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

[Doug Hallet]

I'm referring to the ones that are looking straight down (where you can see all the deck detail). Those were from B-24 runs on Yamato while she retreated after the main battles were over. Also, re:sandbags, if you look at the picture taken on the morning of the 4/45 sortie by a B-29 recon plane, you'll notice that there is a barge tied up alongside to port. Considering that AA-restocks would probably have been done shortly after the last action in March, its quite likely that this barge was unloading filled sandbags immediately before the sortie. It probably would have only taken a couple of hours to get them all in place. Ishida provides a full set of sandbags and the 2005 movie model portrays them. Logic says they were in place.

[baseballbrat]

From a modelers standpoint, what would be the recommendation from you guys to be the best black shade to paint the deck or is it better to get the black wood deck and attempt to wash out some of the color?

My build is going to be the last voyage in April.

[bucketfoot-al]

Doug: In 3 of the 4 close-up pass overhead shots taken on April 7 1941, massive walls of sandbags can be seen around the positions of the forward single AA mounts alongside the rear of main turret "A". Some sandbags also appear to be visible around the two AA "buckets" on top of main turret "B", and possibly at a couple of points aft on the superstructure, although pretty much everything aft of about mid-point of main Turret "B" in that one famous shot is so obscured by the smoke from the firing AA machine guns that certain identification is pretty difficult ...

[MalX]

Thank you very much gentlemen for your answers.
For detailling Yamato and Musashi, I will use the set from Gold Medal Models, Models White Ensign, Veteran Models, Genuine Models (Ishida san), Voyager, Lion Roar and/or Pontos.
In addition, the Scratchbuild does not scare me.
If the hull is old enough right in shape and dimensions, it is not problem for me to detail it. Whether, to correct a little the shape of the bow, for example, it's still ok. But whether to rebuild the half of the hull, it is best to invest in the new model.
As I have not yet studied these two battleships, I would like to know the level of accuracy of old models.
If really necessary to build Musashi, I will buy one second model of the new Yamato.
Regards
Seb

i have Eduard Railings/ metal gun barrels/ tamiya degausing/wood deck.......... the latest tamiya kit has the remaining PE included in its kit, or are very well moulded..........so the full blown Pontos PE is only really required for the old Yamato/ Musashi ( simply because it's so old nowadays)

the old Musashi hull looks accurate in dimensions, but lacks the hull plating of the new kit, unfortunately it's bulbous bow too large and bulky, the newer Yamato has a much smaller bulb. the old Musashi has the Degausing cable, but the new one does not.

[MalX]

From a modelers standpoint, what would be the recommendation from you guys to be the best black shade to paint the deck or is it better to get the black wood deck and attempt to wash out some of the color?

My build is going to be the last voyage in April.

either use the black wooden deck on Ebay, or Stain a normal deck with Indian Ink........but not enough to hide the Caulking.

but be careful if you paint it black and thus hide the Caulking/detailing, because it will suddenly look like a plastic toy

[Doug Hallet]

Al, I think the bottom line on sandbags is you have to go with what's logical since there is simply not enough photographic evidence either way. We know that bags were in some places for the 4/45 sortie. If that's the case, is it logical to think that they then were left off the thin shields of the open triple 25mm gun mounts elsewhere on the ship? A barge (probably the one seen in the photo recon) had to have anchored next to Yamato to unload a supply. But, we are to believe that they dropped off a handful for the single mounts adjacent to the forward turret and didn't bother placing them anywhere else? Sand is cheap and the labor supply to fill them was not a problem. It just doesn't make sense to assume they weren't elsewhere. BTW, one has to assume that the addition of AA mounts on Yamato was a gradual process as more guns became available. Most likely, the majority of the crews for them were not even officially members of the Yamato crew, but were "temporarily" reassigned from Kure base personnel and only boarded the ship just prior to the sortie. The massive influx of AA guns is the reason you have those white direction markers along the sides of the desk - most of these new mounts were not hooked into the ship's auto-directors and had to get their approach headings verbally and point the guns in that direction manually.

