The Ship Model Forum

When I have more to really show, that can be a thing.

A few questions about some of the detail/accuracy bugs became clear as I looked at the earlier edition of the Anatomy of the Ship volume by Skulski. It looks like some of the design work may have been based on the earlier volume, while other areas appear to use more up to date sources, but only sort of in several cases.

Suggestion: why not make this a work in progress thread, and post photos of your progress. I can move it to that forum, if you want to do that.

A happy detail to mention. The kit appears to have nearly everything related to the beam 15cm gun turrets, including much of the photo-etch, meaning early configuration of the Yamato or Musashi are possible with most thing already in the box. As I was going to do the 1941 Yamato, this is a major easier step.

More progress and more disappointments. The various odd choices seem inexplicable. Some parts and details that were confirmed via photographic sources, then well documented in various published sources were nevertheless mis-interpreted or fictionally added or subtracted for no good reason. These were parts and details that would have/could have been done correctly just as easily. However, there was one part where it appears to have been simply cheaped out as an accurate interpretation would have required some extra parts count and more elaborate tooling. But, since it was not particularly prominent, they let it slide. So far, many of these are easily corrected (or tactfully ignored), but with the wealth of data available, it is still a puzzle as to the decision making involved.

Additional up date. Have been finding little discrepancies between The revised Anatomy of the Ship drawings and the kit. Some portholes, ladders and vents are in slightly different places and in one instance, a small vent is not there at all on the kit. Anyone know anything about the kit's data source? I'll be defaulting to the AotS drawings for the most part.

Which would make sense, since it's Trumpeter's factory that produces Gallery and MRC ship kits.

A little update. Started working with the photo-etch and it is distressingly similar to Trumpeter type, being very thin and soft. Worse, there is a lot of very long and slender bits, very easily bent out of shape.

Just got the kit, so this is just some initial impressions and a few little bits assembled so far. Its big. Really big. And has a ga-jillion parts. It is the Yamato in its final 1945 configuration, though appears that earlier and/or Musashi may be coming, or if one is willing to do some research, build some of the earlier configurations with what is in the kit. (I'm going to go a bit further and back date it to the December of 1941 configuration) The hull is in two halves with substantial reenforcement already in place. The main deck is in two parts, the wooden fore and mid deck, and separate concrete aft section. There is a mass of photo-etch, as one might expect (especially for the price, locally just under US$1,000) That isn't as awful as one might expect, having gotten the Trumpeter USS Iowa plus the Pontos photo-etch set (very highly recommended) for nearly as much. The build looks like it will be very straight forward and appears to well match the new edition Anatomy of the Ship by Skulski and Draminski. However, this is not a quick shake and bake easy kit to assemble. Over and above the shear mass of parts, the fit of some of the part will need a little attention. Nothing awful (so far) but be prepared to have some thinned filler to get some of the little gaps that will come up. Test fitting and a little extra attention to mating surfaces will also be needed. Nothing a modeler with any experience can't handle (so far).