Kobo-Hiryu's Kurama in 1/700 Scale

[PetrolGator]

Yes, I'm starting a "Work in Progress" thread for the first time in what feels like years. While most of my effort will be on completing a 1/700 Sara (Tamiya + Pontos), I'm also going to begin trying to un-potato this old resin kit.

"But PG, what do you mean by un-potato the kit?"

Briefly: if a particularly lumpy potato had a baby with a ship kit, well, this could be it. Every piece of this kit had need of alteration. Some are misshapen; others just wrong. Given that there are (clearly) no specific sets for this or proper brass barrels, imma have to improvise.

I'm not sure if I'm going to break this kit into something nice or simply do the same to my sanity. Pictures will follow once I get home from my in-laws and have access to my not-work computer. Currently, I'm using "Warship 1992" as my reference, but if anyone else has anything else...

[Dan K]

Check your emails...............

[Pieter]

Will be following. Are you sure you want to do this rather than getting an injection molded mikasa and scratchbuild the hull?

[PetrolGator]

Will be following. Are you sure you want to do this rather than getting an injection molded mikasa and scratchbuild the hull?

Doing so would be equally difficult. Probem is, available plans are utterly vaporware outside of some views of her upper works and a side profile shot. I've spent 90% of my time scouring the interwebs for any images I didn't already possess... with some success.

Posting photos tonight. Let's just say that it's still a potato, now with some brass and putty work. I did find out that the aft barbette was a bit raised (like Roma,) so I had to make a few "spacer" bits to raise the whole thing up enough to match drawings.

I'm honestly wondering how far I want to take the potato. Her casemate guns are... not well defined and putting the time/effort to making them perfect will be insane. I really don't even want to think what would be necessary for a modern quality deck. Ooooof.

Dan's helped a lot! (Thanks man!) I've also found some pretty cool deckside photos that'll help me detail out her boxy 8" turrets, main guns, and some bulkheads.

Side note: anyone know a place where I can get two decent British 4.7" shielded WWI guns?

[PetrolGator]

Kurama: Japan's first real attempt at addressing issues that arose during the Ruso-Japanese war. The armored-battlecruiser is pretty unique with only the French coming up with more daft designs. Like the Kawachi, Aki, and Tsukuba-class ships, they represent an "missing link" between pre-dreadnought and more modern designs. Unfortunately, I love them.

I'm going to start posting photos of this in-progress... thing as I move forward. Y'all, I'm going to need serious help from those of you who have done serious scratch building or surgery. As my first full post-"I'm about to just sell all the damned kits and give up" period of not-building, it's a lot.

I'm adding two posts for this update:
* Potato, per work I did at my in-laws. Much of this has been aborted.
* Potato, post my desire to burn it down.

To begin, here's what I'm working with in this "kit." For those of you who have seen the old Kobo-Hiryu kits, you know what I'm dealing with. I've heard cries I'm better off scratching the hull, but I just don't have that skillset yet or the necessary documentation to make it more accurate than the sadist who cast this hull.

Kit contents and some of the PE/barrels I'm going to use. Note that I replaced the German offerings with British 12"/45's. I wanted the additonal length of the 50 calibur guns to make it easier to mount. That proved unnecessary.

Here's a close up of the potato's loldetailslol. There is literally nothing redeemable about this kit other than the fact it exists:

At this point, I started shaving off the offending torpedo booms and shelf along with any casemate doors that spud possessed. Literally none of the details were worth keeping. In addition, I shaved down the midships superstructue along the port/starboard hull sides, given that the kit sags in the middle a bit. Like I said, GREAT casting here. The effect doesn't droop badly and masks a bit of the sag. I also shaved down the full bases to be flat and level.

Next step? I tossed the goose turds that masqueraded as "funnels" and used turned brass/aluminum. The forward funnel was more "oval," so I viced it until I got the desired shape. In addition, I removed and re-drilled portholes with mixed success. Frankly, part of my rebuild will be to utterly remove all portholes and find a more uniform, level way to drill them out. Any advice here is appreciated.

