IJN Yunagi at Battle of Savo Island (1/700) / COMPLETED

[Dan K]

Post mishap, it looks fine. Good listing of changes and work.

[Vladi]

Thank you, Dan!
I admit I have not been much busy with my build lately, the weather was too nice and warm here so I spent more time outside than at the workbench. Anyway, I kept stealing some minutes to continue at least time to time!

Funnels
First of all I addressed the extended funnel hoods typical for late Kamikazes. There are optional parts A18 in the Pit-Road kit intended for this modification, but the added height would not be enough to match the photos, so I glued plastic sheets on top of funnels and filed/sanded them down to the required shape. After hollowing the funnels I added the internal division from thin plastic sheet.
I added the ladders to the port front of the funnels and hesitated about the stepping wires. I have never before used PE for these on IJN ships and I have not intended doing it this time as I they are usually quite overscale. But quite a large proportion of the mold-on wires became casualty of sanding funnel sides to fit so I decided to give it a try this time and I think it ended up acceptable. I will add the top horizontal wire only after airbrushing both colours to allow for a masking tape.

To be continued

[Vladi]

Main guns
It was mentioned several times in the CASF thread that the default Pit-Road 12cm gun mounts were oversize and incorrectly shaped. So even before I decided to go for the complex Rainbow set I bought the Five Star 1/700 IJN 3rd Year Type 12cm/42 Gun (Type G Shield). These are more detailed than those by Rainbow, and also more precise, but also far more complicated to assemble � each gun mount consists of 9 parts incl. a deck mounting!

8 parts displayed, the ninth is a circular mounting base

All three options are however incorrect in one aspect: they depict the gun shield as if it had a bottom while in fact it was a very simply shaped partial splinter shield only. I solved this by carefully (remembering the bridge disaster!) milling out the exposed bottom parts as well as making the shield sides thinner. I also sanded down the back and bottom sides of the shield slightly according to the Asanagi broadside photo.

The original part before modification to the left, others already modified

This is how the completed Five Star gun mount looks like compared to Pit-Road (left) and Rainbow (right) � it definitely comes out much closer to what can be seen on Yunagi/Asanagi photos.

[Quincy]

Looking good, Vladi!



Bob Pink.

[Vladi]

Thanks, Bob!
I had to make some difficult decisions today:

Searchlight deckhouse/RDF platform (continued)
No new direct evidence has surfaced until now so, based on discussions with Dan K and VAN I decided to go on with adapting the Rainbow deckhouse to appear in the way of what can be seen on photos of Yunagi and Asanagi. I cut the fore part of the PE to create the lower platform lever and added the RDF �box�. Mutsuki-class photos and plans show the aft steering was moved forward to the lower level so I did the same. I also added vents under the searchlight platform as seen on the Yunagi and Asanagi photos.

�Perforated triangles� (continued)
No progress here, the feature can only be seen on the two Yunagi photos but it is not possible to make out how exactly it looked like. Skipped.

After sorting out most of superstructure I plan to return back to the hull and deck.

[Dan K]

Guns and platforms turned out wonderfully, Vladi.

[Vladi]

Thank you, Dan

[PetrolGator]

Looking great!

[Vladi]

Glad you like it, Chris!

Hull & deck
For the matter of completeness, I should mention one issue here that I did not address. While browsing VAN�s blog in the meantime I noticed this image. I got in touch with VAN and he showed me the Pit-Road hull was unfortunately incorrect in its profile as sides of the hull should be vertical (instead of inclined inwards at waterline) starting from approx. #1 funnel as far as the stern, the difference being up to 0.6mm (!) per side at the widest spot. After thinking about correcting it for some time I decided to leave it as it was. It would be quite a big deal to make it right and it would definitely be dangerous to some of the detail I already installed on the deck while (I hope) the fault is not outright noticeable. Hope this can be forgiven to me

Now to the progress on the hull I made in the meantime. Most importantly, I finished the torpedo reload rails modified for a late-type Kamikaze. The Rainbow Mutsuki set provided only about 160mm of rails but approx. 180mm were needed so I ordered an extra PE sheet of Rainbow IJN Deck Rails. I also used it for the mine-laying rails aft and I added depth-change equipment from the upgrade set.

[Dan K]

That is nice.

[Vladi]

Hi all, thanks for your support!

I�ve been very busy at work since my last post here, but now I am back at the workbench starting again on the numerous tiny details on my build list. Before I�ve got more to show I tried to dry-fit what I�ve got already, hope you like it

[ch hoeltge]

Really like your eye to details.
Keep it coming

Greettings Christian

[marijn van gils]

Excellent detailing!
She is starting to shape up nicely.

Cheers,

Marijn

[Vladi]

Thanks a lot, guys. Your own works are a great inspiration to me!

[PetrolGator]

Beautiful little kit!

[Dan K]

Looks great, Vladi.

[Vladi]

Thanks for your feedback, Dan and Chris!

Finally I made some visible progress - finished preparation of most parts for painting by yesterday, so today I started with spraying base paint and the first two colours (linoleum on deck and black on funnels). Hope to make some progress next week, too. Next comes Sasebo Grey.

[GazzaS]

Some great looking work there!

[Dan K]

Ditto that.

[Vladi]

I think I made quite a good progress in just one day today

Prepared for spraying:

Sprayed Sasebo Grey:

Did basic retouching after removing the masking:

And attached the major superstructure components to the deck:

Now I just happen to think that I made a mistake - the area between torpedo reload track should have been linoleum colour, too. Will get it correct perhaps tomorrow.