Calling all Yamato (大和) and Musashi (武蔵) fans

[bucketfoot-al]

Bully for you Doug!

As far as the "right-wing" in Japan's assessment of the softness of the rest of the populace, its basically a truthful observation of what has happened in the entire West since WW2.

*Off-topic meanderings edited out*

[Senkan]

OK...now back to the surrealistic world of my 1/200 Nichimo Yamato. Almost done with the deck planks and just redid the barbettes to accomodate Harry O's wide ass upgrade turrets. About to tackle the aircraft deck and trying to figure out how to add the lines to the forecastle deck over the treat plate. Just ordered 30 of Harry O's 25mm triple guns and also ordered 30 GPM 25mm PE gun parts (going to need a new pair of nerves and glasses after this is done). Thinking of ways to put rivets on the superstructure. Wondering if the life boats were discarded along with the other wood on the ship before the final launch and if so why add the boats to my model (April 7 1945 version). Having second thoughts of putting putty to correct the lower bridge tower. Having issues making corners and this Squadren green putty likes to crack. I need to make the new AA controllers. I've never really worked with PE and Im worried about warped guard rails and ladders. I dont want to mention the rigging and having to find the right size anchor chain.

And on the horizon... a 1/250 Arii Yamato, a 1/350 and 1/700 Tamiya Yamato (both w/Lionroar PE supersets), and a perspective Space Battleship Yamato model Id like to make look like the live action ship (having a hard time finding drawings of the ship for reference). Going to be a fun year.

[Senkan]

I wonder if Hood fans out there are envious of power like this. I'm envious of the Hoods slim 95' beam (32 feet less than Yamato). Would have saved me a lot of time planking this beast.

[Senkan]

More horror pics...

[bucketfoot-al]

Sorry for going off-topic there, Senkan. Fixed it now.

Nice work with that wood planking - (takes cap off). Yes, the GM PE 25 cals will strain the nerves - they require plenty of patience and a lot of focus. Been there, done that.

As far as the boats go, yes they were all removed prior to April 1945. Same with the crane tower (the crane arm was left in place.)

Nice work with Harry's turrets and widened barbettes. Look forward to seeing more updates.

[Senkan]

Thanks for the info Vlad. Didn't think they kept the boats. Bought the Lionroar 1/350 Yamato superset and it comes with some nice resin motorboats. Since it doesn't look like I'll be needing them if someone would like to trade me something I'd be up for it. I need 1/200, 1/250, 1/350, and 1/700 Yamato parts.

[Doug Hallet]

Senkan, green putty is not going to work for large areas unless its spread very thin - you'll want to work your new slopes with plastic sheeting and just use the putty to fill in the gaps around the corners. Whether or not you portray boats depends on if your ship is at sea or anchor. Yamato probably carried them right through to the end (had to keep up the pretense that it was not a suicide mission) but of course they'd all be stowed out of sight while under way. Bear in mind that the vast majority of Yamato's career was spend sitting idly at anchor, contributing very little to the vast amount of time and energy that went into building her.

[Senkan]

Hey Doug. Im learning the hard way regarding the green putty. Thanks for the tip and I'll see what I can do with some styrene.

One of the reasons Yamato and Musashi were kept in port was because they didnt want the US to find out about them. They wanted to surprise the US at the climatic Jutland type engagment. Baka! They should have known the longer they wait the better chance to lose surprise and the upper hand. Oh well...hindsite.

Best of luck.

[bucketfoot-al]

Senkan - I am unfamiliar with "green putty", but I can highly recommend the blue/yellow kneadite tape (putty) that I use in my other hobby modeling. I would have used it on my Nichimo as well except I didn't know about it when I built her. Its very pliable and has a long working time - no cracking and can be sanded easily.

The best deal on it is from Brookhurst Hobbies - here's the link:

http://www.brookhursthobbies.com/Produc ... 00023&N=10

[Senkan]

Well I just got my GPM 1/200 25 mm triple AA guns. Getting these reminds me of the guy in the Divinci code that whips himself...and likes it. 30+PE parts per gun. Even looks like Im going to need to scratch build some of it as well.

Did something else I might regret. Was having a hard time finding affordable metal barrels for my 1/250 Arii Yamato. So bought some off scale barrels from JB models that might work.

[bucketfoot-al]

Hey fellas - I have been inspired by that Japanese link to look into making our own Yamato silk-screen shirt.

My initial ideas are for a Yamato silhouette on the front with the name, possibly the ships specifications/armament listed on back, with the Japanese symbol for Yamato possibly on the sleeve. I have yet to price all this out online, so I am throwing out ideas.

