IJN ZUIKAKAU Nichimoco 1:500> Modification & Super-Detailing

[Dave Rowe]

It great watching this progress. I have this kit in the stash and can only dream about adding this amount of detailing to it.

[AC Studio]

Finished AA Gun flatform for stern: Original mould on left & scratch-built at right.

The bow is almost completed. I added a little building on the platform as well based on the Gakken Zuikaku publication.

[AC Studio]

Now comes the time consuming understructure - beams & purlins of the flight deck. Again I am not going to use photo-etch perforated bar, make everything from scratch by cutting plastic strip from evergreen plastic card. I did not use thin cards such as those I used to make triangular perforated bar because the understruture are stronger strucutural members. They look chunkier, so it is crucial to make sure the structure can achieve the same visual appearance in the model.

Structural Beams Construction

STEP 1 - First cut strips from plastic card. Use pencil to mark reference points where the perpendicular cross structures will be located.

STEP 2 - Before drilling holes on them, I used a needle to punch a small holes right in the middle, so that it can guide the drill through, avoiding the problem of drilling close to edge thus breaking the strip. It worked perfectly as no strip was broken in the whole process.

STEP 3 - I have already get rid of the original understructure mould, & used pencil to mark where the structures are located. All I need to do is to glue the strips. This will completed the Step I process.

[AC Studio]

Purlins Construction

STEP 4 - Cut individual cross strucutural sections (purlins) - individually measured & drill holes into each one of them. Need to take into consideration of the depth as these purlins are shallower than the beams, therefore I need to cut strips 0.5mm thinner.

STEP 5 - Then placed them across one by one.

STEP 6 - Then make individual triangular perforated bar (haunches) where the columns will be located. Completion of Step 2.

[Dan K]

As I said earlier, most impressive, and insane.

[gtbred]

you are good sir!

[J. Soca]

That is a truly marvelous job!! great, great make up for that old girl ..


Jose

[Dirk]

A pleasure to follow your progress report
This model will be a juwel when ready.
Dirk

[JWintjes]

Wow with a big W, very inspirational!

Jorit

[AC Studio]

After partically finishing the flight deck's understructure for the stern, I then started the same thing for the bow.

STEP 1 - Get rid of the original understructure mould, then mark the position using a pencil. Measurement & locations are based on the Japanese gakken publication 's 1/100 Zuikaku.

STEP 2 - Finished but downpipes to be inserted later:

STEP 3 - Also make understructure for the underside of the deck where it is visible at the location of the AA gun platforms.

[AC Studio]

Now I started to look into the Type 96 25 mm AA-gun.. the original Nichimoco's mould is definitely not acceptable.. so I am looking into scratch-building them.

Yesterday night I made one using various plastic strip, rod, squares & copper wires etc. It is a trial to test how it might looks & whether the scale is right.

Completed Gun Platform comprises of the barrels, magazies & loading mechanism & chairs, but the gun shields are not intalled yet.

[AC Studio]

AA Guns installed with shields. This trial shows me that the overall size is too big, and I am not too happy with a few things, so I may need to have another trial.

[gtbred]

may I ask a seroius question? what is your eye site? i know it's better than 20/20.

[AC Studio]

After the first unsuccessful trial of scratch-builting the Type 96 AA gun, I had another trial to build another one, this time I reduced the scale further. This time I took photos of step to step process:

STEP 1 - First built the base, including magazies & loading mechanism & chairs

STEP 2 - Then inserted gun sight & gun barrel. The gun barrel comes from a 1/700 eduard IJN railing, using eduard is best to suit this application because it is much thicker, that can give the barrel a "solid" feel. The gun slight is made of copper wire.. I am considering adding the gun sight.. still working out what is the way to do that....

STEP 3 - Lastly build the shield using a thinner plastic card.

[AC Studio]

That is how it looks after adding the shields, much smaller compared to first trial. This is successful so it becomes the basis for mass production.

Tested it on the ship as well, not bad.

2 more done, average it took 45 minutes to make one... little bit too long.

[AC Studio]

Started work on the 13meters Cutter, the original mould disappointed me as the shape of the hull was completely wrong. Worst it is overscaled.. So what I did was sand it down, trim the shape. Then added details on it. Again there are no luxury of photo-etch, all has to be scratch-built by using stryene strip & copper wire.

STEP 1 - The original mould on top, the bottom shows it being sand down & interior details removed.

STEP 2 - Then inserted timber floor, landing door & seats.

STEP 3 - Sand the hull bottom to the round chined shape, the original mould was a flat bottom which was incorrect. Then added in the stern post.

Continue next post

[AC Studio]

Continue from previous post

Finished cutter with all details added onto the model, such as lights, steering wheels, propellers etc.

STEP 4A

STEP 4B

[JTninja]

Absolutely incredible.

[AC Studio]

I started to build the cutter (11-13M) boat. This boat took me 9 hours to complete. Again using the original mould as the base & modified it.

STEP 1 - Sand the original mould down as it was just too big & out of scale. Sanded down one compared to original as shown on top.

STEP 2 - Cover the opening with a thin plastic card.

STEP 3 - Build up the front - bow of the boat, this time using a thicker plastic card. Sand one side at an angle to reflect the slope in the middle.

Continue next post

[AC Studio]

Continue from previous post

STEP 4 - Put the thicker plastic card on top that formed the shape of the hull.

STEP 5 - Then scratch-built all details, such as intake pipes, window & doors, metal post etc. See how it compared to original mould on top. Massive changes!

View of all of the finished boats & cutters together.