Here’s another resin detail set in the fine line of Quickboost products. This time we’ll be looking at the resin exhaust detail set for the 1/48 Hasegawa A6M5 Zero Fighter.

As most of you know, the Reisen or Zero was the most famous Japanese Fighter of WWII. The A6M5 was the most produced variant of that aircraft. The Reisen saw combat in all theaters of the war, and there are several surviving examples in museums today. This fine resin detail set is designed to fit exactly with ANY of the 1/48 Hasegawa A6M5 kits on the market today (and there are many different ones out there to buy!).

Accurate Miniatures P-51C has been re-boxed many times. This is the “Bendix Racer” boxing of it. You get the standard sprues, which is a full military P-51C (i.e. machine guns are included in the kit).

Probably the main, and really the only problem about this kit, is the instructions. To begin with, they are very confusing regarding the left and right parts for the rear fuselage. You just have to use your common sense. Besides, it is very obvious which part is the left (or right) part of the fuselage; just look at the drawings and ignore the part number.

I assembled and detailed the cockpit as per instructions. Then I departed from the instructions by first gluing the forward and rear parts of each fuselage together, then assembling both full fuselages sides together. Simple enough to do, and it ensured a better alignment of the whole fuselage.

After 3-1/2 weeks since the “First Look,” this reviewer is pleased to provide this final installment for the out-of-box “build of a lifetime.” Indeed, in my humble opinion, our friends at Tamiya outdid even their standard-setting Spitfire series. All said, 34 hours were invested in the build – 24 on construction, and 10 on painting, decaling, and weathering. I can’t believe fewer than 40 hours were logged…but that’s what all my records indicate -- most likely a testament to how well everything fit, and the fact that there were a couple of uninterrupted “build days” early in the build.

Integration

With the majority of subassemblies complete at the time of the previous report, integration was the next major task. Again, as e xpected, all of the “subs” fell together with very little effort. Wings and horizontal stabilizers mated to the fuselage with only a couple spots of putty on the lower forward wing root, just aft of the engine cowling.