The Ship Model Forum

[quote="marijn van gils"]Very very nice indeed!

The water is also looking good: a good base to finish with some foam and gloss.

Cheers,

Marijn[/quote]

Marijn,

Thank you. I'll be liberally borrowing some of your technique for my Erstaz Yorck. =D

This is (mostly) done. I'm posting pictures in the "Completed" forum shortly!

Very very nice indeed!

The water is also looking good: a good base to finish with some foam and gloss.

Cheers,

Marijn

Chris, I am quite impressed with the way she turned out. Such a lovely model. You really did justice to that fine kit!

[quote="Dan K"]Great job. Great rigging.

I just received a Kajika Kirishima for review, and I have to say, it's very impressive in the box.[/quote]

Watch out for the railing that won't quite follow the superstructure. Beyond that, I loved the kit.

Last picture before it's finished. I've done some blending on the water and plan to add foam/gloss early this week. I've got some other water-making techniques I'm going to experiment with that will, hopefully, be far superior to my elementary knuckle-dragging pictured here. Photo taken in direct sun.

[attachment=0]29792950_10113115091942431_8129347208167146249_n.jpg[/attachment]

Great job. Great rigging.

I just received a Kajika Kirishima for review, and I have to say, it's very impressive in the box.

She looks great, PG. Thanks for updating us with her progress. I agree with Martin: fantastic job rigging her. It really adds to the presentation. :thumbs_up_1:

Very nice, very thorough. I really like what you did with the canvas cover on the bridge.

Thanks, Martin. Honestly, I'm debating adding more rigging. I love a busy ship in 1/700.

Excellent work! Love the rigging.

So... I'm actually building and am nearly finished with this ship. I've had an awful long rut with a minimal desire to do anything but dry fit "what if" ships, hoping it grants me [i]some[/i] interest in a hobby where I've spend thousands of dollars for items now collecting dust.

Done:
- Main construction.
- Rigging (combo of stretched sprue and Infini line)
- Itsy figures. Next time, I'm using my 3D printed guys. I swear. I just wanted this done.

Need to do:
- Paint checks with a light
- A few more pin washes
- Dullcoat
- Water

Finishing this will be the final stage in a return to the hobby. I've also got a 1/350 Shimakaze well on its way to completion.

[attachment=4]Kongo1.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=3]Kongo2.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=2]Kongo3.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=1]Kongo4.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=0]Kongo5.jpg[/attachment]

Current progress on Kongo. I've attached the lowest level of the bridge and midships superstructure. The rear funnel assembly is dry fitted, pending some additional weathering, PE, and other bits.

Notes:

- Still need to run some thinned Elmer's along the railing in order to blend the bottom "rung" with the deck. I'll do this with pretty much all the railing.

- Weathering is heavier where crew are less likely to easily repaint.

- I grew reeaaaaally tired of reattaching 5" guns, so I put them in the box as they fell off.

- PE Ladders (part 3) that allow access to the bridge are waaaaay too short. I'll have to find alternatives.

- Citadel up is just base coated and unweathered. This is not attached to the ship.

- I'll use the tripod plastic bits but likely will replace the rest with brass. This includes the horizontal element on the foremast. It's rather flimsy.

All for now. I'm kind of in a hurry to finish this for a show. Our local IPMS meeting is tonight, so I doubt I'll do any work on this.

[attachment=6]K1.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=5]K2.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=4]K3.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=3]K4.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=2]K5.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=1]K6.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=0]K7.jpg[/attachment]

Been a while.

Done:

- Hull weathering. I'm [i]really[/i] glad I did this with the booms unattached. I was able to get good streaking, consistently, on the hull. I found a rather interesting picture of Kongo upon arrival in Japan after her long trek from England and used that for my weathering base. The hull was beat up, though the "paintable" areas were in much better shape. I'm reflecting that in my work.

- Funnels. The seam line is all but invisible on all three funnels, so I'm happy.

