Aoshima 1/700 IJN Nagato 1927, a.k.a. Ole Grimey

I got this model kit for last Christmas from my wife. As usual, I built it with some gaps in between certain tasks. First I assembled the hull and turrrets, and then continued with other projects. Some time later I did the rest of the subassemblies, then it again took a while to paint them. 

The Nagato-class is perhaps the most powerful of all pre-treaty battleships, and their heptapodal main mast is a trademark feature - also more ergonomical in design than the restructured Fuso-class for example. In the far future I plan to build a Tosa using pieces from a Nagato and a Kaga kit, but that prospect is yet very distant.

The weird slanted funnel was also a focus point when choosing this version instead of the WW2 era rig.

All in all, the build was enjoyable, apart from the casual matter of things getting lost or broken off. I lost an AA gun on the aft platform, and all of the boat davits forward. I replicated these from scratch or turned to my spares box for solutions. 

1/700 IJN Kongo WIP: 'I Couldn't Leave It Like That' Edition

In my previous post I praised the quality of the model, and while I'm still kind of happy with it, a few problems arose that needed addressing - people with historical OCD can, I believe, relate to this.

The hull supplied in the set is suitable for the 1935 and 1944 builds of the Kongo. The bases for all the secondary casemates are cast together with the hull. However, examining models and period photos I had found out that in her 1944 form, the unused ports for the removed guns were welded over. This means that I had to scrape away the bases of the casemates and apply filler to be sanded later.

The rear conning tower (or similar structure, IDK) has an AA platform that is connected with a walkway to the one at the midsection of the rear tripod. While a walkway was supplied connecting the AA platform directly between the pagoda and the searchlights and further AA on the side of the first funnel, the one I'm talking about was missing. I had to fabricate it from cardstock, and added some PE railings (again, not very historical) both to this one and the one forwards.

There should be a large crane that is connected to the rear tripod, and this one was missing entirely from the kit. A Zvezda pikeman's arm came to the rescue, along with some stretched sprue.

Speaking of stretched sprue, a length of it was used to upgrade the crane servicing the seaplane catapult between turrets 3 & 4.

The kit was missing blast bags on all main guns, which was remedied with some goopy epoxy putty. When dried, it gives the appropriate effect. First I was a bit afraid of using it, but it works wonders.

The rather clumsy main radar antenna broke off during construction (this can actually be seen in the previous post), so I fabricated another using PE railings and card. There was a spare main rangefinder, from which I trimmed the periscopes off and used it as the base for the new radar appliance.

The flat bottom was attached without a hassle or any need for rubber bands, there is a metal bar glued to it to weigh the ship down, which is an excellent solution IMHO.

One thing I messed up doing the Bismarck was leaving way too many sub-assemblies separate for painting. I'm good enough with a small brush to reach everything on here while assembled, leaving only the seaplanes and the boats to be painted separately.

1/700 IJN Kongo WIP: Professional Pagoda Planning

When there was some hobby time available, I started sub-assemblies on the Kongo. It comes together much easier than the Trumpeter Bismarck. There still is a lot of filing and scraping involved.

New Project for the New Year

 

While browsing through a local FB group, I found a listing of multiple 1/700 scale ships. Most of them were Krigesmarine ships, just the regular stuff, but in the same listing there was this gem, an 1993 issue of the Hasegawa waterline model of the IJN Kongo, post-1935 refit. I really like the Japanese dreadnoughts for their oddness (except for the Yamato-class, which IMHO are ugly), so I decided to buy. 

This is most likely going to be a simple, out of the box build, the beginning of a learning curve, so to speak, of assembling and painting more detailed scale models. I have an 1/700 Trumpeter Bismarck that is still unfinished and its main mast has broken off, but I might just deal with it later after all the frustration it caused. Let us hope that the Kongo will not cause such disappointment.

The Nagatos and Tosas - IJN Battleship project is complete

Here are the last four battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy that I will be ever finishing - this leaves the Yamato-class only anyway, and still a better statistic than the historical IJN. On the left, the two Tosa-class ships, one of which saw service as an aircraft carrier, and the other was broken up before completion, and on the right, the Nagato-class, which were actually used, albeit only in the Second World War. 

I have a fascination towards warship projects that never came to be, this is why I have the Borodino-class Russian battlecruisers, and will be completing some more things like the Austro-Hungarian superdreadnoughts and battlecruisers etc. 

Technically the Tosas are interwar designs, so they are out of my preferred period of WW1, but I thought they looked very nice, and fit the imaginary Island Kingdoms strategy of building huge, high quality capital units. I still have the Amagi-class battlecruisers to build, which would have been even larger than the Tosas, but currently these are the largest ships in my fleet. 

