The Ship Model Forum

Hello,

now I will start my building log for the IJN Mikasa in 1/350 … a little bit late, because I have still some progress.

The kit is from Hasegawa and quality is … well … until now not as that for what I thought, Hasegawa is standing for. Both parts of the hull do not really fit together and the gap needed not only a little bit Putty. Also the 3 deck plates do, sorry to say, fit really lousy into the hull, particularly front plate. Here, too, much Putty was needed to close a gap of in parts 2.5mm. These are all things, I never thought to have at a kit from Hasegawa and this is really disappointing!

However, how the rest of the ship is fitting together I will see. From aftermarket I use PE Set from Eduard and brass barrels from Master. These barrels are only for the 4 x 30.5cm main guns and 14 x 15.2cm guns. For the bunch of 75mm guns I will take a look in my spare box and / or buy further set.
Further I get in March some of these hammock splinterguards in Resin from a colleague.

Here photos of the current situation.

First a picture during painting process…




And then from today, still first weathering paints on board sides in progress.









As you can see, I painted deck again and did not use any of these laser cut decks, because I prefer painting in general if possible (means if plastic deck is not too lousy molded). Because I make Mikasa in her outfit of battle of Tsushima, I have to count several things from previous battles in term of damages too. During battle of Yellow Sea, Mikasa was for example badly hit in aft turret, as she was hit always in every fight as flagship often. So because deck has of course much battle damage too, so I must make a mix of old and new planks.
The building itself will be made in segments as most modelers do.

Cheers,
Christian

_________________
The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb; conversely, it is more difficult.

HI Christian

I am impressed by the number of mounting you are able to realize "good wind "for this one
cheers
Nicolas

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https://ladiagonaledubosco.blogspot.fr/

Hello,

maybe time for a small update from Mikasa building. I’m still inside weathering of hull and board sides etc. with oil paint.
















Here one of the first 7.5cm guns with shield of which I have to make 16 pcs. Further detailing with hand and so on wheels out of my spare box will be done too. Shield is from Eduard PE Set (btw … strange that under the silver surface of Eduard PE parts is always brass), the brass gun tube is in origin a 8.8cm, but who cares about in this scale when it has same size as the replaced plastic part? I do not.




Cheers,
Christian

_________________
The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb; conversely, it is more difficult.

Great job again Chris! I think you will be finish her or Zeiskam!

regards
Dirk

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UNSERE KRIEGSMARINE!

Hi Dirk,

no and good joke with ready for Zeiskam, which is in one week where we all meet us.
Beside this, Mikasa can't be ready for there, simply because Michael (member MIMA) brings this hamock armor with as Resinparts. You know, this armor as visible on this well known oil paint of Admiral Togo on Mikasa's bridge at Tsushima. For sure no evidence that it was placed, but oil paint is only relative short time made after battle and even we all know "artist's freedom" on such things, it is full of other correct details...

_________________
The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb; conversely, it is more difficult.

Godd morning,

Once added some better quality photos in daylight, made today












Cheers,
Christian

_________________
The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb; conversely, it is more difficult.

She looks like an interesting subject Christian.

I must say, your deck painting looks great.

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Regards

Nigel

That deck is most impressive Christian.

Have this ship part built.
So watching with Interest.

She is comeing along nicely.

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Cornwall UK

Good Job Christian !especially on the wood deck!
regards
Nicolas

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https://ladiagonaledubosco.blogspot.fr/

Thank you very much guys

I prefer to paint an existing plastic deck insteed using laser cut things from aftermarket ... if the engraving of planks on plastic deck is ok.

In general this ship makes again much fun to build ... but a little bit lesser as Sevastopol did before. This is reasoned with the (for a Hasegawa kit) surprisingly poorer fitting of parts. Before I started Mikasa, I thought Hasegawa is standing for high quality, but this is now over. Sorry to say, but Zvezda kits of Sevastopol and Varyag were far better in this matter.
Kit has now a short break for some days, becaue I will finish my HMS Warspite now for coming exposition next weekend first.

Cheers,
Christian

_________________
The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb; conversely, it is more difficult.

Hi Christian,
I truly love the appearance of your painted deck on Mikasa. We apperently have a favour of the same period of ships .

With best regards

Peter

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A passion for modeling

Servus Peter,

Thank you and indeed, we both share same favour at ships at least

_________________
The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb; conversely, it is more difficult.

Hello,

a little update from my Mikasa. Both funnels are now build, also all the 75mm guns and 4 hose reels.







The parts will now be painted and weathered etc. before being sticked on Mikasa


Cheers,
Christian

_________________
The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb; conversely, it is more difficult.

Very Impressed with your etching around the funnels as I clogged up some of them on mine with paint.

She is comeing on nicely.

Great work Christian.

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Cornwall UK

Thank you Captain

Was not easy and after the first ring was installed as Eduard instruction tells, I decided that the instruction is rubbish in this matter. Point is that one side is open, so I guess Eduard thought that the rings could be snapped around the funnel, fixing with glue and ready ... but this does not work. So I cut the rings in two halfs and sticked them on place, also a little bit tricky, but works much better.

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The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb; conversely, it is more difficult.

Slow down a bit Christian If you are building Mikasa from 1905 period than her 12 pounder guns weren't shielded. Also check CaSF Mikasa thread (Captain pugwash questions) for funnel top cages. Eduard ones have incorrect shape.

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"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." H. L. Mencken

Dzięki Darius, wiedzialem, że coś jest nie tak z kominów!

Funnel tops will be corrected, no problem to do. About the shields, well, it is a little bit under dispute if the 1905 configuration had shields on the 75mm guns or not and also if shields, which one of both types too.
Another point is that there exists a picture in a book (where I could take a look inside 2 weeks agos), which shows Mikasa some weeks or month after the internal explosion accident with Cordite after the war and there were again shields visible. I did not buy the book, because main theme of book were WW-2 IJN ships = not my area of interest.
However, whatever is true or not at least, the guns look with shields much more "pretty" as without, so I make them with shields. Also the hammock splinter guard I will make too, which is also a point of discussion...

_________________
The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb; conversely, it is more difficult.

Christian, it's your model and you can make it any way you like it but there is no dispute about shields for 75mm guns on Mikasa in 1905. There are too many photos which show unshielded guns and not a single one (that I know of) showing them shielded.
This photo has Japanese caption: "Mikasa, Kure February 1905":
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... Mikasa.jpg


There is also no dispute about shape of the 75mm gun shields and Eduard's ones are of a wrong shape. This is how Mikasa's shields looked like:


You can see it better in this fragment from a photo of Asahi:


Mikasa had guns with shields of different type but they were 2.5 and 3 pounder 47mm Hotchkiss guns.

Hatsuse 75mm and 47mm gun shelds:


But, after saying all that, your Mikasa is looking great!

_________________
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." H. L. Mencken

Christian M. -----> have you seen PE set from Lion Roar. I think that a PE from Eduard are a little too coarse. LR set dedicated to Mikase looks much better. I'm going to build Mikasa in 350, so I watch your posts.

Lior Roar set have 3 windows in PE pilot house on the aft bridge sotter. The only existing photo of Mikasa's sten (that I know of) that shows aft pilot house in any detail has only 2 windows. Admitedly this is a photo of Mikasa "as build" and 3rd window could have been installed later but I haven't seen any photographic proof of that.

_________________
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." H. L. Mencken