The Ship Model Forum

Hello!

About a decade ago I used to make models but life and other things got in the way and I forgot about the hobby. I decided to come back with a little bit of a bang and have decided to scratch build a 1/72 IJN Agano, as she appeared in November 1943, during the Battle for Empress Bay. My goal for this project is for it to be more of a learning project, where I'll relearn old skills and gather new ones. Additionally I plan to make other ships afterwards, so I decided to do an interesting, but not tooo interesting ship.

Since the last time I made models, I now very experienced in 3D CAD, and have a newly acquired 3D printer (Creality CR-10S Pro). So, I'm going to print it....
3D printing is great because any parts can be remade, edited, and for me, easier (just click around on a PC, and then shoot to a printer). I would not be doing this scale of a project if it would have to be done totally by hand (hull forms, fiberglass, etc).

I started printing April 6th 2020, and so far have an entire hull, and half of the decking complete. Forward Superstructure is already modeled in CAD, and working on the funnel.


First half of the ship lined up on my table


Experimenting with printing out deck anti-slip surface:



Whole ship:



Anyways I will keep this thread updated, and hopefully this wont boat won't take too long

Wow! Very nice. Looking forward to more.

Matt

_________________
In the yards right now:
USS Utah AG-16
On Hold
1/350 USS Portland CA-33 1942
1/350 Trumpeter Texas with a twist

Well, need to rename this topic to IJN Yahagi: I initially didn't want to do the Yahagi, because seemed the Agano didn't get any attention, well now I get why. I am switching this build to the Yahagi 1945 for 3 reasons:

1. The Yahagi has significantly more information and photos available compared to the Agano. I only found 2 actual photos of the Agano, the rest are the Yahagi and Sakawa. Additionally I have been using the book from Kagero, "The Light Cruiser Yahagi" and it just makes sense to keep following it

2. The Yahagi would be a nice boat to pair with a future Yamato.

3. The Yahagi had a (slightly) more colorful and interesting career than the Agano, rescuing survivors from the Musashi during The Battle of Leyte Gulf, and chased down Taffy 77 off Samar, just making it (slightly) more interesting of a project.

Anyways, some progress:

Finished printing the decking, not gluing the hull sections or decking together quite yet.
Lots of superglue arrived from Amazon.


Brass tube arrived to be the stuffing boxes. 300mm*6mm*0.5mm. Will have 3mm SS shafts. Made the "shaft root" to where the brass tube enters the hull.




Currently preparing the forward superstructure, and continuing to research the Yahagi.

She looks great.