Calling all IJN Kuma-class (球磨), Nagara-class (長良) & Sendai-class (川内) fans

[maxim]

See above: Abukuma was modernised as destroyer leader (along with Naka und Jintsu) and was much better equipped than her sisters. E.g. also her forward torpedo well was plated in already before the war and she got the new quad 61 cm torpedo tubes.

[MatthewB]

I have noticed there seems to be some disagreement among kit-makers over the positions of the lookout posts on the sides of the Bridge on the Nagara.

Some kits have them lower than the railing on the upper platform.

Some kits have them higher.

Also, the position of the upper platform itself seems to be more what is in question.

Some kits seem to have this platform located level with the compass bridge deck.

Others have it located about a half-deck down from the bridge.

In the plans I have (which look to be from the Profile Morskie book), it shows the upper platform exactly one level above the lower platform, which would put in one-half level below the bridge (since the hangar for the aircraft the ship used to carry was higher than one deck level).

I cannot find a decent photo of the Nagara to settle this issue for 1942.

edit:

I also cannot find any views of the rear of the bridge structure.

I know that the Compass bridge is open to the rear.

But are the other two lower decks on the bridge also open, as they are on the Sendai-class CLs?

This might mean that it would be easier to create a PE bridge structure, allowing for vastly better reconstruction of the detail per $ spent than 3D printing.

MB

[Dan K]

Aside from changes to the mainmast, and IIRC, the searchlights, Nagara's bridge for 1942 is exactly as you see in the 1936 photos on the previous page, except for the AA platform in front. Profile Morskie IJN plans are HIGHLY suspect in many cases. The lower bridge portions are mostly enclosed, with access to open decks at their rear, like Sendais, and Abukuma.

[MatthewB]

Aside from changes to the mainmast, and IIRC, the searchlights, Nagara's bridge for 1942 is exactly as you see in the 1936 photos on the previous page, except for the AA platform in front. Profile Morskie IJN plans are HIGHLY suspect in many cases. The lower bridge portions are mostly enclosed, with access to open decks at their rear, like Sendais, and Abukuma.

I wish that I could find acceptable photographs from which to work, because (other than the hull-lines) getting a blueprint, with reasonably accurate dimensions is pretty easy with a few known dimensions given for parts visible (other than simply Length, Beam, Draft, and Freeboard; something like the length of a visible gun barrel.

I also see some stairs on the back of the Nagara's platforms, but cannot get an angle that shows precisely where they are.

They would have to be to the side of the Radio House on the second bridge deck. They are probably one to the port, and one to the starboard of that Radio House.

Would anyone know the positions of those stairs?

MB

[Dan K]

I've been looking for photos of the access ladders in back for Nagara, of which there are none available. If you are willing to accept that there is similarity between the 5500 ton groups, then I can offer more. Also, if we assume that Abukuma's open bridge decks to the rear did not change despite the mods to her actual bridge, then her plan can be useful. You can see the cutouts for the stairs in the deck overheads.

[MatthewB]

Thanks, very helpful.

I am doing a PE fret for there Nagara Bridge, rather than a 3D print, since I will need to also produce parts like the ladders/stairs, and railings.

Technically this will be two separate PE frets, one on .020" or .025" thick brass for the housing, and decking, and another on .010" or 015" thick brass for the steps and railings (and gussets).

I am also making the walkway that goes over the torpedo well, and the Fire Control station in the mast.

At some point I should get either an Aoshima or Tamiya Nagara to see how well the parts transfer, as I would like to do a 1942 Nagara upgrade kit at some point, and the Fujimi kit seems like a poor choice, given that even it's hull is screwed up (The hull narrows too quickly from the widest point in its beam, leaving it too narrow next to the bridge, among other things). But I have two of these kits (one for the Nagara, one for the Isuzu), so I want to make use of them.

I finally found some tutorials on rules for creating PE parts (how thick to make bend lines, and other such things).

So, now I just need to track down everything I need to make for the Nagara.

Which brings me to the two deck houses between the funnels, and the funnels themselves.

I have no choice but to create 3D printed parts for the Funnels themselves. The parts for the kit are just unusable.

But I can find no photos of the tops of the funnels, looking down into them. The vanes that typically go inside the funnels will be PE, but I need to find out how many there are in each funnel.

MB

[maxim]

??

There is no Aoshima kit for Nagara in 1/700 and why you want to use a Nagara kit for a 1942 fit? She is usually depicted in her 1944 fit. Why do not start with the Natori or Kinu kit by Tamiya at the first place and check then, if you have to do a new bridge or only minor adjustments??

[MatthewB]

??

