A6M3 Hamp

[hacker]

what do l have to do to take a 1/32 Hasegawa A6M5 and back date it to a clipped wing Hamp?

[Test Graham]

If no-one else is going to answer, I'll suggest you need new wing tips and cowling without the ejector exhausts, but I suspect more can be said, especially in the big scale. If you fail to get an answer raise it on j-aircraft.org.

[hacker]

My next stop but the gang here can be just as informative

[MDriskill]

Well here's a link full of links to start. The "anatomy of the A6M3" one is quite good:

http://forum.model-space.co.uk/default.aspx?g=posts&t=3471

Hanging around at these sites is never a bad idea:

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/

http://www.j-aircraft.org/smf/index.php

But the most direct answer your question might lie in a good old-fashioned book. Koku-Fan, Model Art, and Gakken have all published excellent drawings that carefully delineate the variant-by-variant differences in Zero variants. The Koku-Fan "Famous Aircraft of the World" (FAOW) series may be the easiest to find.

[Nick Millman]

Labour of love but probably do-able if you relish a challenge. In a nutshell:-

1. Different engine, cowling and oil cooler intake

2. Removal of heat resistant panels on fuselage behind cowling, some re-scribing of panels

3. Different wings outboard of inboard edge of aileron, different ailerons and different panel lines, no wing tank filler cap, navigation lights in different position

4. Different flaps - A6M5 is one rib space wider, simple filling and re-scribing job

# 3 is more complex than it might at first appear because it is not just a matter of re-shaping the A6M5 curved tip into a clipped tip. I've never done it but you'd probably need to remove the ailerons, cut the outer wing away at the centre panel line (between the two central longerons) that lines up with the aileron actuator, fabricate completely new wing tips from that point and make new ailerons.

There used to be a U.M.I 1/32 resin A6M3 cowling and wing tips conversion set:-

http://acc.kitreview.com/umi2reviewrk_1.htm

The cowling would make life easier and be better than trying to re-shape the A6M5 cowling but the sketch of how the wing is to be altered looks a bit over-simplified.

Nick

[hacker]

Unfortunately U.M.I resin died with Dave Thomas a few years ago so if there any cowlings out there people are going to hang on to them if they have them. Cowling looks easy enough. Sort of a combination of M5 with M2 cowl flaps more or less. Still further research is in order