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

[Vladi]

Some small details added, ladders & voice tubes fore (PE from the Rainbow set) and aft (from 0,2mm copper wires and Uni Caenis)

[Dan K]

Looking very good, V.

[Vladi]

Thank you, Dan! I�ve still got a long to-do list

[J. Soca]

What a little eye treat!





Jose

[Vladi]

Thanks, Jose

Another little dilemma solved . As discussed earlier, it is quite probable the original single Lewis 7,7mm machine guns have been replaced with dual Type 93 13mm machine guns on the bridge. Both options are included in the Rainbow Mutsuki set. I wanted to take advantage of my friend Martin�s Fine Molds IJN 13mm set to save some time - I�ve used their 25mm replacements many times and I really love them. However, in this case I tend to prefer the PE option. Not only it has better detail (that noone would ever be able to notice, indeed!) but it is surprisingly also more accurate as to the lenght of the gun itself should be 1,4m or 1,6m (see NavWeaps) = 2,0mm in 1/700 which is about right in case of Rb while the FM version is a bit shorter. The comparison can be seen on the photo below (it is at the edge of my Lumix camera�s possibilities but it can still be seen).

Apart from the AA guns I am adding some even smaller deck details like mushroom vents. I will post some photos again later.

[Vladi]

Some more progress at last Couple of details painted, white canvas put in place, reels, external piping and grills added on funnels and funnels rigged to the main deck just like the voice conduits support between the aft TTs. Foremast and mainmast attached.

Next will be railings, propeller guards, RDF antenna, details on masts and some other small bits & pieces that should take their place before weathering.

[PetrolGator]

That's looking great!

[Dan K]

The scratch-built voice conduits look great. An excellent detail.

Gonna have to think about those for my own builds...............

[Vladi]

Thanks Chris and Dan!

Completed some more details as below (need touch-up of course) incl. stoved railings around torpedo tubes. The loose rig shown are pre-prepared standing wires for the foremast. More detail to be added on masts, boats and the metal roof to be done - and then weathering

To be continued after a short break

[Vladi]

Actually, I only now remembered that at lest the forward voice conduit (over the forward torpedo well) should be "wrapped in white canvas" (aka PVA glue ) according to the 1936 Yunagi photo. The aft conduits (above both aft torpedo tubes) are not wrapped on the same photo, but are wrapped on other wartime Kamikazes and Mutsukis, so I plan to do the same there, too.

[Vladi]

Finally some progress done here! After some small details like pole masts fore and aft, details on foremast and mainmast, standing wires etc. I went for the last larger piece of the puzzle - the metal roof over the bridge incl. covering of the upmost part of the bridge windows. I managed to find a large enough piece of brass at last so I cut it totally new and adapted to the required shape as seen on the photos below.

(original part letf, new part right)

(original part letf, new part right)

I should also cover some of the details not attached yet to the model:

Torpedo tubes
While the original Pit-Road TTs were quite good, I will replace them with the corresponding 533mm dual mounts from the excellent Pit-Road NE-04 set, adding only a sight and a �steering wheel� to them.

Cutters & launches
I noticed the starboard boat and its respective davits amidships were missing on the Yunagi 1936 photos. Dan K suggested that their removal might have been only a temporary measure, but I noticed similar arrangement on a photo of Hatakaze in 1940 (1 cutter each side on the bridge and 1 motor launch amidships, just to starboard in case of Hatakaze). I checked the few wartime photos of either class but there seems to be no definitive answer once again. My decision was to show Yunagi with two 6m cutters and one 6m motor launch as on the 1936 photo as there was no other reference available. I had no replacement for them (the NE-02 set only has 7m long boats), so I have to use parts from the original kit after removing davit attachment holes from them. This I could not do really clean in case of cutters, so I will mask the remaining traces by placing life rings and oars over them. I also scratchbuilt a canvas cover over the motor launch from a piece of plastic.

Now everything is ready for a coat of Future (the roof will get some Sasebo Grey first indeed).

[PetrolGator]

This looks really, really good even without weathering.

[MartinJQuinn]

Yes, what Chris said.

[Vladi]

Thanks, Martin and Chris, I�ll do my best to bring her to the (slightly weathered) finale

[Dan K]

Ditto. Nice work on the bridge roof.

[Vladi]

Thanks, Dan!

Just placed the crew on the bridge and then covered all of them with the new roof - nothing much can be seen of them anymore

[Vladi]

I am nearly there. After a spray of Pronto (the European equivalent of Future) I did weathering (filters, pin wash and dry brush) using diluted artistic oil paints. I decided to try adding rigging before the matt varnish this time as mentioned by some modelers aiming for a more uniform look.

As described by multiple sources, two 7m long white pennants or sleeves were hoisted on the foremast of IJN ships for the Battle of Savo Island to aid as a recognition feature in the coming night encounter. Many Japanese warships of the time also had their main rangefinder painted white at that time for air recognition. Although I doubt painting it white would help much in case of the simple open rangefinder carried by Kamikaze-class destroyers , I added that feature, too. In fact Yunagi carried two rangefinders as shown on numerous pre-war and early war photos of Mutsukis and Kamikazes (discussed in the CASF thread). It seems the original 2-meter rangefinder was replaced with a larger 3m one but moved the original 2m rangefinder was to the place of the searchlight immediately in front of the new main rangefinder.

Added flag bags, ladders to masts and canvas shelters over supports of the #3 and #4 gun platforms.

Next come cutters, motor launch and couple of smaller details before overall matt varnish and then finally adding main guns and torpedo tubes and manning them with sailors. Also the seabase I pre-prepared at the very beginning of the build already received it�s first layer of acrylic gel medium.

Sorry for not too good, quite dark photos below, just for a quick illustration. I will take better ones when finished I promise

[J. Soca]

Excellent work on the rigging!



Jose

[Vladi]

Thanks a lot, Jose! I am 98% done at this moment, just the seabase needs some extra work. I will indeed take some decent photos and post them when complete, just give me 2-3 days

[Vladi]

OK, so here we are at last!

After matt varnish was applied, I put in place main guns and torpedo tubes, trained to port like towards the limping USS Jarvis. I had to make a small correction to the height of the forward voice pipes, these were too low over forward torpedo tubes not leaving enough space for the crew. Then I placed boats and davits to their respective places and manned the ship with her sailors (3dmodelparts.com). In the meantime I finished the seabase (acrylic gel medium - based). Done!











More hi-res photos are available in my Flickr album.

This was an unexpectedly challenging build as I had to live with only 2 photos of the original ship taken 6 years before the date I aimed for, so I had to use educated guess more often then I liked. The possibility of using the Rainbow early-Mutsuki upgrade PE set for Kamikaze-class proved to be feasible. In the end only TEN original parts from the Pit-Road kit were used (the hull, waterline plate, forecastle deck, funnels, cutters and motor launch, and I also cut a part for the #2 gun deckhouse extension). The build spanned all in all five months, not counting the prior preparatory work. Quite a lot for a small ship that participated in the Battle of Savo Island without any real achievement . Anyway, she�s now my #6 out of 11 classes of ships that participated in the epic battle, so I am now less than half way to my primary goal. Hooray!

Special thanks to Dan K and VAN for all their help and advice! And thanks again to everyone who supported my efforts