[b]Notes: [/b]Forward funnel pipes have fit issues. The aft one doesn't have enough of a groove at the base to fit properly. If you glue it against the funnel up higher, it'll curve inward. I solved this by attaching it parallel to the funnel and using Elmer's to scratch the pipe supports.

The forward three pipes, platform, and supports all don't fit right. Attach the two support beams for the outer whistles, the center pipe, then add the platform. You'll have to wiggle it into place and THEN attach the two bent pipes.

Beyond that? Turrets are done, with all but the second glued down. You'll note some of the casemate guns are missing, largely due to handling the kit as I worked on the hull. I got sick of reattaching them and opted to put them into a box for safe keeping. [b]I suggest leaving the barrels off until the ship is mounted. [/b]

Weathering was done with a combination of oils, AK's salt and grey streaking, and dry brushing. These pictures wash out a lot of the effect, sadly.

[attachment=2]Kongo1.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=1]Kongo2.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=0]Kongo3.jpg[/attachment]

Beautiful! I'm STRONGLY considering adding one of these kits to my stash. Regarding the funnel seams: have you ever tried Mr. Dissolved Putty? I recently discovered this product and will NEVER go back to tube putty. I read somewhere that some modelers used q-tips and some type of solvent to blend their seams after the product was dry. I've never tried that method (I just sand it) but it might offer a good solution to saving the molded details that might otherwise be damaged by sanding.

Promised picture. I've replaced the booms and done some sanding work on the funnels. I'll hit them with primer after work and HOPEFULLY get them installed on the boat deck. Once they're anchored, I'll add details and paint.

[attachment=0]17021675_10110414001244841_6357480843549633298_n.jpg[/attachment]

Thank you. It's not that I'm shy about posting. I just don't like to do the whole "WIP" thing unless it's demonstrating something novel and useful for fellow members. I'll still post final build pictures.

I didn't do anything last night. I've learned not to model when I'm grouchy and tired. It never turns out well. :)

I'll post some pictures tonight once I get those #*$$ seam lines off the funnels.

Ditto that.

Thanks for posting PG. I always enjoy your works in progress. Beautifully-engineered kit. She looks great so far. Please continue to update.

Nice! Good looking ship. I hope they sell a ton of these.

I've been hesitant to really post in-progress builds, but figured that this may convince someone to check out this excellent kit. I've been working on this for a little bit and can attest that it meets Flyhawk's usual mark of excellence.

Pros:
- Lovely, crisp detail. The planking is subtle and brillaint.
- Ease of assembly
- Best fit of any 1/700 kit I've built. I was shocked with how easily the hull fit together with little fuss.
- Tons of detail on the styrene alone.
- Easy aftermarket PE
- Deck. Mask. Seriously amazing. It saved me hours of work.

Cons
- Bloody funnel seam line runs on the port/starboard side. It's damn well impossible to eliminate without losing the funnel's hand and foot rail details. Kajika does not provide PE replacements on their basic fret.
- Boat chocks. They're good for plastic, but I like PE replacements.

Added aftermarket:
- Kajika's barrels and PE
- Flyhawk boat chocks and accessories from surplus Nagato PE
- Some styrene improvements.


Construction began with the simple mating of the hull, which was crazy easy. I effectively prepared to paint the wood bits and left the rest on sprue. Overall, this was easy, though I HIGHLY CAUTION builds to leave the blasted torpedo booms off until after you're done weathering the hull. This was a painful but easily mitigated mistake on my part. I was lucky.

Deck painting was done in my usual way:
- Base coat
- Colored pencils
- Filters
- Wash
- Additional filter (first time I did this.)

I think it came out okay and in-scale.

[attachment=0]Kaj6.jpg[/attachment]

I then painted the hull, major superstructure bits (that possessed wood decks) after using Kajika's mask. I had zero overspray and minimal correction requirements.

After some weathering, here's where the ship stands. I'll start building out the midships superstructure/boat deck and work my way out. Getting the funnels seam-free will be the challenging part:

[attachment=5]Kaj1.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=4]Kaj2.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=3]Kaj3.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=2]Kaj4.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=1]Kaj5.jpg[/attachment]

All for now.