Note here that I also replaced all the barrels. This substantially improved the guns. Any PE you see in this picture is now gone and stored away. I'll reattach and/or replace PE once I'm satisfied with the hull's condition. I also scratched the citadel bridge level. The kit offering was a madness-inducing mess of crooked lines and insanity. I was tempted to just set it on fire and use the Warships 1992 plans to scratch it entirely. Note the citadel itself IS WRONGLY BLOODY SHAPED BECAUSE OF COURSE IT IS.... necessitating a total rebuild. Again. Like all this *#*#$($ kit.

I'll also likely scratch the pilothouse. I mean, why not?

Finally? I found some neat photos on a wargaming board of all places that gave some excellent details from the deck. One confirmed a suspicion I had regarding the plans: the aft barbette was slighly elevated Roma-style. I could not unsee this. Consequently? Styrene disks + sanding + thisisacryforhelppleasekillme.

Aft Barbette.png (100.21 KiB) Viewed 1994 times

Potato6.jpg (14.54 KiB) Viewed 1994 times

The difference is subtle, but accurate. It'll look even more obvious when I add PE ladders.

So... this is where the kit stood as of yesterday. I primed the hull and was horrified at the poor workmanship and my own sanding. I had two choices: half-*** it, or go full Leeeeerrrooy Jenkins. I went with the latter. See followup post with is a literal cry for help among y'all.

[PetrolGator]

...now for the current state of this thing.

I've removed all the photo etch detail. I've re-sanded the hull. I've decided to cut down every deck detail (minus barbettes) to utterly rebuild embarrassingly poor casting. Now, here's where I need help from the gallery. This is my plan:

* Sand it all down. Burn it all down. Remove every bit of offending hoodoo that exists on the wooden deck(s).
* Use tracing paper to produce part of the paper templates. I'll transfer this to paper and then measure the remaining boundaries at the superstructure, etc.
* Match templates to the deck and trim as necessary.
* Make a few copies of the temples, because I'm an engineer and redundancy.
* Place the templates on generic Wood Hunter Deck
* Attach new deck to the ship and add scratch built mushroom vents, hatches, anchor bits, etc.
* Mask and begin working on the rest of the ship.

As stated earlier, I'm also overhauling all the portholes. I hate them. I can do better. I plan to use two strips of masking tape: one above and one below. I figure that'll give me a better chance at fully level portholes. Help and tips here would be appreciated.

Note: I'll be addressing the soft cylinder "vents" abreast of the funnels. Based on plans, these ventilators are some gooft "we ripped off the endcap of a diesel engine" design that'll be represented by new plastic cylinder stock and scratched caps. Gross.

Kit, as of today. I'm off tomorrow, so I'll likely sand this *expletive* down tonight and start puttying for a level surface. Note the extreme bow has a noticable depression. This was a substantial factor to doing the full near-scratch work. Apologies for the fuzzy imagine. Honestly, you're not missing much.

Oh. I also have a Settsu and Kawachi on the way. Both will require similar work and scratch built superstructures. If any of you have decent plans or drawings, I'd appreciate the assist. The same goes for Kurama, outside of what's present in the 1992 Warships book.

I've never done anything like this. Ever. Still, it's thoroughly enjoyable because I'm clinically insane.

[George in Colorado]

Very nice work on the potato there. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

Oh. I also have a Settsu and Kawachi on the way. Both will require similar work and scratch built superstructures. If any of you have decent plans or drawings, I'd appreciate the assist. The same goes for Kurama, outside of what's present in the 1992 Warships book.

There are plans for both Kawachi and Kurama in "Nippon Kaigun Kantei Zumenshuu (Showa Zousenshi Bessatsu)" [Plans of Ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy History of Shipbuilding in Shouwa Era Supplement].

?????????
(???????)

