1/200 Pre dreadnought battleship IJN Mikasa after 1905

[Joelle]

Hello dear forum community.
Today I just want to share a small step.
The reason: Micro Master�s boats look absolutely fantastic when painted, and I don�t want to keep that from you.

So here are the two of them, piggybacking.



A nice duo.



When painted you can see all the fine details.



The extra expense was definitely worth it.

[JIM BAUMANN]

micromasrer boars look very excellent !

[Joelle]

Yes, they are really great, Jim.

I had to expand my dry dock again.



I know, it looks almost like a Mikasa in prison, but it�s necessary. Its creator is a bit of a clumsy person.
While handling it, I pressed my thumb on a gun barrel and it cracked. It wasn�t a big deal; I was able to carefully glue it back on.
But that�s why�



�more protection
Now I can continue working on the ship without worrying and don�t have to constantly worry about the guns sticking out of the sides.

[Joelle]

Next Step.
It was clear that I didn�t want to cover them completely. So I designed a little scene to get around that.
I made a tarpaulin out of tissue paper and diluted wood glue. It took me a few tries.



Then guys made to cover the boat.



Add the railing and rudder blades.



Nice extra income, I don�t have to tie down the cutter anymore.



And the first railing was also installed.



A few spots are still shiny, so I need to apply another coat of clear coat.
I�m pretty happy with the way it is, and now I can move on to the funnels.

[SG1]

marvellous work, as usual

[Joelle]

Thank you very much, SG1.
Let�s get to another mini-update today.
It cost me a lot of nerves and the whole weekend. But first things first.
I was once again spoiled for choice between Pontos and KA for the funnel surface.
Pontos offers riveted struts, KA rings that run around the funnel.
So, I once again rummaged through my archives of the original ship and looked at conflicting pictures. Of course, often of rather poor quality.
The deciding factor was once again the quite good picture from Vladivostok, which I believe shows rings.



And since it�s one of the last photos of the intact ship, I chose that one. I like it better anyway.
So first I cut the components out of the circuit boards.



And again, KA Model wins.
My enthusiasm was dampened slightly when attaching the rings. They were a little too big. That�s why they were touching on one side, leaving an unsightly gap on the other.
I took them off again, sanded them cleanly, and then primed them thoroughly. Another attempt with the blue BluTack putty. This allowed me to keep the rings centered.



It works. And since I�m using Mig�s acrylic adhesive, there�s no mess like with superglue. Diluted and applied with a fine brush, it flows wonderfully evenly into the gap thanks to capillary action.
Excess glue can then be easily removed with a brush.



Ring by ring it continues downwards.



It�s nice that I managed to solve it cleanly after all, since the funnels are in a rather prominent spot. So I set them up for a test. They look great with the rings.

[MartinJQuinn]

Those look great. Nice solution with the blu-tack to hold them in place!

[Joelle]

Thank you, Martin. It's amazing what you come up with when the construction phase is annoying you.

Let�s continue with the funnel.
I had to remove all the structures from the chimneys, otherwise I wouldn�t have been able to fit the rings onto the cylinders. Now they�re installed, and I�ve recreated them with styrene profiles. Like this ledge at the bottom of the funnel.



I got resin rivets on decal sheets from Eduard to make the surface more interesting.



The same thing in a vertical orientation. I had to do a little trickery here to get them nice and straight and parallel. I applied them, let them dry, and then cut them with my sharp scalpel.



Fits.



It looks good after the initial aging. It�s a bit annoying that I can still see traces of the rings� original texture. I wasn�t paying attention.



But afterwards they hardly matter anymore.



Now prepare everything for the next step. On the right, you can see the pipes leading to the gallery. Here, I had to add a little bit of styrene to the pipe clamps that hold them to the chimney. Otherwise, they wouldn�t have fit over the rings.

[wefalck]

Nice detail work - why did you make the tarpaulin cover the details in the rear of the boats?

[Joelle]

Thanks, Eberhard.
Well, actually, the boats were supposed to be completely covered with tarpaulin. In one of the very few pictures of the ship's deck, that was the case. But since I have these fantastic 3D-printed boats from Micro Master, I didn't want to obscure all the fine details. So I came up with this scene where the sailors free the boat from the tarpaulin.
The boats that are still to come will definitely not be shown covered. They just look too good for that.

[Joe Simon]

I love this build!

[Joelle]

Thanks for that, Joe.

I can report that the symbiosis of Pontos and Ka Models on the Funnel has been a success.
It did require a bit of trickery, but I think it looks impressive.
Let�s start on the port side.



I had to position the rings so that the second ring wouldn�t interfere with the gallery. Therefore, it was important to measure the ring spacing precisely.



Next came the task of threading the pipe into the gallery. The lower pipe clamp could only be attached after the pipe had already been installed on the funnel. A serious fiddly job.



Additionally, the rings were in the way of the tubes to the right and left of the center. As mentioned in the last post, they needed to be slightly padded. Otherwise, they wouldn�t fit over the rings.



It was not intended that the two accessory sets would be mixed together.



