Tamiya Cement - Extra Thin and Regular

These products were being used by Andy at the Andy’s Hobby Headquarters channel on YouTube.  If you have not seen his videos, check them out.  I have linked his channel here.  It is mostly armor.  The videos are very professionally produced, and there is something to learn from each one.

Being curious about these cements, I picked some up.  Tamiya products always seem to be first-rate, and I use cement all the time.  I am currently using MEK as I did years ago.  And, it work well bonding.  It does have a tendency to really creep further than you think it will.  That makes it perfect for parts with long seams to seal like wing halves.  But it leaves something to be desired with small parts.  I apply it with a drafting pen.  If I need something thicker, I tend to use little tubes of thick CA that you can buy anywhere.  CA works great, but it is sometimes messy, will cloud clear parts and it really thickens up after the tube has been open for a week or two.

I have mentioned that I am getting back to building some armor.  My latest projects an AFV Club M24 Chaffee light tank.  There are about a million parts to be glued.  Many of them are very tiny.  Armor kits are generally fully assembled before any painting is done, so you spend a long time removing parts from the sprues, doing whatever cleanup is needed and then gluing them.

I decided to use these glues, and I could not be happier.  The thin cement (green cap) spreads itself along the mating surfaces with capillary action and does it in a well-controlled fashion.  The thicker cement (orange cap) cap be applied in tiny dabs where needed, and it does not evaporate so quickly that you do not have time to place the part where it belongs.

These cements are making the assembly of this model tank much, much easier.  I have a feeling they will be permanent additions to my workbench.

Tamiya 1/72d scale Zero - A Nearly Perfect Kit

This is the A6M3 Type 22 Zeke, Kit No. 85 in the Tamiya WWII aircraft series.

And it is as nearly a perfect kit as you will find.  The fit of the parts is right on.  I did not have to apply any putty anywhere.  The details are quite something in this small scale.  If it was scaled up to 1/48th scale, it would still be a great kit.

I have not made a Japanese aircraft in quite some years, and I was looking for a small, quick project.  This was in the stash, and I had all the colors I needed on hand.  So, out it came.

An Eduard canopy mask set was on hand also.  Those sets are worth the cost.  It obviates one of the un-fun chores with a model like this with so many windows and in 72nd scale too.

I added some surgical tape seatbelts, which look okay in this scale.  The kit decals went on perfectly using the Microscale system.

I have not added an antenna nor have I weathered it.  That will come soon.  I have just put together a homemade setup for photographing models, and I wanted to test it out.  The Zeke was done enough to put something up about it.  I still have a Tamiya Spitfire Vb, and Accurate Miniatures SBD-3 Dauntless and an Eduard Yak-3 that I have completed in the past few months.  I will be posting photos of them soon now that I have a better setup for taking photos.

Thank you for looking.