The Ship Model Forum

This set was released a month and a half ago at the 2018 NATS, and it’s turned out to be unexpectedly popular. Originally, I had planned to do a formal review, but now that I’ve worked my way through several components as part of my current tanker build (and taken the opportunity to closely examine many others), I think this type posting will be more beneficial to interested parties. In addition to offering some hints, tips, commentary and examples of the various components that I am using, I am hopeful that others would be willing to do the same, as well as feeling free to ask set-specific questions. I would imagine that even Rich Harden might chime in now and then.

Some quick background:

Fujimi released 1/700 injection versions of the Kawasaki Type tankers beginning in 2007. This class of Japanese tanker is historically significant as they comprised the bulk of the IJN underway replenishment ships used by the Japanese to refuel their task forces, particularly the carrier groups used at Pearl Harbor, the Coral Sea, Midway, the battles around Guadalcanal, the Philippine Sea, etc. Without these ships, the Kido Butai could never have undertaken the type of operations that it did. Later types based on this class came into use later in the war as the original Kawasaki types were sunk. None of the twelve sisters survived the war, although one was refloated and rebuilt afterward.

As welcome as the Fujimi kits are, they have a lot of issues. Both accuracy and detailing is subpar. In general, many components are simplistically depicted, erroneous, or undersized. Perhaps it’s best to say that the kits are highly simplistic. Even the inclusion of a stainless steel photo etch fret by Fujimi is less than satisfying. Nonetheless, the kits exist, and there is plenty of demand for them. Fujimi keeps releasing new boxings.

Rich Harden of Tom’s Modelworks apparently has a shine for naval auxiliaries, and these kits caught his eye. As did some pretty involved builds of the class that I posted as W-I-P threads here on MW. He took note of the large number of inaccuracies and the possibility of offering his own comprehensive photo etch set that would offer both corrective measures and additional details. Rich contacted me about providing some assistance and references for this effort, and I readily agreed. (Disclaimer: I have no financial stake whatsoever in Tom’s Modelworks or this particular PE set. I did gain a couple of free sets in return.) Honestly, I had fun participating in this project (probably because I'd already suffered through my research and my builds).

For the most part, my personal and obvious bias notwithstanding, I feel the set is pretty exceptional. It’s not perfect, though. There are a few mis-steps and things we missed. I’ll cover those, too.

First, I’ll repost images of the individual frets and the parts list. There are 10 pages of instructions, but I’m not going to post those. I’ll probably next comment on the bridge, but I need to take some additional photos before I do so. All comments welcome.

Thanks Dan for your input and help in this project.
With your pics here the set got in the focus of many people and it is good that it is selling well.
I thing I will also try one of the tanker .

Greetings Christian

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At work:
1/700 Fujimi IJN Shokaku 1941
1/700 Aoshima IJN Hayasui 1944
1/700 Aoshima IJN Yukikaze 1945
1/700 Rainbowmodel Fuyuzuki 1945

Thx, Christian.

The instructions are straightforward regarding the bridge, and the parts easy to use. However, to maximize the use of the bridge PE and get an even more accurate bridge, a few more steps can be taken that involve removing a little more kit plastic and replacing and repositioning one bulkhead with strip styrene.

D54 is the plastic kit part that serves as the base of the bridge. A small rectangle needs to be removed on either side as indicated. Doing so allows windows on either side of the bridge face on the 01 level to seen.

D53 is the next level up on the bridge. As the Tom’s instructions show, a set of plastic tabs has to be removed as they will interfere with the PE compass bridge deck part 17.

On the actual ships, this level sports a large compartment whose forward bulwark is recessed slightly back from the bridge face. The kit part needs to be cutaway approximately 2mm on each side and a new bulwark installed. Otherwise, the resulting aperture abuts the inner side of the bridge face and it comes across as slightly incomplete.

So, D53 has the marked portions also removed. A new strip of .015” x .1” styrene was installed. You could also use .01” x .1” but I wanted extra thickness to stiffen the wall as I drilled out some portholes.