The most challenging part of this build was the heptapodal main mast, On the Nagatos I chose to do it only partially, and there might be a large inaccuracy in the spread of the supporting pieces. On the Tosas I was smarter, and chose a combined technique: I made the masthead and the center piece out of wood, and drilled a hole for it in the hull. I used wood glue to fix this in place, and when the glue set, I added the supports using superglue (the supports are brush bristles, and PVA does not work with them). The two platforms I installed inside were cut to a horseshoe shape and inserted from the forward opening above the conning tower, where the inside of the horseshoe could be attached to the center piece.

I might be doing some pagoda mast versions of the Fusos and have them serve as designated squadron/fleet flagships, and I still have to do the Kuramas and Amagis to have an up to date cruiser fleet, but I am satisfied that I have all the battleships ready to fight now.

There's another project I'm working on, which is the Klagimir Republic's fleet programme in the same period as these were completed, but it's mostly pre-dreadnoughts purchased from all over the globe to counter pirates and raiders; as they are potential opponents with the Island Kingdoms, it is an interesting thought experiment what a 16" shell could do to an early 1900's pre-dread...

More IJN Battleships

These are additions to my Japanese WW1 capital ship collection. I have completed the Fuso- and Kongo-classes a while ago, now the Kawachis and Ises join them. This is all made possible by getting some balsa wood for home delivery.

The Kawachis were the first Japanese dreadnoughts, and followed the not so successful hexagonal turret arrangement, while the Ises were the last completed before the end of the war - it is interesting to see the radical change in technology in such a short period.

Japanese WW1 War Fleet

At least its beginnings, with the Fuso and Kongo class completed. They are fine and modern looking ships for their age, I guess the battlecruisers would suffer because of their fewer guns, but thinking of it, most BCs that are in the planning list have eight guns anyway, and are not designed for the battle line.

RJW Japanese light ships

At least it looks like I've made some progress with the Japanese fleet, although in fact I did not. Twelve torpedo boats and four more destroyers, made from match sticks. I have two more destroyers assembled and two painted, and will have to complete eight more.

IJN Mikasa

The glorious and victorious. 

As I've mentioned before, this is straight down the most detailed and complex model I've built, also the one I've spent the most of my time on. 

Fight to the Death: Baby Mikasa vs. Baby Borodino

I am currently separated from most of my scratchbuilding stock, but first seeing Master Cordery's blog post about these Japanese wonder weapons and then the same product appearing on a forum, I decided to make something similar.

These initial efforts cover the IJN Mikasa and the four Borodino-class Russian ships. The hull is 3cm long and 1cm wide. The superstructure is compressed and the ship gains this caricaturistic rotund shape. I used standard scratchbuilding materials: plasticard, broom bristles and other plastic garbage.

The Borodinos steam out to meet their fate.

Project Tsushima continues

I have painted the first squadron, four battleships and two cruisers, for the Japanese fleet at Tsushima. The transparent bases from Magister Militum have also arrived, so all these units lack now is a name plate at the back of the base.

Zvezda Samurai Battles

Three boxes' worth of Zvezda figures for the Samurai Battles board game. They were quite expensive but there are a bunch of game-specific items on the sprues. The figures are all multi-part and can be built easily.

I plan on using them with SDS and, perhaps at a later date, Lion Rampant. It's going to take a while to build up bigger armies, especially considering the fact that at this time I do not want to expand this part of the collection.

Zvezda Samurai

Here they are, based and mustered together. The set has 44 figures. Initially I thought the photos were crap but a little fiddling with brightness/contrast made them look better. Guess I'll have to buy a strong lamp in my room because autumn and winter days won't be much brighter.

I have disabled google+ autoshare but here the darn thing is again. 

Revell 1/1200 Yamato + Loki's Great Hall giveaway

The Yamato was a huge Japanese battleship in the Second World War constructed to bring fear to the opposing fleet. It was 263 metres long, 36 metres wide, larger than any other unit including the German twin battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz. Main armament was 9x46cm guns. It was sunk by US aircraft. They were not so much afraid of it.

This Revell representation of the ship was not easy to assemble. The mold's age is shown, miscasts and lines and flash everywhere. As it usually goes with ships, however, painting have been rather easy.

The kit comes with 5 main gun turrets, either with AA guns on their top or not. The Yamato had more than 250 AA guns on deck, yet it was not enough to stop it being destroyed. Compared to the ships I've worked on earlier, it has a very interesting silhouette.

Before continuing with more photos, please check the very generous Andrew's (Loki's) Great Hall blog which has passed its 2nd birthday and has a nice giveaway, it is really worth joining in.

Picture deliberately stolen from Andrew's place. Now that the slideshow is back you can't even miss it.