"What about the "3D" book by Cestra? I remember it helped a lot when I did the rigging on 'Dreadnought' a few years ago.
And while I am at it:
I like to build Yamato sometime before Ten-Ichi-Go, i. e. with stern antenna mast and 'Pete' aircraft - should I leave off the Chrysanthemum (spelling?) decal for the funnel? And I am not sure about the wooden deck - blackened or not....or something in between?
I appreciate any facts, opinions, etc."
There is a book you can get on the 1/10 Yamato display that may be of some help (
https://www.ebay.com/itm/IJN-BATTLESHIP ... SwbPVc-wb3).
Also if you search the internet for "IJN大和戦艦1/10廣場" (IJN Yamato Battleship Hiroba) and play around and click various links, something will come up that might help.
If you plan to built a pre Ten-Ichi-Go, the Black Soot deck color didn't exist yet. The crew rubbed the soot from their burnt coal onto the Hikoki deck to mask the ship before the mission off the coast Okinawa which they never made due to they were hunted down by the US Navy and torpedo bombed and sunk. The ship was stripped on unnecessary gear to make the ship into a coastal gun placement to defend the island from being taken by the enemy. The ship was supposed to be beached and turned into a coastal battery. Also when you look at the 1/10 Yamato at the museum, you will find it pre-Ten Ichi Go configuration because Japan wants this to show the bravery of the Yamato crew sacrificing their lives to defend their nation to the people of Japan. The whole museum was meant to be a memorial where the younger people could understand what happened and showing it in Ten Go configuration would be very disrespectful to the families of the crew and the country. This ship was a source of pride for the country, that's why they called it Yamato.
Chrysanthemum Crest on the funnel was added for Ten Ichi Go, for what reason I don't recall. I'll have to research this more.
Just for some additional information, Not many survived the sinking, so it was up to the few to recall what exactly happened and how the ship looked when it went down. All the plans of this ship for the most part were burned due to it was Top Secret, so a lot of the engineering done on the ship is not known. All these survived sailors must be dead by now so now it's a guessing game to find out the rest.
Your rigging project will be a challenge due to lack of accurate information available. All the modelers are just copying what they see in photos to come up what they think is most accurate. IMO when I build mine, I want it to be as accurate as possible.