There is no Aoshima kit for Nagara in 1/700 and why you want to use a Nagara kit for a 1942 fit? She is usually depicted in her 1944 fit. Why do not start with the Natori or Kinu kit by Tamiya at the first place and check then, if you have to do a new bridge or only minor adjustments??

Yes, there IS a 1/700 Aoshima Nagara.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Light-Cruise ... 1074087180



It is similar to the Tamiya, but is an Early War Nagara. As you can tell from the image, though, something is "different" about it.

It is just that it is marketed for the Anime Arpeggio of Blue Steel (AoBS), rather than as a military history kit. But the ship simply lacks any painting guides for the WWII, and includes these silly decals for the Anime.

In fact, people who want some ships that otherwise might be harder to come by can get deals on them by seeing if a similar ships is made for AoBS.

Some of the kits made for AoBS are excellent kits for WWII era. But a few of the kits are more "Sci-Fi" with some of the weird weapons that are on many of the ships (nearly every ship is armed with more torpedoes than the entire modern USN submarine fleet, and they all have Soviet Style Vertical Launched missiles). But a more than a few of the ships are done as traditional WWII ships. Only the "Named Character Ships" from the Anime get the Sci-Fi treatment.

MB

[maxim]

That IS the Tamiya kit of Natori or Kinu sold as Nagara of Arpeggio of Blue Steel. All the kits of Arpeggio of Blue Steel of real WW2 ships are kits available otherwise.

Again: why do you not buy this kit first before you start to design a new bridge, new funnels etc.?

[MatthewB]

That IS the Tamiya kit of Natori or Kinu sold as Nagara of Arpeggio of Blue Steel. All the kits of Arpeggio of Blue Steel of real WW2 ships are kits available otherwise.

Again: why do you not buy this kit first before you start to design a new bridge, new funnels etc.?

Because I already have two Fujimi kits.

And even if I had bought this kit, the bridge would still not be correct. Nor would it have had the level of detail I can get with building a PE bridge (or even a 3D print of the bridge for that matter).

Also, I can see some slight differences in this kit to the Tamiya kit. Aoshima may have altered some of the molds (since the differences would require only slight alterations).

At this point, though, I am likely to simply re-build a new hull from scratch before I bought another kit to replace what I am doing now.

The Fujimi hull, itself, is not that much worse than the Tamiya or Aoshima hull. All three are too narrow, and taper too quickly at the bow from amidship at the deck (and the flare of the hull is not pronounced enough, which accounts for the deck being too narrow).

I would also like a kit that did not have the deck cast onto the hull, so that I could have the aft torpedo tubes mounted correctly (all current kits have you glue them to the bottom of the top deck, rather than to the floor of the deck where they were-are installed).

And none of the kits have the support bracing that runs along the starboard main-deck aft, between the 6th and 7th gun.

While that is easy to install from simple styrene scraps, it would be trivial to have cast into the decking piece above it, or as a photo-etch piece that can be attached with the railing on the lower aft deck.



MB

[maxim]

Ok, but you will waste a PE bridge on the old Fujimi kit and you will have to replace nearly every part contained in this kit - as you are already describing (new bridge, new hull, new funnels, later new guns, new masts etc.)

AND apparently there are still problems to find out, how the bridge exactly looked. You will not be able to make correct it, if you cannot find much better references.

It would be way easier to built the model using the Tamiya kit or the Aoshima version of it.

There are really additional parts in the Arpeggio of Blue Steel Nagara kit, see here:
http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10272178n2/40/2

A new bridge roof and new lookout posts plus something probably specific for the anime, see here (D numbers):
http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10272178z/70/1

These are the parts you cannot easily make using PE... And to produce these PE parts will probably cost at least as much as the complete Tamiya or Aoshima kit...

[MatthewB]

Ok, but you will waste a PE bridge on the old Fujimi kit and you will have to replace nearly every part contained in this kit - as you are already describing (new bridge, new hull, new funnels, later new guns, new masts etc.)

AND apparently there are still problems to find out, how the bridge exactly looked. You will not be able to make correct it, if you cannot find much better references.

It would be way easier to built the model using the Tamiya kit or the Aoshima version of it.

There are really additional parts in the Arpeggio of Blue Steel Nagara kit, see here:
http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10272178n2/40/2

A new bridge roof and new lookout posts plus something probably specific for the anime, see here (D numbers):
http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10272178z/70/1

These are the parts you cannot easily make using PE... And to produce these PE parts will probably cost at least as much as the complete Tamiya or Aoshima kit...

The "D" part isn't really specific to the Anime. I am not sure what it is.

But even with the Aoshima/Tamiya kits, I would still be making all of the same parts in PE.

If you look at the Five Star or Gold Medal PE kits for the HIJMS Sendai, you will see that I am not making anything that they have not already made for the Sendai.