[bucketfoot-al]

Al, I think the bottom line on sandbags is you have to go with what's logical since there is simply not enough photographic evidence either way. We know that bags were in some places for the 4/45 sortie. If that's the case, is it logical to think that they then were left off the thin shields of the open triple 25mm gun mounts elsewhere on the ship? A barge (probably the one seen in the photo recon) had to have anchored next to Yamato to unload a supply. But, we are to believe that they dropped off a handful for the single mounts adjacent to the forward turret and didn't bother placing them anywhere else? Sand is cheap and the labor supply to fill them was not a problem. It just doesn't make sense to assume they weren't elsewhere. BTW, one has to assume that the addition of AA mounts on Yamato was a gradual process as more guns became available. Most likely, the majority of the crews for them were not even officially members of the Yamato crew, but were "temporarily" reassigned from Kure base personnel and only boarded the ship just prior to the sortie. The massive influx of AA guns is the reason you have those white direction markers along the sides of the desk - most of these new mounts were not hooked into the ship's auto-directors and had to get their approach headings verbally and point the guns in that direction manually.

Doug - I agree with everything you've written. Sand was one thing they had plenty of and they had several weeks to prepare for the final mission. I think the sandbags were likely placed around all of the open AA mouth, and perhaps just inside the open 5" buckets as well (or tied to the exterior of the buckets as we have some photographic evidence of from other IJN ships.)

BTW, remember that its Vlad, not "Al". "Al" is my internet alter-ego.

[Sebastien Lausdat]

Hello Malx
Thank you for your answer.
The hull plating are not a problem, I can do it again without problem.
After looking at pictures of the former model and AOTS, I have a doubt about the shape of the bow, the shape of the stern, and especially on the dimensions and shape of the main turret. The potential problem of the stern does not look too complicated. The problem of the bow is important to correct. But I am not at all on the changes of the main turrets are simple, and even possible.
I'm surprised that no one has made a comparison between the two models. When I see the price difference between the two models, it has been interesting to know the qualities and defects of each model.
Cheers
Seb

[MalX]

Hello Malx
Thank you for your answer.
The hull plating are not a problem, I can do it again without problem.
After looking at pictures of the former model and AOTS, I have a doubt about the shape of the bow, the shape of the stern, and especially on the dimensions and shape of the main turret. The potential problem of the stern does not look too complicated. The problem of the bow is important to correct. But I am not at all on the changes of the main turrets are simple, and even possible.
I'm surprised that no one has made a comparison between the two models. When I see the price difference between the two models, it has been interesting to know the qualities and defects of each model.
Cheers
Seb

hallo my friend

the bulbous bow on the old Musashi kit will only take you a minute to slim down, the underside of its bulb isn't flat, it has a slight upward curve, this reduces the size of the bulb ( once you've tapered it in) i haven't noticed the ``basic shape`` of the main guns because i cant remember what they looked like on the old kit, but the new kit is far more detailed, because it also has turret interior detail too..... breech blocks, barbette rings etc.

the old kit has a much easier main mast to assemble, the new kit took 2 hours to get right.

the hull plating is a real problem for me with the new kit, because some of it has disappeared due to having to use filler to hide the many hull join marks ( sanding it down )... i'm hoping to hide these bare areas with weathering/ rescribing the plating with a sharp blade.

the new kit has the correct foredeck plating around the anchor chains, and the breakwater on the extreme bow around the Japanese Flower crest, but everything above deck is far better with the new kit....i.e loads of clear plastic navigational lights, detailed search lights/clear plastic lenses..more detailed AAA, much more detailed secondary guns

i would say this, get the old Yam/Musashi but only buy the best PE set............Lionroar, i've just noticed something, the Lionroar flightdeck is far better than the new Tamiyas, it has much better steel plating detail.

but any of these two kits are far more accurate than the Nichimo 1/200, because its superstructure is at least 75% wrong.

[MalX]

the trouble is in the photos you can only see the forward sandbags, but the rest could have been blown off by machine gun fire or bomb blasts...... not sure

my doubt is, a couple of those photos are quite good but i definitely cant see sandbags on the main superstructure like i can in the Yamato Film..... i'm tempted to put them on because they do give much more atmosphere and detailing.

finally...........were the superstructure sandbags stained black like the deck..............but the forward sandbags added at the last moment ????????????????

no maybe not, because the guns' blast bags are still canvas light grey.

but the tamiya kit has 10 spare walls of Sandbags, so there's probably enough to do the whole kit !!

