The Ship Model Forum

I hope it helps. But if you have questions please ask. If I can be of assistance I will.

Thanks for your reply Gabriel, I'll look over the review carefully and definitely use your "pencil-out"; I've done that myself in the past with some P.E. heavy armoured vehicle conversions I've worked on. I can see that being double necessary on something like this Flyhawk set!

I gotta say I'm really glad I stumbled onto this forum; classy place with really nice, helpful people!

Cheers, Roy

Hello Roy,

Wow, thanks Dan for compliment or referring someone here.

First, I did I review of the PE set. Before you start and as you plan your build, I would suggest you read through this first: viewtopic.php?f=85&t=161354. I detailed what they got wrong with the set.

For my build I went after a specific time period which lead to some scratch building and changing the kit a bit. I think I detailed those out in the build decently so if you are doing a different time frame be aware of those.

If memory serves the instructions are two pages with front and back. There is a lot of information crammed in there and too me a while to get through it all. A trick I started doing to help me with those is before I started building I took the kit instructions and with a pencil start editing them by crossing out the parts that are being replaced by PE as well as listing the PE part numbers needed. This helped me greatly to keep track of what I was doing so I did not miss anything.

Hello Gabriel,

DanK suggested I take at look at this post as I have the Aoshima Nagara and the Flyhawk P.E. and brass set. This is a gold mine for me on this future project and I'll be taking heavy advantage of all the effort you put into sharing your build; thanks so much!

I have a question for you about the Flyhawk set instructions. Mine came as two sheets marked pages 1 to 4 but they seem a bit anemic. I was wondering if maybe the set I received is missing a sheet or two. Did yours come with just the two sheets?

Again, thanks for posting this fantastic build. I have to wonder, if this got second place at that W. Va. meet, what on Earth got first place?!

Cheers, Newbie Roy

Thank you Dan and Fred.

For the water, here is what I did:

1: Sheet Styrofoam. Put the hull on and traced it. Cut it out then glued the sheet to the base.

2: Using sanding sticks I created the wakes and other major details I wanted in the water.

3: I used Golden Artist Extra Heavy Gel in as thin a layer as I could on the sheet. This allowed me to get rid of the porous aspects of the sheet and add a little bit more detail. Messy but kind of fun.

4: Paint. I used I think five layers of coloring. Hand brushed the base color. Let that one dry. The rest I did one after the other so even if it was still wet that is fine. Airbrushed the rest of the layers except the last which was dry brushed.

5: Add the ship. There will be a bit of a gap around the hull. That is where you add the cotton. Some of the cotton gets painted if there is too much.

6: Make it look wet. Woodland Scenic has a product called Realistic Water. It is a liquid. I used a paint syringe to get it on the base and a brush to spread it out. Let dry.

Really easy. Total time hot including drying is about four hours give or take.

Truly excellent work. Perhaps you could post details of how the water base was made?

The IJN was obviously not concerned with making life easy for future model builders. Rightfully so. Sounds like you had to deal with some manufacturer issues demonstrating the same problem. Combine the difficulty inherent in most IJN ships plus the detail kit issues and the end result is even more amazing. Now that it is complete, an exceptional performance is obvious. Bravo Zulu.

Don't sell yourself short. You've done well.

Coming from someone of your amazing caliber Laci, I am flattered. You just made my morning.

That is a very nice looking model, Gabriel!!!!! It deserves all the recognition it gets! I especially like how well, neatly and precisely you can bend and place PE parts!!! You have a wonderful gift!!!!

Cheers: Laci

After 170 hours total of a build she is complete. It has been a great build all in all. Learned a lot so hopefully the next one will look better. I really appreciate all the help and encouragement throughout the build as well.

I do not compete per say. When I take a kit into a meeting I am simply wanting to share it with others and get feedback. On a whim I took her to the most recent Northern Virginia IPMS meeting and she won 2nd place in ships.

Here are the pictures I have currently. I will get better pics taken and submit them to the gallery.
As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Excellent work--I really like how the water came out!

As usual, the detail really makes the ship come alive...so do all the little sailors.

Well done!

Tim W.

Thanks for the info Matthew.

Thank you for the compliments Bob and Matthew. Having those really helps.

Here are the completed port side railings. Starboard still needs to be done.

She looks great!




Bob Pink.

The following link has Vallejo equivalents for all four IJN Naval Greys:

http://www.ipmsswamp.com/files/VallejoW ... alents.pdf

Sasebo Naval Arsenal Grey ....... 816 Luftwaffe Uniform Grey
Kure Naval Arsenal Grey ........... 900 French Mirage Blue
Maizuru Naval Arsenal Grey ...... 903 Intermediate Blue
Yokosuka Naval Arsenal Grey ... 869 Basalt Grey


The chart also contains other IJN colors for aircraft, linoleum, and IJN Camouflage.

As for the guns... I was looking fro information about what the gun houses looked like, when. For instance, as I pointed out, some of them show a raised rim around the aft opening of the gun houses, while others do not (sometimes the same ship at different times).

The Rainbow 140mm Guns for the 5500 ton CLs have PE parts for the aft of the gun houses, that only say to "check references."

Only... Having a poverty of resources makes that difficult to do.

MB

I have a great cross reference chart of naval colors for various navies up through WWII in Vallejo paint colors. The IJN one is sparse. I would live to know what you have for the various colors listed in Vallejo.

As to the guns, are you wanting more detail on the actual guns or the build aspects? The later I can provide.

Angeliccypher wrote:Thanks Dan and Matthew.

As to the color, from what I have heard the Tamiya XF-53 Neutral Grey is a really good match. The only company that I know of that ever made the color by name was Gunze.

As for the guns, you might be seeing the PE wrap on top of the plastic. It was what Flyhawk included in their set. Which I put a review of the set on this site. Dan might be able to answer more about the guns though.

I was looking earlier at some color equivalents from WEM and Vallejo. WEM made an actual Maizuru Grey (which I understand is no longer available). Vallejo gives an equivalent color as Intermediate Blue, which I have, and is a medium grey that has a blue tint to it.

As for the guns, and the gun houses, I would love to know more about them.

MB

Thanks Dan and Matthew.

As to the color, from what I have heard the Tamiya XF-53 Neutral Grey is a really good match. The only company that I know of that ever made the color by name was Gunze.

As for the guns, you might be seeing the PE wrap on top of the plastic. It was what Flyhawk included in their set. Which I put a review of the set on this site. Dan might be able to answer more about the guns though.

Still Jealous.

Isn't the grey a little too light (not blue enough)???

The recommendations I have for Maizuru Grey show a light blue-grey color (well, more a medium blue-grey).

Also, do the turrets on the Nagara during the Early War have the rims on the rear of the gun housing?

I noticed that some of the 5,500 tonners have these rims on their "turrets" (gun houses) during the early war while some don't.

I was wondering what those rims were, why they were there, and why they are not there on some of the ships?

MB

She does look nice.

Thanks Chris. Fred you are too gracious (or really need to share some of that scotch).

Crew done. Almost there. I have been working on the railings and should have some pictures of that up soon. Which leaves rigging and the two flags.

Thanks for looking. Comments welcome.