The Ship Model Forum

Gentlemen,
in contrast of my previous message about restarting soon my RIGGING articles of YAMATO, I have to announce that the planned resumption of those articles is postponed for at least a year.
My apologies to anybody who was following my step -by-step rigging file and expecting soon a follow-up of the already puplished episodes.

Sincerly hope to see you at the next publication.
Katana

This is the lathe used to turn the barrel's of Yamato. Now being displayed at the museum in a special building. https://youtu.be/_M7-ZYV3US8

Nice to hear from you again. I believe it was me that was requesting this information. Look forward to seeing you back on this forum in the future. Jim

Hello again, It's been a while since my last maritime build. I purchased a 1/200 "Trumpeter" Yamato for a steal a couple of months ago. The packaging was all goobered up. I don't have room for it in the stash so I'm just going to build the damn thing. Knowing that it was built in secrecy and most documents were destroyed before the surrender. Hence not nearly as much reliable material out there. I have procured just about most reference material out there to include the "Anatomy". I keep running into dead ends with the rigging. I have enough info to get most of the aerial rigging. But where most of the rigging attaches to the superstructure is where it gets vague. Do you think they were attached with turnbuckles and the insulators like most other ships? The signal deck and yardarms are self explanatory.

Now to the Pontos/King set. I have discovered what may be a small fault but yet a fault. Using most drawings and the 1/10 Kure model the forecastle may have a flaw. On the plating for the anchor chain run, there is no plating for the chain stoppers. Please, please correct me if I'm wrong. If not, I will have to correct that! I have found reference to the white squares on the gutters to help sailors in low light conditions, but this set includes numbers for the deck that may correspond to frame numbers? I can't find anything on that.

On to the kit. The acoustic listening holes on the bulbous bow? Copying the Bismark class in a way? This has to be artistic license, I cannot find anything on that either. Is it my imagination or is the hull plating a little over scale?

That's just what I have found that is glaring at me right now. Has anyone compiled a list of errors that have been found? And does anyone know of a comprehensive rigging diagram?

Thanks so much in advance, Yancey

Just a couple more questions that popped up and I am sure that they are answered somewhere in here. I believe that I have read that the decking on the forecastle was a galvanized steel? If so, would it be left in it's natural state or painted. I understand that concrete was used on the aircraft handling decks. Would that be on the surface or sandwiched between steel decks? Either way painted? Now to an opinion for a kit part. The Type 21 radars basically the bed spring radars, at scale I'm not sure that the chicken wire would be seen? Any thoughts on that one? I don't think that it would be too difficult to remove the brass?

Hello!
I'm forwarding here a question a friend asked about the Yamato/ Musashi. I've been unable to find the answer:

"I wonder through which hatch or apperture were the 460mm shells and powder bags loaded into the hull down to the magazines..."

Any suggestion ? Thanks in advance for help.

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A day spent without laughing is a wasted day!

I also have a color question :

side boat hangar and aircraft hangar, were bulkheads painted grey ? or white ?

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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! - David Glasgow Farragut

Elevator well walls would be grey, but the hangar would be white, just like with their carriers. The KMM 1-50 model shows grey for the boat hangars.

ok thanks !

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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! - David Glasgow Farragut

Now that it is said that the checker plated forecastle of the Yamato was zinc coated, but not the other decks that had the same pattern. Would anyone happen to know why this was done? Was it because this area stayed wetter than the rest?

On Yamato in final form or late war, how deep did she sit? Trying to figure out the correct demarcation point for her antifouling paint (as she did not have a boot topping), and just on gut level it feels that the one provided by kit makers for 1945 seems rather shallow. With so much added on in AA, did she really sit same as in 1941 version?

Anyone has any info this?

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- @Shipific on IG
my gallery

The two triple 15.5cm turrets that were removed weighed btwn 175-200 tons each. There is some uncertainty about how much weight the revised rangefinders added to thee turret.

Twin 12.7cm mounts weighed about 21 tons each.

triple 25mm mounts weighed about 2 tons apiece

single 25mm guns weighed about 3/4 of a ton.

I don't know exactly how many of the smaller mounts were added, but I think, if anything, she was close to the same.

If we assume the other factors to be constant (which is not entirely true, but I think it can be ignored in this case), then a percentage increase in draft requires an increase in standard displacement of the same percentage. And vice versa.

For example, a 3000 ton increase in the standard displacement of the Yamato would cause an increase in draft of (only) 0.5 m.

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- David

Are most people paint Yamato waterline too low?


I studied now a bit the issue of how high or low the waterline is painted on Yamato, it is rather confusing. Anyone know?

Skulski says waterline is above hull break at the hull braces level (in AotS book on Yamato and Musashi) - they deliberately chose to paint it higher, but then again people claim the stern in his book is incorrect, so books can be wrong:


Kure model and many Full Hull builders - at the hull "break" point where bulge starts...


And Waterline builders do it like Skulski half the time (at the braces) while others dont, they do it like Kure. It is a mix.


So if Skulski drawing is correct:

1) Kure model has too low waterline
2) Waterline builders get it right more of then than not
3) Full hull builders probably refer to Kure a lot and kits, and get it wrong most of the time.

So someone is wrong, it cant be both 1 and 2. What gives?

I ask this because even if AotS has errors, the look of a ship with higher waterline looks more "right" to the eye. or did Yamato really did have such high freeboard despite its massive displacement and weight? It has a cruiser looking hull almost from the side, sits way high in the water. Visually Im trying to reconcile this with the evidence above. I cant.

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- @Shipific on IG
my gallery

Three new photos of Yamato have been found. Taken from Musashi, it shows her probably on 17 October 1943 en route to Brown Island, with Nagato and Fuso behind her.

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MS State Guard, 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

Thank you for posting these wonderful "new" photos. After much discussion over on the FB IJN page their authenticity has basically been accepted. Any idea where these photos surfaced from? I'm guessing from a photo album of some former IJN sailor?

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bucketfoot-al
Creator of the Yamato/Musashi Archive Photo Gallery
http://www.battleshipyamato.com
dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

'What are the best set of upgrade kit for 1/350 Yamato ?

Pontos or FlyHawk.

If you can handle them. If you're relatively new to incorporating aftermarket parts into your models, they'd probably be too complex and just be a frustrating waste of money.

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De quoi s'agit-il?

Don't overlook the Gold Medal Models or White Ensign sets either.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

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