Shield Widening

The MG and PG Zaku kits all have very slender shields. The MG Zaku shield is about 82mm long and 22mm wide: about a 4:1 length:width ratio. The 08th MS Team HG Zaku kit, on the other hand, has a shield length of 50mm and a width of 20mm: a 5:2 ratio. It’s not as though the HG kit is infallible, but it’s a pretty wild variation between two kits of the same design. I decided that I preferred the wider-looking shield, as it seemed to have the potential to actually block something. As a result, I’ve widened the shield from its original 22mm to 28mm: the new shield is the same width as the HG shield would be if scaled up to 1:100 scale, and about 8mm longer. I’m still undecided as to whether I want to add the spikes to the shield – one the one hand, they are a nice touch, but on the other hand I feel like that starts to pull the design too far from what a “Zaku” is. I’m not sure yet what I’ll ultimately do.

To widen the shield, I first measured a (more-or-less) center line along the length of the shield, and attempted to cut along it with a razor saw. Then I measured the side walls of the shield (1mm each, so 2mm total) and subtracted that from the final shield width I wanted, and cut a rectangle of styrene that width (26mm) and glued it to the back side of the shield. I re-joined the pieces and filled the gap in this way. I checked my work by measuring and realized that one end of the shield was wider than the other: 28mm at the bottom end and between 28.5mm and 29mm at the top end – so I pulled the parts apart again, trimmed down the styrene plates holding the shield halves together, and reglued it, this time aligning according to measurements. Once I was reasonably happy with the alignment I filled in the remaining gap with more styrene and then polyester putty.