I did have some initial difficulties, but I think I got the most out of both sets. And the result feels very satisfying.

[Joelle]

Once again, the details are sanded down, portholes drilled out, and holes filled in to replace and re-clad everything with beautiful brass.
First, the rear bridge house.



The gusset plates are too thick for me and will be replaced with 0.25 mm thick styrene.



And again on the deck.



Now the same with the bridge house on the bow side.

[Joelle]

And now we continue with the application of the profiles.
I used the same ones on the bridge house as on the hull, only this time I glued them on the short side.



I thought they should look narrower on the smaller superstructures. That�s why they were sanded down quite a bit afterward.



But today is the end of it for now, the whole thing needs to dry properly overnight before I sand it.



Now I can repeat the whole thing at the front bridge house.

[Joelle]

A first coat of primer to check the profile height. Then I sanded it down further and adjusted it.
Now I�m satisfied.



The rain deflectors for the portholes are neatly lined up, and the door looks great. Pontos, in fact.



The height of the portholes on the front bridgehouse is completely wrong; they are positioned much too low. So, they were filled with styrene round material and re-marked.



Drilled and better�



The grinding orgy continues.

[Joelle]

It�s fun to put your own stamp on a model that�s produced in large numbers. However, you should be aware that sometimes things won�t work out as you hoped. That�s what happened with the last construction phase.
Cost me a sleepless night, but first things first.

A new coat of primer was applied very thinly to check the profile height and build quality.
I quite liked it.



As I considered how to proceed with the bridgehouse, I encountered a problem. I have to say that building this ship is considerably more challenging than, for example, the Bismarck, with its rather simple, straightforward superstructure.
Everything on this old ship of the line is so delicate and intricate that you really have to think carefully about the order in which you assemble the model. The mast is another thing I�m racking my brains over, but that will come later.
Now back to the bridgehouse and the culprit that made my life difficult.
This one:



This is the external connection from the bridge house to the deck above. The supporting structure is once again extremely detailed by Pontos and simply beautiful to behold.



The problem is that this outer bracket on the bridge house extends very low and could conflict with my profiles. So, to be on the safe side, I removed parts of it and rearranged them.
Believe me, that really bothered me. But I think I solved it quite well. Less is sometimes more.



It was a bit frustrating to remove the profiles at this point, but I wanted to play it safe. With such delicate structures, I felt it would be too risky to just keep going, only to find out at the end that it wouldn�t fit together.

[Joelle]

Okay, let�s move on to the masts and pause for a moment with the bridge houses.
I noticed the really tight space in which the masts have to be installed.
Once the ladders leading from the bridge house to the deck are installed, there�s hardly any room left to properly secure and align the masts.



There�s even less space toward the stern.
That�s why I decided to attach the lower part of the masts in front of the bridgehouses. It�s nice that the lower mast is then split in two, so it won�t be a problem in terms of height.



I also noticed the very limited surface area where the mast connects to the deck. I consider this a problem. Especially since I�d like to take this model to one or two exhibitions. A little more adhesive surface would be helpful.



So I decided to make it larger. This was done using an M4 washer. I drilled it out to the appropriate size and reduced its thickness. I then soldered it to the bottom of the mast.



Primed�



�and painted and placed in the holes on the deck for testing.



I quite like this so far. This should significantly increase the strength of the masts on deck and make aligning them at right angles easier.

[Joelle]

Today, it was all about properly securing the masts to the deck. I�m always a little nervous before such important steps.
That�s why preparation is key to ensuring everything goes smoothly. That�s how I did this small plate that serves as a support for the stop angle.



By placing it on the bridge house, I can quickly check the angle of each side of the mast. This is important because the time window is very small. I use superglue with a long setting time, but it still has to be done quickly.



I won�t keep you in suspense, but it worked. I laid some more rope next to it and had a sailor check the ropes.



And everything went smoothly at the rear as well. Phew�



The deck amidships is slowly filling up.



Now I can continue working on the bridge houses.

[Joelle]

Now that the short masts are firmly anchored to the deck, I can return to the bridgehouses. First, I soldered additional attachment points for the rigging. It�s simply the best way to hold.



After that, I did a little more research. There aren�t many original images of the ship, but I did find something interesting.
In the following image, I noticed two dark squares. Look at the green arrows.



In my opinion, these can only be the gratings of the accommodation ladder. Since I will be showing my ship at full speed, as usual, they will also have to be stowed there on this model. But that will only happen after I have attached the bridgehouses to the deck.
What I am already doing is attaching the corresponding davits. I have identified them in the following pictures. Rear bridgehouse�



And the implementation by me.



And at the front. Strangely, my image editing program didn�t allow a green arrow. So a white arrow points to the davit.



Note that the davits point to the right and left.



Great, I love searching for details like Sherlock and then adding them.

[Joelle]

Another little mini-update to round off the weekend.
The only thing missing were the support poles for the awning, and then the base coat could be applied.



The protruding details such as profiles, davits and the like are accentuated again with a light grey.



In combination with the preshading, this creates a fine first contrast.



Now I can start aging next week.