The Ship Model Forum

My current project is this Hasegawa 1/700 IJN Aoba in her final state at the end of WWII.

The inspiration came from Marijn van Gils' excellent IJN Amagi which blew me away (his USS Lexington already dropped my jaw before that.). I had a chance of seeing both pieces and met the man at SMC 2019. I decided I have to do this project and hopefully I can put it next to his Amagi someday. The pandemic obviously changed everything that was supposed to happen in 2020. I'm trying to complete my Aoba for the better 2021, fingers crossed.

As mentioned, the base kit is Hasegawa. Rainbow models issued a very nice detailed set for the kit and another set of brass deck plate. I decided not to go with not to buy the metal deck, staying with the kit's plastic deck. More modifications were needed to make the wrecked Aoba.















Nanond

Beautiful work!

_________________
https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/

Agreed!

Love it. Having built a piece of Haruna from Kure, I was also inspired by Marijn's work. Really like that take you have on the cruiser, should be awesome when ready!

Quick question - what are these things (green pointing to?). Many Japanese ships have it...

_________________
- @Shipific on IG
my gallery

Outstanding work so far. Looking forward to following this

_________________
Just finished:
1/350 USS Santee 1944

Current projects:
1/700 USS Catamount 1960
1/350 USS Columbia 1945
1/350 USS San Francisco 1944

Thank you!



I've been wondering too. Some kinds of stiffener for torpedo bulge? Maybe someone more knowledgeable can help.



Thank you!

I got more work done to the aft superstructure. Rainbow models PE parts are quite good here.
The only thing I had to rebuild is the main tripod mast. The PE part for this is made from a rather soft material which got damaged very early on. I don't know why they didn't just do it in brass. Of course it is very thin and delicate. However, the strength is also sacrificed in the process.

Anyway, some brass rods are much better at representing the real mast.

watching this thread with interest!!!

_________________
"Haijun" means "navy" in Mandarin Chinese.

"You have enemies? Good. It means you stood up for something in your life."- Winston Churchill

Very interesting!

What do you think about the colours Aoba was painted with?

There appear to be remains of a two-colour camouflage patterns on the portside of the bridge turret - but otherwise the colours appear uniform (but heavily weathered on most photos).

_________________

This bit about her color is a difficult one but also very interesting to me.
From the film taken in 1946, there is glimpse of colors for reference, although not the best. It's still hard to tell if she had green color on the hull or they were just patches of different grey colors. I'm leaning towards then being faded grey with some touch-up. What do you think? There are tons of dark patches, almost like touch-up for splinter damage holes. What could they be? Then there is a thick band along the lower hull, above the dark oil stain along the water line. From black and white photos, this band appears almost fleshly painted on top. It also had some wavy patterns on the starboard bow, interesting. The color in the film appears to be of a reddish brown or even faded red.

I'll be happy to hear more opinions.

Here is some pattern visible on the bridge - see especially the rail of the upper platform:


https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nara-series/80-g/80-G-350000/80-G-351755.html

I think it is very difficult, because on these photos the colours are so heavily weathered. Some of the colours could be caused by the tide (e.g. the "redish colour" in parallel to the water), but e.g. the wavy pattern on the starboard bow appears to be part of a camouflage pattern.

_________________

Yes, the superstructure camouflage is quite clear. Apart from the bridge, the funnels received some very small parallel lines of light color. That will be very difficult to do in this scale, although Sasahara Dai achieved nearly a perfect rendition on his Aoba. I will have a hard time replicating his result.

Here is my interpretation of the hull color.

1. The base color of the hull was light, faded color. It was either the standard IJN grey, heavily weathered and faded, or it could as well be over painted with some camouflage green color.
2. There were a large number of dark color patches. Could it be paint touch-up? Fresh IJN grey? Or it was the light color flaking off, revealing darker color underneat? I'm more leaning towards it being the former.
3. On top of 1 and 2, there was a large band of paint covering about lower half of the hull. The upper edge of the band is noticeably overlapping some patches(2). The band appears to be in some kind of reddish brown.
4. The dark parallel layers at the waterline are residual of oil slick deposited by the tide.