And the parts I am making for the Fujimi Kit will also work for the Tamiya kit (maybe with some minor alterations - I might buy one simply to find out what those alterations are, so that I can include the parts for either kit in a PE set).

The bridge, masts, and lookouts I am building would work for either the Fujimi or the Tamiya set. They are an integral unit that would simply replace the existing structures. The hulls on both are nearly identical, so any railings could be used on either. The degaussing cables would be useable on either, and the funnels and grills would be usable on either (although the funnels themselves on the Tamiya/Aoshima kit(s) Re much better than the Fujimi kits). Doing the funnels, though, represents about a half hour's work (extrude an oval, insert a pair of edge-loops where the ridge built into the structure itself is and then extrude the ridge, array a series of indentations around the funnel where it has those holes in them (vents?), do a "hull" command to hollow them out, and then add the lip at the top where the grill connects - if I add the internal vanes, then that is just another array of planes, which then get thickness added after I have created the array - do a Boolean Union for the vanes, to attach them to the Funnel, harden the edges at top and bottom, and around the base of the ridge and holes, smooth mesh half a dozen times, and convert to Solid from mesh).

The creation of the PE parts were really the only work, and that is because I have never done PE parts before (I had to learn how to make them).

If you look at my WIP thread for the ship, you will notice that I already have a 3D model created to print the Bridge. I just decided that I could get better detail doing a PE, and I wanted to learn how to do PE for future kits and modifications that are not available.

The Early-War is also a period that is underrepresented for many IJN CLs, and I figured that regardless of the manufacturer, it might be good for there to be available on option to build the Nagara-Class ships for the Early-War.

Doing a slight modification of this PE bridge set for the other members of the Nagara-class is minimal. It will require only a flat roof, and different side lookout stations (which on a couple of the ships had what look like HA Fire Control stations installed. I think the Abukuma was one - I can' to roll up in the thread to look without losing my post, but at least one of the ships had this alteration in the Early war).

So, which kit I am using is irrelevant.

MB

[maxim]

If you want PE, buy e.g. this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Photo-Etched-PE ... 1720597624

[MatthewB]

If you want PE, buy e.g. this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Photo-Etched-PE ... 1720597624

Notice that that set is for 1944.

And for the Tamiya kit, which will not work with the Fujimi kits I currently have.

The creation of the PE set I am making is not that big a deal.

I have finished the patterns for the bridge structure itself and the walkway over the forward Torpedo well, and now I am working on the Mast and Lookouts.

I have found a place where I can get a single 11" x18" PE plate done for $70 (which will give me around 11 additional Bridge Structures, Walkways, Masts and Lookout stations I can sell, netting me a substantial profit).

I am more interested at this point in just collecting reference materials than I am in what else is available, because I have found [1]everything[/i] that is available for either Fujimi or Tamiya kits (of the entire Nagara-class).

And given what it would cost me to buy the kits, and then buy the PE sets, and then STILL have to do a lot of conversion, it is simply less expansive, and a better use of my time to create a new PE set.

Not to mention that other people who wish to build the Nagara-class ships will have these parts available for their ships as well.

MB

[Dan K]

I'm reposting a shot of Yura, circa, 1938-1941, to reiterate the shape of the bridge structure for the early war Nagaras, much as the Natori pic on thread p.18. Nagara and Isuzu look like this, save for the camo paint and lack of a degaussing cable, in early 1942. Note also the single main spar on the foremast.

Other pics to help with the shape of the funnel grills.

[MatthewB]

Hmmm...

So, 5 vanes in the smaller first funnel, and seven in the other two.

The shot of the funnel grills is also helpful. As it shows that the current PE grills are not exactly correct (at least not how people have been installing them).

That is easy to make it one piece. I will have to do it in 3D first, to get the distances off the respective curves (keeping in mind that annealed brass will stretch a great deal, and it is best to anneal the grills so that they will be easier to curve). It isn't hard to get the curve on un-annealed brass, but it takes a lot of patience.

Plus the ship's boats number six, not four.

At least if that number is correct for 1942 (The photo just lists 1939 - '40, but I don't expect a great deal changed on the class prior to 1942 in terms of boats).

So I need to create another set of boat davits and the boat cradles (All images I have seen show that the boats typically rested in cradles on the deck when not in use).

Also... In terms of the single spar on the foremast.

Is this meaning that ALL ships in the class had their foremast top spar removed (the kit has two spars on the mast), or rather the two spars replaced with one?

One thing just came to mind. Prop-guards.

I can see on various models that it has a prop-guard made out of three pieces of metal bar, arranged in a short pyramidal structure (technically a tetrahedral structure, as pyramids have five sides: four triangles and one square, whereas Tetrahedrons are four triangles).