At this point, the PE bridge face can be glued to the kit parts. Here, I‘ve used a face with a full width compass bridge deck with openings at the bottom, good for Toei or Toho Maru. (Since I had only one set of kit spare bridge parts, I had to re-purpose the original PE example by removing and damaging that facing to get at the plastic parts.) You can see how the recessed compartment compares with an example of the real thing, Nippon Maru.

The compass bridge deck and compartment are relatively straight forward to glue in place.

And, the example of the recessed compass bridge deck facing with openings, good for Kokuyo, Kenyo and Nippon Marus. In this example, I had not yet cut away the plastic surrounding the edge of the compartment, so you can see the overlap of plastic where it abuts the inside of the PE bridge face

I missed that Rick was releasing these! Thanks for the review!

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- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

You bet.

One last bridge point. All the tankers carried the IJN style signaling arrays, one on each bridge wing. Tom’s are relief etched on the back, which makes for a nice detail. Nice to have these.

Some quick commentary on the railings –

Almost all IJN merchant ships and tankers, had rigid, straight, three bar railings. All the large tankers were so equipped.

The Fujimi provided rails are wholly unsatisfying. Those are two bar (wrong), drooped chain (wrong), stainless steel (difficult to handle) and equipped with footers (harder to attach).

The Tom’s railings are etched from .004” brass. I hadn’t really thought about this until the set showed up but, it’s a pretty good set of merchant ship railings with several positives. For one it’s heavier than usual brass railings, which makes it a hair more resistant to bending while handling. Two, it’s a properly straight, three bar railing (with a 4th guide bar on the bottom to attach to the deck). Better yet is that it’s equal diameter in cross-section, even if’s square, which has allowed for an overall thinner bar. Which means it’s truer to scale than many other rails, and more so then previous Tom’s efforts. The only nitpick is that the tops of the stanchions protrude slightly above the top rail. I don’t know why. The railing tops are supposed to be smooth. Not a big deal; it may be possible to file those protrusions down without much effort.

Some comparison photos below. I forgot to include the Fujimi set with the group shot, so I’ve posted it separately.

In the group shot, from top to bottom, examples are: Tom’s set #758 Modern Railings, Tom’s set #704 Three Bar Railings, Tom’s set #794 Kawasaki Type Tankers, Gold Medal Models set 700-23 Gold Plus Ultra Fine Railings, and FlyHawk set # 700089 JMSDF Modern Railings. While the GMM set remains, IMHO, the truest to scale, the new tanker set railings (the middle set) are not far behind.

Btw, the same close to scale comments that apply to the new railings on the fret also apply to the cable pulleys. These are better than the other few offerings that are currently available. I happen to know that Rich was approached at the NATS regarding the possibility of offering the pulley’s as a separate set. Rich was open to it. Maybe it makes sense to bundle the railings and pulleys together as another set.

A short take on the awning supports – this is an area where we lapsed a tiny bit.

All the ships carried them on the upper bridge deck of their forward bridge structures. The only exception was Nippon Maru, which instead sported an extension of its compass bridge decking, filling out the area behind the bridge wings with an actual deck. It’s not clear that all ships carried these awnings aft, at least during wartime.

The PE awning supports are really nice. When folded over, the joints act like little brackets, and that detail makes it just a hair more interesting to me. Unfortunately, they are just a little too long and high. Ideally, the supports would fit within the railing that wraps the perimeter of the deck. The way they are configured now, the longest, aftermost stringer is too wide and attaches to the outside of the structure. This is by no means terrible; one could get away with it if the others followed suit. In fact, doing so would solve the other issue, that the vertical posts are about .5mm too tall. But, attaching them consistently does take a little patience. A correction by cutting down the PE is certainly possible.

In the example photos, the aftermost stringer has been attached to the outside of the platform, the second stringer has been attached in the correct position without modification and sits too high, which the third (fowardmost) stringer has been cut down .5mm. That one actually needs to join the superstructure a little higher up. The built-up example (which uses styrene strip) shows the proper placements of all the stringers.

Rear Catwalk

This has been another detail that, like the bridge structures, really helps make this set worth the price of admission. It’s a pretty straightforward addition, though, again, there are a couple of small tweaks that are required. (The forward catwalk will be covered separately as it has a particular set of challenges.) The kit supplied catwalk is somewhat wanting. It’s made of stainless steel and consists of only a featureless walkway and support trestles, without any railings or siding. The Tom’s set adds the necessary walkways with railings and detailing while utilizing the kit supplied part as the base of the catwalk.

