Hello,
now I will start my building log for the IJN Mikasa in 1/350 … a little bit late, because I have still some progress.
The kit is from Hasegawa and quality is … well … until now not as that for what I thought, Hasegawa is standing for. Both parts of the hull do not really fit together and the gap needed not only a little bit Putty. Also the 3 deck plates do, sorry to say, fit really lousy into the hull, particularly front plate. Here, too, much Putty was needed to close a gap of in parts 2.5mm. These are all things, I never thought to have at a kit from Hasegawa and this is really disappointing!
However, how the rest of the ship is fitting together I will see. From aftermarket I use PE Set from Eduard and brass barrels from Master. These barrels are only for the 4 x 30.5cm main guns and 14 x 15.2cm guns. For the bunch of 75mm guns I will take a look in my spare box and / or buy further set.
Further I get in March some of these hammock splinterguards in Resin from a colleague.
Here photos of the current situation.
First a picture during painting process…
And then from today, still first weathering paints on board sides in progress.
As you can see, I painted deck again and did not use any of these laser cut decks, because I prefer painting in general if possible (means if plastic deck is not too lousy molded). Because I make Mikasa in her outfit of battle of Tsushima, I have to count several things from previous battles in term of damages too. During battle of Yellow Sea, Mikasa was for example badly hit in aft turret, as she was hit always in every fight as flagship often. So because deck has of course much battle damage too, so I must make a mix of old and new planks.
The building itself will be made in segments as most modelers do.
Cheers,
Christian