[Doug Hallet]

If you want to get the front sandbags looking realistic, you have to stack a couple of those parts on top of each other. I think that was the intent of the extra pieces, Tamiya just neglected to mention it in the instructions. Sand bags can be modeled from clay. Not difficult, but tedious.

[MalX]

Yes

it still leaves you with enough remaining to do the rest of her

the more you look at photos of her, the more she looks accurate with a black deck, especially if you remove her crane tower, a plain wooden deck is starting to look wrong, if you show her a few months before her last voyage i expect her decks were still faded black/ grey..... i'm guessing her decks were only natural wood in the first 6 months to a year.

what glue do you use for the PE, will PVA work or maybe Gloss Varnish?.............Superglue is sticking too quickly, it's not giving me enough time to adjust the PE....thanks

[MalX]

i stained the wood deck whilst off the hull, i used thinned down Humbrol gloss black, it soaked straight through the planking and gave me a mid-grey, it kept doing this so i added neat black to the wet planking, it gave a near jet black semi weathered finish, it actually looks like the wartime photos, it's weathered along the lines of the planking so it looks super realistic.

dont paint the plastic deck black, paint a bare wooden deck instead because it looks miles better.

i'll leave this a week whilst i add the deck railings/ spray the hull, i need to buy another crane, i bent mine with the pliers...damn it !..............this Photo Etch drives me nuts, i flipping hate it.

[baseballbrat]

i'll leave this a week whilst i add the deck railings/ spray the hull, i need to buy another crane, i bent mine with the pliers...damn it !..............this Photo Etch drives me nuts, i flipping hate it.

Don't you have a photo etch bending fixture or long flat photo etch pliers? If you had a bending fixture depending on which one, you could just press the part back down and start over again.

[cplchanb]

you can also use the flat end of the chisel blade for an xacto knife...I got the 3 knife set so there were 2 flt blades to work with

[MalX]

i'll leave this a week whilst i add the deck railings/ spray the hull, i need to buy another crane, i bent mine with the pliers...damn it !..............this Photo Etch drives me nuts, i flipping hate it.

Don't you have a photo etch bending fixture or long flat photo etch pliers? If you had a bending fixture depending on which one, you could just press the part back down and start over again.

yes i have pliers, the crane crushed as i tried to grip it as the superglue dried, it looks like it's been run over by a truck.
........the railings are ok because they're quite large, but the ladders are very small and fiddly.

the black deck looks great this morning, you can still see the planking, it has a semi gloss sheen to it, it gives it quite a lot of texture detailing

the white deck markers look like 3mm square, in addition; after her crane tower was removed her rigging was terminated on her rear secondary turret, the Tamiya mast needs to be tensioned/supported aft because if not it'll bend forward, so this rear turret will be perfect.

if you look at the Kure 1:1 superstructure (not the model) that is weathered, my guess is she looked like this, but yes the hull would have looked much more weathered, the underside would have been dirty brown, i'll try and find a photo of this.

What colour where her hose reels please ???????????

[MalX]

something like that, similar to the underside of a Supertanker, it's a sandy colour wash and very patchy.

[baseballbrat]

Thought I would pass this on to any building the Leyte version of Yamato.

Anchor chains on deck were tied back on both sides and middle. Can anyone explain why?

Yamato_anchordeck_leyte_01_s.jpg (12.75 KiB) Viewed 1549 times

Yamato_anchordeck_leyte_02_s.jpg (16.64 KiB) Viewed 1549 times

yamato_anchordeck_mod2_s.jpg (21.45 KiB) Viewed 1549 times

[Doug Hallet]

Its probably for stability during battle situations, to keep them from sliding around on the deck during tight turns or when the deck isn't level.

[Doug Hallet]

This 1/200 Nichimo model is about the best representation I've seen of what a weathered/non painted deck should look like.