The first thing is to decide if the tanker will be a pre-war or wartime UNREP version. Prewar versions had only a single walkway atop the trestle. Wartime UNREP versions utilized that original walkway as storage for the UNREP hoses, so an additional walkway was added to the starboard side of the original catwalk. The Tom’s set allows for either version.

The kit supplied trestle is designed to have its aft end fit into an opening in the ship’s aft bulwark, while the front end lies on top of the decking of the 01 bridge level. One could certainly retain that application with the Tom’s set laid on top of the kit trestle, but I believe it makes for a better appearance if the ends of the catwalk are matched or faired into the corresponding kit locations at each end of the catwalk. In fact, the Tom’s pieces are 61mm long and can’t be cut down at either end without compromising the appearance of the unit. So, it made sense to fair the ends in and match them to the level of the decks around it.

I took a small .015”x .02” piece of styrene strip and glue it onto the bottom of the aft bulwark aperture that the catwalk fits into. (This was done to raise this lip to the level of the surrounding deck – don’t want a ditch to show.) I then took another short strip of .02” x .02” styrene and glued it just a hair below the one just installed. This was done to provide a ledge upon which the aft end of the Tom’s pieces could rest and be anchored to with glue. A similar ledge was attached to the aft end of the 01 bridge level. But, because the Tom’s piece is still a bit longer than the space between those two points, I had to chisel out a shallow ledge from the kit plastic of the bridge. Ultimately, the Tom’s piece nestled into the space. Sadly, I don’t have a photo of the cutout, but in the photo labeled “Prewar catwalk portion test fit”, you can see the forward end of the catwalk nestled on its support strip with its back end resting on the aft ledge.

To put a wartime catwalk in place, it is necessary to glue both the original and the supplemental piece onto the top of the kit trestle. However, the kit trestle is too long to fit properly as a support for the Tom’s pieces within the two bulkheads. I trimmed the stainless steel part by 1.5-2mm and dry-fit it for position on the deck with the catwalks on top. The trestle legs need to splayed apart just a bit in order to allow the walkway surface to reach the proper height.

Once satisfied with the positions and alignments, I glued the catwalks on top of the trestle. I favored the original catwalk with about 60% of the width of the trestle and the supplemental walk occupying the remaining 40%. . Once dry, I attached some piping of my own, then painted the assembly. The final step was to glue the entire assembly in place.

Things that were missing from the PE:

1) The additional catwalk was floored with wood. Unfortunately, the seam lines for the planks on the Tom’s piece were omitted in error. I still sprayed that portion with wood tan paint and washed it with burnt umber, so I feel it still came out looking like wood decking
2) The actual catwalk had two access ladders leading up to it from the main deck. The Tom’s part does not have openings in its railings for access to these ladders. However, it can certainly be cut away by the modeler to provide such access, as shown in the photos.

One more view of an aft catwalk access ladder aperture, then on to the......

Forward Catwalk

Everything that I wrote about the aft catwalk holds true for the forward catwalk. There is, however, one more complication. The forward main deck (now that I think about it, this is more properly called the forward well deck) rises up to the bow. This sheer is slightly curved in a concave manner. The kit supplied trestle is designed to follow this curve. Regrettably, the Tom’s catwalks cannot bend and conform to the curve due to the solid walls of catwalk that forms the bottom of the trough. So, the pieces have to be modified.

What I chose to do is make one set of cuts in the sold brass sides of the main catwalk, and a corresponding cut of the vertical portion of the railings on the supplemental catwalk part. I chose a location that seemed the point where the well deck transitioned from horizontal to sheer. This was almost half way back from the forward end of the catwalk, though this is a “guesstimate” on my part. (In line with the small deckhouse, and definitely in front of where the mast is mounted.) The cuts were meant to take a very shallow “vee” out of each side of the metal trough that forms the base of the main catwalk. It does leave a seam of sorts, but it’s not that easy to detect amidst all the detail.