]

fascinating mold john,
Amazing mold in a contest in Valencia (Torrent), the tube in your hands and it's fascinating quality

 

[JKim]

Continuing with the Sprue Tour...

This sprue concentrates most of the drivetrain pieces including a full Jumo 213 engine and the characteristic wide-blade VS9 prop.

The details molded into the engine look great but unfortunately, I will be buttoning up most of this detail since I don't like the look of models with their engine covers off.

The exhaust stacks are molded solid and will need to be opened up... a challenge given the small, elliptical openings.

This sprue contains most of the interior parts including the cockpit and a massive wing spar.
[missing picture... didn't upload]

The interior parts have some decent detail but look a bit soft. The IP bezels are obviously overdone and I might have trouble getting any instrument detail into the smaller gauges. The smaller parts have a lot of excess plastic flash that needs to be trimmed off.

Like the exhaust pipes, the cannon barrels are also solid. I will either drill these out or replace with brass tubing.

The tail gear is molded nicely but is a single piece, which will require careful painting. Again, lots of excess plastic evident on the smaller parts.

That concludes the review of the kit contents. I'll be starting with construction shortly!

 

[fubar57]

Looks good John. You could always model the engine on a stand and place it by the 152.


Geo

 

[JKim]

Looks good John. You could always model the engine on a stand and place it by the 152.


Geo

Possibly but I don't think I could pull that off convincingly enough to make it worthwhile. Plus the exhaust pipes would need to be mounted on the plane, not the engine.

 

[Wurger]

Nice.

 

[JKim]

Diving right into the build! There were some obvious things that needed attention as I took pictures of the sprues so I attended to those things first.

The supercharger intake. This is comprised of three parts including the intake lip, which has a grate molded in. It's solid so It really kills the scale effect. I was glad when I did some research and found out that the grating was probably added after capture and wasn't present on in-service Ta 152's.

Chain-drilled with a micro drill bit to start the removal process.

The plastic used in this kit is noticeably softer than what I've been used to recently. That makes certain things easier, like trimming away the excess plastic on the supercharger intake but the softer plastic can also make the knife blade "bite" when you don't want it too.

It's a noticeable improvement. I haven't glued on the intake ring yet because the joint between the two supercharger halves still needs to be cleaned up. I need to do a bit of research to see if there is a weld seam that needs to replicated.

The wing cannon barrels turned out to be nicely circular in cross section. I think they are usable so I drilled the ends out using a sharp x-acto blade.

The solid exhaust pipes were next on the agenda. Hollowing them out is delicate and tedious work but it's one of my pet peeves so I had to do it.

Halfway done. I start by drilling three small holes in the end of each exhaust end using a fresh x-acto blade. You can make out the holes in the unfinished piece on the right. Placement of the three holes is critical... off-center or too close to an edge and you'll cave in the sides. Once the holes are drilled, you can cut through the thin plastic between the holes and start digging out a little elliptical depression. Again, the softer plastic made this step a little easier.

Once the gouging is done, excess plastic burr is removed using a stiff paint brush. I'll give it a light coat of Tamiya Xtra Thin glue to smooth things out. One the depressions are painted black and the rest of the exhausts are painted, the effect should be convincing.

A concern popped out as I was looking over the kit's instruction booklet. the attachment of the main landing gear has you do a "insert-and-twist" move that had alarm bells ringing in my head. This probably rules out dry-fitting and may be a one-shot affair, especially given the softness of the Z-M plastic.

 

[fubar57]

Good call on the intake John and nice work on hollowing out things. In case you're interested, here's the difference between the H and C IPs...

 

[Crimea_River]

Not a kit for children. Have you decided on a sheme?

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

Will be lots of fun!

 

[JKim]

Thanks Geo... very helpful! Seems to be in line with this picture...

Andy... it should be an interesting build for sure given Z-M's unique approach to interior detail. I've not finalized a scheme yet but have been mulling the possibilities. I'll probably ignore the minor differences between the H-1 and H-0 and consider both variants. I'll save the funky orange Ta152 for Geo. The most documented and the most commonly modeled are Green 9 and Green 4, being captured aircraft. The other captured aircraft, WNr 150167 is interesting but it lacks the Jagdeschwader fuselage bands and aircraft ID code so it wouldn't have that "operational" look.

A less-modeled alternative would be White 7 (Wnr 150007) of which there is some documentation.

There is also Yellow 1, which is visible in the oft-referenced lineup shot of Ta-152's. Is the "1" outlined in black or not... it's hard to tell.

I also have not ruled out Black 13. I don't know what documentation there is on such a machine but I have seen a couple of different profiles. I know there is photo evidence of White 7 as WNr 150007 but that doesn't necessarily preclude the existence of Black 13.

 

[fubar57]

Orange???? I'm in. Do you have this book, John

Geo