But few of the images I can find have this part visible (that could just be a quality of photo issue, considering the rather etherial nature of the prop-guard.

And I seem to recall that some of the ships had a pole for a crane (just a steel pole), while some had a box-spar crane (lattice steel spar construction).

I will read back through the thread to locate if that was here.

I can pretty easily make a PE crane and the rigging for the crane in the room I have left on the .015" thick fret I am doing. It is mostly tons of little gussets - I am probably not going to do railing since that is already available, as is degaussing cable. Ladders are other thing that are easily obtained, save for the two in the bridge, which are rather specific to the part I am making. I suppose depending upon how much room everything takes up, and what the ratio of .020" thick parts to .015" thick parts is, I might want to think about creating a PE set that includes everything. It isn't like things like railings are hard to make; same for ladders. The deck would be the hardest part to make.

Speaking of deck... The Strips of linoleum were 6.5' wide (separated by the brass strips)?

I have seen some decking that has dividers running down the middle of the decking. The rainbow PE kit for the Nagara for 1944 shows the deck has a single divider running down the middle of the foredeck, while there are three dividers running down the aft-deck.

Yet I can find other PE upgrade kits (for other models) that show only one row of PE dividers running the length of the model (with no longitudinal division).



MB

[Dan K]

I don't have any other overheads of the funnels for the grills; your take seems correct. Bunch of side views if you need them.

Six ship's boats is the official number, but it wasn't unusual for them to leave 1-2 ashore.

No propeller guards as far as I can tell. I have one shot of Abukuma 1941 with what may be propeller guards, but no other sister has them in any photo.

I mentioned pole vs. lattice work booms for Isuzu and Nagara. GMM has a cruiser fret with good latticework booms. Rainbow might have a dedicated fret - can't remember offhand.

Along the length of the deck, each linoleum strip was spaced 1.83m with a brass tie-down. Width-wise, it varied with the width of the hull. There's transverse tie-downs visible in the shot of Yura's funnel above.

[MatthewB]

So, just a touch over 6 feet (183cm = 6 feet and 3/4inches).

I am guessing that the tie-down strip was 3/4inch to 1inch wide. That would make the space between the strips roughly 6'.

And, about prop-guards.

They would need prop-guards, as their props extended significantly beyond the hull.

Several "Blueprints" show prop-guards that would be difficult to see in photos given how low they were on the hull, and how small they were compared to typical prop-guards:

http://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprint ... r-1942.png

As you can see, they are just three metal rods welded together at their ends, with the two longitudinal rods being level with the deck right near the waterline, and the third rod being perpendicular (in the vertical) to the other two, attaching to the hull about eight to ten feet above the other two.

Or, another way to look at it is that it is two rods. One of them is bent at a 60� angle, and mounted in the side of the hull right near the waterline at the point of the 7th turret, and the second rod is welded to the middle of that rod (where it bends), and to the hull about eight to ten feet up.

That arrangement would be terrifically difficult to see in photos, given that in even moderate waves, or with the ship having a heavy load (full fuel, ammo and stores) the guard would be submerged.

I think I will make one just because it would be so easy to do (and I have the space).

If anyone can think of other parts they need made, let me know.

I also need to start on a list of parts to have 3D printed (like the Fire Control station in the lookout position in the front of the lowest station on the mast, or the Range Finder on the bridge). Of course the Range Finder and Fire Control tend to be parts you can get in an accessories kit from most model companies that do 1/700, and then some.



MB

[Dan K]

I'm going to disagree with you about the existence of the prop guards, Matthew. While I realize that it would seem more logical for these vessels to carry them as do most warships, it does not appear to be the case. Having rechecked all my references, I think you are mistaking what are short boat booms stowed vertically against the hull for prop guards. They are lowered once anchored for use with the ships boats, as in the Jintsu photo.The booms are held in place with ropes fore and aft.

BTW, there are many styrene and PE formed rangefinders and directors on the market

[MatthewB]

OK... Those clearly show no prop-guards.

That seems... dangerous... for such a narrow ship to go without protection for the props. Makes me wonder if they ever brought up next to a pier or another ship.

BUT... The pictures raise another issue.

The specter of those white letters on the stern of the ships (I know that it is Hiragana of the Ship's name).

I have another thread about the Destroyer's names on the sides of their hulls, which I discovered were painted out after the start of WWII (with the US, but not with China).

But I never discovered if they also painted out the name on the stern.

And I did not realize that other ships might have the names on the stern.

Was this something only associated with Destroyers and Destroyer Leaders (In the Japanese' case, the CLs)?

Or did other ships do this as well?

And did these names/lettering get painted over at the start of the war?

MB