ISBN-13 ? : ? 978-4562026906

I assume these are at least bigger than those in Warship 1992, if not more detailed. I'm missing that volume. If you can get a hold of this book (say via inter-liberary loan), these may be what you're looking for Kurama has 4 pages (fold-out) 12"x27", and Kawachi has 2 of these.
Or drop me a pm/email.

George

[PetrolGator]

I have a friend who has the book. Getting my own copy would cost me north of a grand WHEN they show up on the market. I wish.

Thank ya.

[George in Colorado]

I have a friend who has the book. Getting my own copy would cost me north of a grand WHEN they show up on the market. I wish.

Thank ya.

That's a good friend to have. If it makes it easier, Kurama is on pages 6-9, and Kawachi on p10-11. Here's hoping you're someday fortunate enough to find one at an affordable price. I lucked into picking up the 1998 reprint when I was over there (so it only cost the arm, without taking the leg, too).

Happy to help.

[MartinJQuinn]

the sadist who cast this hull.

LOL! Nice work, though you may have wanted to eased yourself back into the hobby with something, I dunno, less daunting?

[JIM BAUMANN]

ahoi Petrol gator--
great subject-- challenging starting point....

\( LOL-- !! --its just how I like it too
--looks OK at first...- then needs almost completely re-engineering !!

Last night sent you a PM ref wood decks

checking you received and digested?|
I can help with the wood or paper decks if you wish
as per PM

Cheers
JB

[Frank381]

Hello my friends,
Chris,have fun building your Kurama. Kobo-Hyriu models are a heavy challenge

...if interested, this is a resin model from Kobo-Hiryu
Armored cruiser Tsukuba.

beste Gr��e Frank

[PetrolGator]

Jim: Thank you. Responded. I'm not 100% sure if our dinosaur printer could manage the resolution needed for a pretty deck. It's worth a try, though.

Frank: Good LORD that's a beautiful build out of a potato. I love that they even got the trashcan ventilators correct. I'll build mine once the appropriate plastic stock gets here.

So, I've managed to get myself pretty sick to the point where excessive Red Bull isn't helping me kid-with-a-helmet through the day. Consequently, I've decided to stand down from planned modification(s) to my car and focused on sanding, sanding, sanding.

Achievement unlocked: Kurama is now a milk cow and far less potato. I'm debating another coat of primer today, but that requires me to crawl out to the garage, clear car bits off my workbench, and pull both cars out of the garage, because airborne primer and an obsession with keeping my cars immaculate.

Next step? I'm removing offending deck detail and sanding it smooth. I'll putty the problem areas, re-sand, re-prime, and maybe actually add some bloody details.... after I drill new portholes. Again. I may also take a break from this to get back to Saratoga. I just got Shelf Oddity's brilliant 40mm bofors and various rangefinders. I honestly cannot sing blancman's praise enough.

[Pieter]

Looks like you are starting to make this into a proper ex-potato. Very nice, though maybe you should also remove the ash chutes on the hull sides as they will be paint-and-filler traps later on. If you are going replace that deck detail, Starling is currently bringing out a series of deck fittings. I have received their bollards last week and they look very nice. Better than what is left of my BFM stash.

[PetrolGator]

Small update. I'm in the "fill, sand, fill, re-prime, sand, drink, fill, sand, fill, fill, drink more, sand, re-prime, drink, give up and watch YouTube history videos" phase.

I've labeled each are with shapes.

We'll start with the bowtato.

Green Circle: This is where the horrible, sunken anchor chains were located. It's now been smoothed over with multiple laters of putty and Mr. Surfacer. I don't need the deck 100% smooth on account that it's going to be covered up with a paper deck, thanks to Jim Baumann. (And thank you, Jim!)

Red Circle: You can see that there's still a LOT of smoothing and sanding. You can also see the multitude of small air holes from the absolutely atrocious quality of the kit. Note that the larger holes on the lower hull are guide points for the torpedo net booms and shel. I also need to clean up around the hawse, if not replace it completely once the hull's actually decent.