The other idea is for a photo-shirt featuring the colorized Yamato photo you can view on my website, with the rising sun and symbols for "Yamato" in the background. Again, I have not priced this out yet, but it would be more expensive than the basic design above.

What do y'all think? Would you get one? Let me know ...

Thanks,

Vlad

[Senkan]

DON'T DO IT!

Just stained my deck with this stuff called Age it Easy. Used both gray and brown. I think the results would have been Ok if it wasn't or the glue.

The stain won't apply to glue. I sanded the deck and then applied a coat of brown...had way to many non effected spots. Most along the lines of the planks that only show bare wood. I sanded some of these spots and applied a layer of gray. Well the sanded spots remained the same and as a whole the gray pronounced all the non stained area's. If any of you have seen Shin1966's 1/200 Musashi deck build you will see what happened to my deck.

So it looks like Im going to have to paint the deck...unless someone else has a better idea.

[bucketfoot-al]

Well, the deck was painted "jet black" for Ten-ichi-go according to Yoshida. Of course the color would vary due to uneven application and the absorption differences in individual wood planks.

As an aside, how would you go about painting the deck "jet black" but brush in some slight variation - what colors would you use?

(This is not an idle question - I have a customized waterline 1/144 Yamato in progress in the garage - well, OK, its been almost 2 years since I last worked on it, but I am warming up to the idea again - and I intend to paint the deck "jet black" but obviously want some variation ...)

[sgtryan13]

Wait, is that a deck you planked individually that came out like that? If so, man I am sorry for you, that sucks! The result of glue vs/stain, not your skills obviously!

I am really glad I saw this, at your expense unfortunately, I had been tossing around the idea of some type of stain on my 1/200 Yamato when I finish planking the deck, and that pic just made the decision easy for me, I am leaving well enough alone! As much as I am looking forward to finishing my commission build of the USS Truman (which is why I have not worked on the Yamato in 5 or 6 months, I am really not looking forward to continuing on with the planking of the Yamato. I keep hoping I wake up one morning and the modeling fairies have finished the planking for me!

[Senkan]

I have included 2 pics of the deck in 2 different stages....It doesnt look that bad from a distance or at an angle but...

I was going to add a second coat of grey to add more darkness but no need since I can't get the stain into the glue zones. The glue zones are caused when the glue comes all the way through the wood. This probably would have worked if I was working with a one piece deck with a spray on adhesive.

Im not really upset. I just look at this as another hurdle to jump and there are a lot of hurdles to jump with the 1/200 Nichimo Yamato. I had an idea this would happen. Just wish I could have all the time back it took to cut and paste all that wood.

Now I need to find a good color paint to use. Im not going jet black. Have a hard time seeing wood jet black even with black stain. Probably going with a gray/dark brown or maybe dark gray.

[Senkan]

Im thinking of this color for the deck...

[aleccap]

A very large ship taking very sharp turns.

Was the AA as good as it was suppose to be ?

[bucketfoot-al]

If you are referring to the 52 triple-barrel mounts of .25 mm AA machine guns that she carried for Ten-ichi-go, the answer is no. They look great on a model, but in practice they were a bust.

The problems were as follows:

1. Poorly trained crews and poor organization - instead of organized and planned fire, the AA crews pretty much all fired independently, greatly reducing the efficiency and effectiveness of the fire;

2. Smaller .25 mm bullets (as opposed to the .40 mm AA bullets fired by the USN Bofors guns) were largely ineffective due to the superior armor that USN planes carried; The USN lost 10 planes out of about 385 that participated in the engagement, with several dozen more that made it back to the carriers and were subsequently pushed over the side due to the damage they sustained. Evidence that while the sheer enormity of Yamato's AA fire DID manage to hit a lot of USN planes, it was not particularly effective in downing them.

3. The machine guns had to be loaded manually with three magazines fitted on top of each mount by a crewman - this reduced the rate of fire - a belt-fed system like the USN used would have been an improvement;

4. The .25 mm guns were only effective against aircraft (if I remember this correctly from Tully's book) within about 2500 feet.

On the plus side, yes, that photo is a beautiful example of the tight turning radius that Yamato and Musashi were capable of achieving. For battleships, they could indeed "turn on a dime."

However, when (as Yoshida put it) "twenty torpedo tracks" close in on you at the same time ... well ... its all over ...

[Timmy C]

Just a point of semantics, 25mm and 40mm should probably not be referred to as ".25 cal" or ".40 cal", as that is mixing whole measurement systems.

[bucketfoot-al]

Thanks Timmy. Corrections made.