I believe those are scupper drains. Early ships seem tohave many more of them.



Completely agree. Navy Yard vol. #40.


Most photos of Aoba's hull postwar were taken some time after the end of hostilities. She is very heavily weathered; I think most patches are just where the paint has peeled off, though it could be camouflage paint that has peeled off first.

There are some color films around somewhere that may be helpful.

Hello Nanond,

That's a fantastic project! And the executions looks first class so far! I will be following with great interest!
I'm very happy and humbled that my model could give you inspiration for this.

You have some very interesting painting challenges there. That should make for a fun project!

In the close-ups, the dark patches look too regular and square-sided to me to be peeling paint. On the other hand, close-ups of the bomb damage shows dark spots as well that look about the same value... So I don't know...

The red-brown band is puzzling, I haven't seen anything like it. If it is dirt, it should have stuck to the ship before it sunk, as it seems to be more parallel to the ship in it floating state. But when it was floating, tides could never have caused such a broad band as the ship would move up and down with the water level... The wavy patterns don't look natural to me too; certainly that doesn't fit with the very strait oil slick band. Also, in the B&W photo's the redbrown band looks very smooth and regular. Maybe it is painted? Maybe with some of the antifouling paint intended for lower hulls? On Amagi this looked quite faded and a similar reddish brown; the strip that was above the waterline before she sank was even very sunbleached, almost looking a salmon pink.

Anyway, if you can't figure out what something is exactly, it is still possible to paint it as you see it. Just copy as good as possible from the photo's...
I did the same with some elements of Amagi, especially on the flight deck.
It is a pity the colour film is not sharper! It would help so much if you could see more detail on that...

Also very interesting to see remnants of the camouflage with real vegetation and bamboe structures and mats. Those should be fun to reproduce as well!


I would love that very much! I hope we can meet again somewhere in 2021.

Thank you all for you comments.

While I was figuring out how to paint her, I found a report with details of her damage and I decided to rework the hole on the bow and add another large wound on her port side. My first attempt with aluminium foil, although very thin, made it difficult to control the shape of damaged steel plates. This time I switched to thinned down 0.13mm Evergreen plastic sheet which offered better shape control at a cost of being thicker in appearance. I also realised that a large section of the stern was visible during the low tide. Fortunately, I saved the cut-off stern piece. A large section of deck surface was also blown over, hanging to the port side.

Hello Nanond,

looking good! I really like the way you modelled the pierced bow!

Hopefully it´s not too late for you to depict also the forecastle deck plates buckled from the blast, see 80-G-351758 at this link. Also 80-G-351753 is very useful.

Have you also seen the photos I post below? I downloaded them some time ago from FB and I have not been able to find them there again later. They may be useful when doing details of the main bridge.

Fingers crossed!

_________________
Battle of Savo Island Collection (all 1/700)
Recently completed: USS Wilson DD-408
At works: USS Astoria CA-34 | USS Patterson DD-392 & USS Bagley DD-386
Prep stage: USS Vincennes CA-44 | HMAS Australia | Yubari | Kako

What a great and interesting projects, and I completely understand where the inspiration is coming from indeed. I really like how you are detailing this one, looking forward how this further unfolds...

Thank you! After a few months away, the progress update is resumed now.

Nanond

I'm back at Aoba. I actually painted the main color back in January but didn't feel like doing much after that.

Last night I found new inspiration to continue with painting and got the deck pretty much done. I even applied camouflage on the upper works. The stripes around the funnels are extremely small and tight that my skill can't really keep up with the demand. I'll have to be satisfied with the best I can do.

The next fun will be the hull. Painting will be so much fun.

Nanond

I do like a sinker....

JIM B

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com