Sterntato? Same issues. Again, I'm less concerned about how pretty the deck is, so long as it's level enough not to show under a paper deck.

Red Circle:Notice the glorious pitting on this barbette. I'm going to try to seal/sand with some Mr Surfacer 500 or some Perfect Plastic Putty. The two portholes on the aft superstrucutre are some of the few I left drilled. They're of the appropriate height and location. The biggest issue here? Look at how wonderfully cast that bulkhead is behind the barbette. Yes, it'll be mostly hidden. I'm still going to do some correction. I swear this kit was scupled with a wet finger and excessive whiskey.

....and now for the fun part. Midships looks like Kurama engaged with some 3" and 4" pop guns or suffered severe rusting issues. Ugh. See circles.

Blue Circle: Better angle on the wonderful barbette. FML

Green Circle: Note that a lot of these deck blobs suck at being anything but a pain. I'm likely going to ragesand these, and almost all other such details, off the ship. They suck. I can do better. The only thing that could make this worse is some good resin outfit deciding to troll me and announce a decent Kurama. I think I'd literally set this thing on fire with my hatred alone.

Red Circle: These were once solid cylinders that are supposed to be vents. The posted finished ship above has them done right. I'm going to fix them. With science. Or madness. Or whiskey. I don't know yet.

I'm not sure when I'll again with progress given that the photos will simply be repeats of the above steps. I'm getting to the point where I'm wondering if the effort is worth the additional sharpness in the hull. There are still some low- to intermediate-hanging fruit, so I'll trudge ahead.

Pieter: Thank you. I've gone back and forth with cutting them off. They're about the only detail I still have on board from my previous reconstruction. I'm just been stubborn.

[Dan K]

Great progress.

Btw, the aft barbette photo is from the Kure Maritime Museum photo database. That mark is unmistakable.

[maxim]

Very interesting, I have that kit waiting to be built.

Which brass barrels do you used?

[PetrolGator]

Very interesting, I have that kit waiting to be built.

Which brass barrels do you used?

MM 1/700 British early 12�/45. Close enough.

Also: turrets may be too large or the barbettes too small. Stay tuned�

[zs180]

This is a rather challenging build and quite an exotic one, too. That makes it all the more interesting.
I hope you plough ahead despite all the hardships that you will have to endure during the construction of this kit.
When it is ready you will relish the end result much more than with a good kit to start with because it was your input that made a silk purse out of a sow's ear!

[PetrolGator]

Thank you. It's been a frustrating prep, let alone build. I barely feel like I've "built" anything. First, note that I took a photo of Kurama with her near-sister IJN Spudkaku.

"Small" update. I've been priming/sanding/filling for days. Thankfully, I'm at a stage where most work is wet sanding, so... close to starting portholes and actual work? Who knows. I'll know more after I prime again this evening. I've dispensed with the terrible vents/other structures around the funnels. I've cut some replacements, re: vents, but I still need to bore them out before placing on the deck. This isn't really where the bulk of my work has been...

Kurama's barbettes are undersized. I've found a myraid of photos showing a turret (with ring) that sits atop a wider barbette. Since I've seen it, I gotta fix it. I first measured the turret and barbette to determine which one was poorly sized. The barbette was off by about one millimeter (and yes, this matters) and the turret by about .25 mm, which whatever. I decided it was best to fix the barbette and, erm, fudge it a little bit.

1) Cut out disks for both barbettes and the base of the turrets. I tested fit. Understand this is before refining the general shape of either barbette or turret ring.

2) Used Perfect Plastic Putty and Mr. Surfacer 500 to fill and later refine the barbettes. Mind you, I'm still working to make this perfect. I had planned to use Magic Sculpt, but Amazon was a [deleted] and delayed my order.

All for now. I plan to refine these a bit more and then add the ventilators once I've refined them to my liking.

Portholes soon?