Zoukei Mura Hs129B-2/ RIII, 1/32 scale.

[BarryW]

Well I am almost ready to start. My modelling room is awaiting my shelves and blinds but that does not stop me building. So this is it, my first build in the new man-cave.

The box:
[ATTACH]434979[/ATTACH]

The aftermarket, not much, just paint masks. I will probably use decals for the swastikas.
[ATTACH]434980[/ATTACH]

The sprues labelled and in my sprue rack ready.
[ATTACH]434981[/ATTACH]

My bench all set-up
[ATTACH]434982[/ATTACH]

More to follow….

[Jim R]

Hi Barry
Well after all the time and effort you must be feeling pretty excited to at last start a model. Looking forward to following along.
Jim

[Tim Marlow]

Looks good. A very interesting little plane as a starter to christen the bench….

[dalej2014]

That workspace looks amazing. Well done sir. Look forward to seeing how the model turns out too.

[rtfoe]

What a way to start off with a tank buster Barry. Now the itch will stop. :smiling2:

Cheers,
Richard

[adt70hk]

Nice one to start with and something out of the ordinary....have a soft spot for a lot of WW2s twin engined fighters and ground attack aircraft..... This is one of them.

Looking forward to it coming together!

ATB.

Andrew

[Andy the Sheep]

I have just marked "Watch" this tread.
Will follow with interest.

[Dave Ward]

Barry,
oh, that looks far too tidy, and much too clean! More like a surgery, than a model bench. I could never keep mine like that, I'd have it looking like a rubbish dump in a day or so!
The Hs129 has always attracted me - I made the Airfix model a long time ago ( 45 years? ), that 75mm cannon being the main attraction!
Dave

[BarryW]

Hi Dave. ZM will produce other variants with the bigger cannon in due course.

Anyway. I have cut plastic!

The parts are beautifully moulded, crisp, clean with no flash and minimum clean up.

The plastic is very high quality but soft, not soft in the Airfix sense which is easy to work with, but soft with a little elasticity. That gives it some minor sanding issues that I am not very keen on, but there are some advantages, the elasticity means that parts are less fragile and are less likely to break.

I really love the instructions, they leave no ambiguity about part placement showing the parts from different angles with excellent explanations. This model is going to be a fun build.

I have started work on the engines and have been working on the first two stages.

[ATTACH]434993[/ATTACH]

Here is how they are left for now.
[ATTACH]434992[/ATTACH]

[Jim R]

...and he's off. Those instructions do indeed look rather special.
Jim

[adt70hk]

...and he's off. Those instructions do indeed look rather special.
Jim

Got to agree, almost a work of art in themselves.

Looking forward to this come together.

ATB.

Andrew

[BarryW]

I did a little more this morning. It is so nice not being exiled to the garage and just being able to just pop in.

The engine is coming together beautifully. The manifolds just click into place, beautiful engineering.
[ATTACH]435026[/ATTACH]

What I love is how ZM really want to help make sure you don’t go wrong. Just look at this, one step in the instructions for attaching one part, the care taken to make sure you know exactly what to do puts every other model company to shame and I do not exclude Tamiya from that.
[ATTACH]435027[/ATTACH]

[BarryW]

I have completed the construction of the engines, beautifully detailed, not much will be visible when completed.

[ATTACH]435064[/ATTACH]

I will be painting them soon.

While I will be fitting the engines ZM do give you the means to display them separately with a nice little engine mount made from the (now empty) sprues the engine parts came on. I will not bother but this is a nice touch.

[ATTACH]435065[/ATTACH]

Before I move on to the cockpit this might be a good time to report on the success of my ‘carpet-monster suppression measures’ or perhaps I should say, CSCM, taken in my new modelling room. To which, so far, I can say they are a great success. Every dropped part, however small has been quickly spotted and retrieved. The combination of the blue colour and low nap of the carpet tiles really makes parts stand out while keeping the floor clear of clutter gives nowhere for the CM to hide before pouncing. I have taken to vacuuming after every session as well as, again, by keeping the amount of plastic cuttings down spotting parts is a lot easier.

[Jim R]

Hi Barry
Lovely work. All credit to Zoukei-Mura and yourself. Nice to know that a very hungry Carpet Monster is jumping about in a frustrated rage :tongue-out3:
Jim

[adt70hk]

That's coming on very nicely indeed Barry and as you say the engine stand is a nice touch. Also good to hear that the anti carpet monster measures are working well so far.

ATB

Andrew