Calling all Nagato (長門) and Mutsu (陸奥) fans

[chuck]

I think someone will come up with a PE rendition of the searchlight tower around the funnel. I am not thrill with Hasagawa's rendition of it eventhough it is probably as good as you are likely to find in plastic.

[shipmodeler]

Skuki: Where are you now with the building of the Nagato? Any new photos?? Please show us again the painted hull at various angles. I wonder, for the lower hull, whether I should fill all the lines or just the vertical lines. What do you Nagato fans think?

[chuck]

The best picture I have of the bulge shows its outer surface was completely flush with no visible panel seams. So I filled in all the lines on the bulge with white primer paint. Photos of the Mutsu in dry dock shows there were visible horizontal plating seams on the original hull surface not covered by the bulge. However the seams seems to have been raised rather than recessed. So I haven't decided what to do with it yet.

[Timmy C]

Here is a snapshot of the Hasegawa equipment set 1 and its instructions:

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10066853

Set 2:
http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10066854

[chuck]

My sets are on the way from hlj.com, along with several other items.

[Dan K]

Mine are on order. Looking forward to your opinion.

[Paulooi]

Hello everyone ,

I am posting the construction pictures of my current project, the 1/700 Aoshima Nagato. Although the basic kit is pretty nicely molded (except for a few minor sink holes), I also added photo-etched parts from the Tom Modelworks "IJN Battleships" fret.

At this point, the hull has been put together and masked for the Kure Arsenal Medium Grey. The sub-assemblies have also been assembled and detailed as much as possible. Tom's PE fret does not include the turret tripod antenna assembly so I scratch built these from other PE odd and ends. I also re-positioned some of the 16 in guns to show the high angle salvo that Nagato used in Leyte Gulf against USS St. Lo.

So it's off to the spray booth.......more pictures next week.

Paul Ooi

[Jefgte]

Certainly a superb model to come Paul.
Nagato is a splendid BB


Can't wait to see more



Jef

[Quincy]

Looks great so far. Can't wait to see her painted up.




Bob Pink.

[Paulooi]

Hi everyone,

The ship hull and decks have been successfully painted. Some minor touch up needed for overspray but nothing too bad.

The deck's coming alive. I'm now putting the "pagoda" stack together. It's begining to look like a Japanese "sen-kan"!

I drilled in some of the portholes in the gun deck and the bridge superstructure. Added PE doors as well.

Paul Ooi

[J. Soca]

Keep up the good work Paul

[Paulooi]

Hello everyone,

More progress pictures since the last post.

The superstructures have been put in place. Some detailing done to the aft bridge to put in missing supports. The main mast had brass wire details for the correct configuration from '44.

[MartinJQuinn]

Looks very sharp!

[Bill Clarke]

These two kits turned up Monday and I finally have time for a review of them.
I ordered them when HLJ first started taking pre orders, and after they were released I noted that HLJ stated that they were re releases, and i was concerned, however wsa pleasantly surprised when I opened the box. This review covers both ships, as the main differences are in AA armament, and radar.

The box art is really nice showing Nagato at sea in company with Yamato, under bleak skies. Mutsu, is depicted at anchor, again under forboding skies.
Instructions are a 4 side single A4 sheet with the history of the ship in Japanese, and "important information" in both Japanese and English, which is the usual info, glue, choking hazard, read the instructions, ect.
On the inside of the first page a painting guide, and then the building instructions. All the steps appear to be easy, there should be no real problems here.

THE KIT

No flash and I could only find small sink hole on the fnnel cap and on two of the life boats.
The hull looks nice it captures the curves of the kit forward very well, scuppers are moulded on down the side, raised planking detail is subtle at the stern, but slightly more pronounced at the bow, and mid deck level, and the the moulded on hatches have detail on them, the area where the crane is has anti skid plate on it, that is slightly over done, but still ok. Moulded on anchor chains are delicate, and with some carefull dry brushing shoud look good, or those of you with AMS can replace them.

Funnel has plenty of detail on it, and the cap should not pose any problems if you wish to drill out the solid areas, simerley I would recomend drilling out the holes in the large backing plate that attaches to the rear of the pagoda tower (what was this for ?)
Pagoda detail is nice, especially the bridge windows some carefull drybrushing they should look good, there is also good detail on the undersides of the some of the platforms,
The tubs for the 12.7's have anti skid plate detail, BUT, this is not carried over to the 25mm tubs, this is a hard to believe oversight. The aircraft deck's rails and turn tales are over scale, I'll leave it up to readers as to wether to replace them or not, I guess it depends on how much work you wish to do.
The search light tower is solid.

The turrets look good, with detail moulded on them, the barrels have the covers moulded on as well, and the case mate guns are really nice, again moulded on covers. The rest of the armament, aircraft, and boats comes from a levithan upgrade set.
I'm happy with thse two kits, they will build up fine OOB, or you can go nuts with etch if you want.

[aesguerra]

That is amazing work there.

[Sauragnmon]

Ok, I have a question... I don't know, but is the Aoshima Nagato shipped with the equipment for a 1944 fit, with all the extra AA? Just trying to think it over, and what I might need to acquire.

[Paulooi]

Hi,

In response ot the last question, the kit does provide enough triple AA guns but not enough mount plates for the deck for the late 44-45 period. You could scratch built those. Also, the double AA mounts on the two elevated turrets DO come in the kit although the instructions do not refer to using them at all. I did not mount the latter because there are conflicting accounts about those mounts so I decided to take on the challenge of scratch building the antenna tripods instead to give it the distinct Nagato look that none of the other battleships had. My reference material is a Japanese publication roughly translated as "Battleships of the Imperial Navy in Computer Graphics" and that one said that the turret AA mounts were only added AFTER Leyte Gulf whereas other timelines placed those mounts in July '44 after Battle of the Philippines Sea. I guess artistic license is the order of the day!

No single mount machine-guns were provided with the kit so you could get either Lion Roar or Hasegawa photoetch fret if you want to add those. If you prefer plastic, Skywave also has single mounts in their "Equipment of the Japanese Navy WW2" kit.

Since you are interested in the '44 build, you could check out some of the changes that I made on the main mast as the kit is woefully under-equipped.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your Nagato build.

[Paulooi]

Updates from the "Mitsubishi Nagasaki' slipway:

Superstructures all erected and getting into the details.....lots and lots of them:

1. detailing of the main mast derrick with brass wires and PE
2. shipboard launches and boats, including railings for the launches themselves
3. closing off the foremost 150mm gunports (removed after Battle of Philippines Sea) with sheet plastic
4. scratch-building the Nagato-specific triangular boat davits port and starboard
5. installing the "bed-roll" anti-shrapnel bags around the bridge and "mattresses" around the 120mm twin mounts using Tamiya epoxy putty
6. railing details

After this (gasp*).....rigging. I will have to wait till the family's gone to bed to achieve Zen-like concentration for this.

[Paulooi]

More pictures of the current build.

[Jefgte]

Jef