Zaku Phantom Project: Part 2 - Modifications

Minor customization.
I personally would like to thank the past rainy days for not allowing me to paint the SD Kanu Gundam but giving me time to do some customization. My orders from Hobbies Corner arrived and I'm so excited to start adding mods to my Zaku.

You can find Part 1 of the Zaku Phantom project here.

Materials used:
- 0.5mm plastic plates
- 0.3mm plastic plates
- 1mm plastic beams
- Kotobukiya option parts
- Tamiya Cement
- wire

Here are the images of the modification.

I added some Plastic plates to the feet. These were 1mm and 0.5mm plastic beam and plastic plates respectively.

More plastic plates were added for the front and back skirt armor.

Shoulder armor with Kotobukiya option parts.

Main body with option parts and some cables (blue).

The backpack was modified with addition of verniers.

For this part, I'd like to share a technique I learned from a "FREE DVD" from a Hobby magazine.

Most HG kits provide the same design on shoulder armor. Two armor parts to build the shoulder "joint", another two parts to "armor" it. Problem arises when you'll need to remove the seam line on the joints and on the external armor using the "time consuming technique". That refers to --> "cement" the joints, wait for a couple of hours and let it dry before sanding, then attach the external armor, apply cement on the armor, wait for another hour or so, then sand.

My objective was to save time and wait for one time only.

To save time, I applied cement to both joint and armor pieces at the same time. Wait for the cement to cure (this is the part where we save time) before sanding.

So how do you fit/insert the joint into the armor? Very simple.

Using the sandpaper technique!

Sand the cylindrical "thing" diagonally as shown on the image (I don't know how to call it)....

...and apply the same angle to the other side.

There you have it.

Now you can easily slide the joint into the shoulder armor.

Finished.

Part III of the Zaku Phantom project will be:
- priming and painting

so stay tuned.

Comments are highly appreciated.
Thank you for viewing!