The Ship Model Forum

The plug for this is finished and I will start the mold this week . I am going to start at the beginning of this project .
Used plans drawn by Mr Takami with help from Waldemar Goralski and Ed Low .

A friend started me on this project . He has a print by Robert Taylor signed by Joe Foss about his attack on Hiei Guadalcanal Nov 1942 .

Wonderful project! The Kongo's were in my opinion the most useful of the Japanese Battleships, providing a fast Battleship carrier escort before USN really had that capability. They were in many respects somewhat equivalent to the Alaska's in tonnage, armor and armament. They figured in USN pre war planning as USN pre war had no such capability, the slow battle line being made obsolete for carrier based fleet operations. Part of their utility was they were thrown in to serious action, not too slow and not too valuable, a real warship.

Regards: Tom

the lines of the hull are very challenging

is this a hull or a full build?

This will be a complete build . It will start with how I made the fiberglass hull that will be used for RC then my friend Charles who gets hull #1 will do the complete build . He will send me photos from time to time to post here .Charles does a lot of his own 3D printing but Waldemar Goralski will also be doing some .The Miyukikai plans I used are of Haruna #115 1945 but Waldemar has sent me Kongo #090 1944 , Kirishima #014 1940 and Hiei #007 . The hull can be used to make any of the four Kongo Class used during WWII . Waldemar also sent be plans of Kongo as launched date 1913 but that's another story .
I also can't say enough about Ed Low's three soon to be four highly technical books on the Kongo class .I have purchased # 3 Kongo and was amazed at all the changes she went through . Charles has all three . With these books a accurate model can be made right down to a specific time period .
Thank you Waldemar Goralski and Ed Low for the continuing help you are giving me on this project .
Yes this is a difficult hull to produce but the things I learned doing it will help me on the 1/96 scale HMS Warspite .
More reference books .



We will need some of these and those two books have excellent line drawings to make them ,hint hint 3D print ?

Only the good die young . Hiei and Kirishima were both lost at Guadalcanal . Haruna almost made it to the end .




The loss of Haruna

Marked station lines on table



The black squares marked on the sides will be cut out for stringers . The top one on the CL will fit over a 1/4 X 1/4 basswood strip hot glued to the table . The one on the bottom is for the keel .



A notch is cut in each frame were ever the bulge touches it . Piano wire will fit in it .A note on bulges and blisters . If a hull never had a bulge then what was added during reconstruction was called a bulge .If a hull already had a bulge then what was added was called a blister . The four Takao Class Heavy Cruisers had bulges when launched . Three of them had blisters added which covered the bulge . Chokai never had blisters added but she had a bulge

.




She is a big baby 91.071 X 12.712 in 1/96 scale

This is what the plug looks like now . It was sander down to a 1000 grit polished and waxed . For those interested you can keep reading if you want to know how it got to this point .

Richard, please keep it coming. I have followed you on Model Warships Underway with great interest. I would like to see as much as possible from plans to finished hull. Very interested in the process of making a hull, plug, fiberglassing and anything else. -Rich-

A big leap between the two photos! All will be interested in seeing the stages in between!

Tom

Agreed, really beautiful hull.

The hull can be used to make any of the four Kongo Class used during WWII

Unfortunately, this is not correct. Hiei underwent additional changes that included wider hull blisters than her sisters.

I did not know that .I wonder if Mr Takami [ Miyukikai Plans ] did ? I have all his Kongo Class plans but never compared the body lines next to each other .
Speaking of blisters I used piano wire to define the blisters . My helper is pointing to them now .

I expect that the bulges differed from one another slightly as they were not all added at the same yard and at the same time . I learned taking Tool & Die that plans have a plus and minus on dimensions measured in inches and on a ship that size the plus or minus could of been in feet not inches . The plans I used for this build were of Haruna 1945 drawn by Mr Takami . They show a small lip on top of the bulge that he does not show on his Kongo plans .



Gakken # 21 shows a model of Haruna and Kongo . The model of Haruna has the lip but the model of Kongo does not . I was going to have that lip on the plug until I realized it wasn't on all four ships . It would have had to be sanded off to make Kongo but can be added by the builder to make Haruna . That is if anyone knew about it or even cared . What I am getting at how much of a difference between the four hull would even show in a 1/96 scale model or matter to most builders . That said I consider myself a semi rivet counter and and now I won't be able to sleep at night until I know the rest of the story . Does anyone know in inches what the differences were ?

From the Japanese Wiki article:

"The width of the ship is 1m wider than other ships of the same type. Other ships had too deep a draft due to refurbishment, and the defensive deck (lower deck) was below the waterline. This was the step taken to shallow the draft and raise her defensive deck above the waterline. She widened the bulge to increase her buoyancy, raising her lower deck above the water ."

Thank you Dan .A friend told me you are a knowledgeable person and it looks like he is right .One meter in 1/96 would be .410" and that is far to much to even make it close enough .

I have the drawing Dan Posted on pg 88 of Gakken 21 but because I can't read Japanese it meant nothing to me until now .

I cut a small notch in each frame were ever the bulge touched it . The piano wire is glued into the notches to define the outside edge of the bulge .



1/8 X 1/8 basswood stringers fit into the notches cut in each frame to establish the deck line and the top of the bulge . The 1/4 x 1/4 stringer is for strength .



Also used piano wire [ painted yellow ] for the middle of the bulge that is angled . All notches were cut in each frame as they were cut out . Keeping this straight and at the proper angle is made lots easer using the wire which is hard and will not get sanded off .

I cut a small notch in each frame were ever the bulge touched it . The piano wire is glued into the notches to define the outside edge of the bulge .



1/8 X 1/8 basswood stringers fit into the notches cut in each frame to establish the deck line and the top of the bulge . The 1/4 x 1/4 stringer is for strength .



Also used piano wire [ painted yellow ] for the middle of the bulge that is angled . All notches were cut in each frame as they were cut out . Keeping this straight and at the proper angle is made lots easer using the wire which is hard and will not get sanded off .

Continued nice work.



Actually, I don't read Japanese, either (gasp!). But, I do recognize names and dates after way too many decades.

Used Bondo to fill in were the bulge starts and ends to provide backing for the wire . .042 stainless wire was used there because it's flexible .Dug a trench for the wire to fit into . Also filled in between the two wires that show the angle in the middle of the bulge .