Fujimi 1/350 Hiryu ( ?? )

[Dan K]

here

[Mr. Church]

Outstanding build, really excellent.

[Neptune]

Brilliant work Dan. Very crisp construction and painting...
But I expected nothing less

[karih]

Thank you all for those comments. I really, really appreciate them.


even the "tail feathers" of the 'Kates' ailerons (was that painted or decals!!??)

Decals, Mario. One word of hard-earned advice � make sure your setting agent is fresh. Otherwise, you�ll be applying coats of setting solution forever��..

What material did you use for those white straps around the life boats beside the superstructure?

Those are simply cut from plain copy paper, but they�ve been coated with Liquitex matte medium. I do that more for a preservative than anything else, though the matte medium does help with gluing. The actual straps were thin; I see too many examples cut too wide. Also, they weren�t always white. Sometimes black or grey.

I'm guessing that there's a museum on Oahu--or somewhere in Japan--that would like this "pristine" look as much as you like to build them that way.

Hmm, interesting. I actually have no idea. Hopefully, it will be a while before I have to think about that.

what were the references you found most useful?

Good question. I�ve got a pretty deep IJN library, so I was able to draw on many sources. With that said, the new AOTS Hiryu book is surprisingly thorough and extremely well done. The only nitpick I had was with the absence of landing light arrays depicted on the starboard side. And, I know that is because available plans and photos don�t show them there, but the landing system needs arrays on both sides of the ship to work. I did not obtain this book until the build was about 2/3s done, but this is a great single volume resource.

The Kure Maritime Museum book on IJN CVs has good, large format photos of Hiryu on trial and fitting out, so that�s also helpful. I believe USNI is now publishing this series with captions in English.

I have two different sets of Hiryu plans (Hara Shobo and Kojinsha), but if one obtains the AOTS volume, these probably aren�t necessary.

This book is very pricey, but has good information on mechanisms and background. Some unique photos of various CVs: https://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Carrier ... 8360041644



I'm still planning to add a few details.

A recent photo shoot did not produce many good photos, but here is one showing one of the Vals in the hangar.

Thanks Dan for the tips! Once again, compliments for the brilliant work !

[Dan K]

Thanks very much, friends.

[marijn van gils]

Great work Dan! The airwing adds a lot of life to the model

[Dan K]

Thanks, Marijn.

Ok, one new detail. A flag bag, to fill that space.

The intent here was to have a representation for effect, rather than a scale duplicate. Which is nigh well impossible in this scale, for me, anyway.

I was going to build the frame out of PE, but Devin Poore was kind enough to 3D print a frame for me. That certainly made things easier. Much obliged, D.

I'm very pretty happy with the result.

[Devin]

Hey, that turned out really nice! I'm glad I stuck with just drawing and printing the basic structure, the PE you used for the fine bits are much thinner than I could print with any fidelity and reproducibility.