1/72 Yamato - or a steep learning curve!

[herbieham]

Thanks for kind comments guys

Its building season, I am getting an hour in after work, or more, nearly every night now.

deck going on!, photos soon!

(Enthusiasm re ignited big time!)

[Goodwood]

Oh, this is gonna be good...

[Ticonderoga]

(Enthusiasm re ignited big time!)

Inspiration is a fine thing, keep it comin........

Andrew

[HvyCgn9]

looking good mate! my friend Warner had his Yamato cruising Narracoorte lake last weekend very impressive sight!! He uses a small car battery as main power! The one thing that troubled him was his steering servo stripped its gears, so we are going to upgrade it to a hi torque metal geared servo (to handle the big rudder loads)

Here is a pic of her underway!!

[Fliger747]

How much does it weigh underway? Very nice!

T

[herbieham]

Wow!

Ill admit it, looks a lot better than mine.
Still, I am having fun!

Two questions

How much ballast, and how does he transport it.
Oh, and a greedy third question, is this in sydney, would love to meet the man and see it.

herb

[HvyCgn9]

G'day Mate, Its an Adelaide based Yamato(not finished yet)....so a bit far for you to come see! Two of the lads in TF72 up your way are building her as well (One is doing the full build before he runs her and one at the running but not quite finished level.)

My friend Warner's Yamato is a two piece hull joining in the midships (it is super strongly built as Warner is a retired builder and has made her somewhat over built!) Not sure what it ways in water but it would be alot!! He has made up a large number of lead blocks (with handles) to ballast her, transport is provided by a MWB 2000ish Ford Transit van ( a leftover from his building days).

Still a lot of work to go before he is happy with her. Your model will be equally as good once you get to the stage he is at.

Cheers Bruce

[herbieham]

been plugging away, now up to stage of starting at the front, work to the rear. detailing (paint and ropes ect) yet to be done.
Lots of rust to add yet!

[herbieham]

[herbieham]

[herbieham]

[Goodwood]

Oooooooooooooooo, niiiice...

Though I will point out that, for most of her career, Yamato sat idle in harbor. With nothing to do but drill and clean, the crew kept her pretty immaculate; I'd wager there wasn't a spot of rust on the entire hull when she rolled over and sank on 7 April 1945.

[herbieham]

Hi,
Actually, i think I will disagree
have a good look at the condition of the other surviving battlwagons, especially the Nagato, they were in a very sorry state by wars end
She also had been subjected to heavy air attack in the inner sea in the weeks preceeding her last mission.
Yes, she was constantly drilling. But you can't drill and paint at the same time.
No ship in war ever looks immaculate, even in peace, few ever do

I have studied the photos of her, especially in Truk, and she is far from pretty there

No, I think this battlewagon will look like the remaining ships Japan had in 45, care worn and used up.
(besides, this makes a more interesting model, I think)
A final comment, did you know that even paint was in short supply during the war?
So short, that they used captured british paint from singapore for some of their vessels!
Anyway, thanks for the comments, its nice to start the "getting the details right "stage

[Senkan]

I think Yamato got some paint work when there was an AA upgrade in February 45' but I doubt she received any other paint work. I wonder if Japan's low oil reserves made it tough to make paint...

She had some rust when she sailed. And you know she had oil/grime. Now when she was at Truk you can bet she had loads of rust and grime.

[Haanaya]

Hi Herb,

I have been following this build for a year or so now, I gotta say, I love your work, admire your sticking power and look forward to every post.

Love the perspective shot up the bow, looks amazing!

[Goodwood]

Well Herb, I'm certainly man enough to admit to being horribly wrong. Definitely looking forward to watching your progress and, yes, putting her in such a woebegone state will add a lot of visual interest�especially when contrasted to the other builds we've seen on this forum which were all crisp and clean etc.

[herbieham]

Hi Mr Goodwood

Thanks again for comments. One way to think of all this is this..............gasp, they are only models............and 99% of the people who see them on the water won't have a clue what it is they are looking at. I for one will never ever get tied up in those arguments over absolute correctness, definate scale, paint finishes ect

For me, this is a Hobby that gives a great challenge, unwinds me from a very intense job, and gives deep personal satisfaction as I very slowly create something most cannot.
To spend four or five hours listening to the radio, cutting and sanding, glueing and trying to figure out the next bit, every week, is worth 1000's of dollars of Holiday time to me.

Its not my life, I have Church, family, war games, writing, work, Yamato creation is just a part of it.
I wonder how many here think the same. I will never build the best model in the world, so why stress. Lets build what satisfies us, and be happy!
Thats my philosophy anyway

happy building!!!

[Haratio Fales]

Amen, Brother I feel pretty much the same way, except I may be just a bit more obsessed with the hobby as I am trying to get it to where it will be my full time job in the future which is ironic because I hit walls that slowed me down and or stopped My projects so I started learning 3D graphics, and ordered printers in the hopes that they will enable me to make parts for these projects more quickly, more precise and allow me to work on the projects all most full time. I have been drawing turrets, and hulls and parts for the ships, and learning to illustrate them for a book I am writing about the Z plan ships. I have found information for about 12 different ships that was part of that plan, with a few variants. So I have allot of graphics to do. I am aiming to get the book published by July, and no later than December if all goes well. I have totally quit playing computer games which was very hard for Me however learning the graphic programs have replaced the games so I pretend they are just a different computer game LOL. Your ship has Inspired me along with a few others. Paul Salamone who is building the Scharnhorst in the same scale is another one. I like the way You approach problems, and dust your self off and fix them, or start over if need be. You definitely have stuck with it and I imagine the Munich sailing with your Yamato to repel the allies from Okinawa. Anyway I didn't mean to get so long winded. I just wanted to thank You for the inspiration and commend You on your awesome ship.



Have an awesome good new year and smooth sailing as always. Haratio.

[ADM]

You're doing a top quality work, keep going

[herbieham]

And here we are
I think, for the whoe purpose of keeping a log, one must show some of the "its not finished yet stuff"
I have been plugging away, this month on the breakwater, the vent fans, fitting forward, and now the first 18 inch turret

wanted to finish the first turret today, but a friend came over, and we drank beer instead-piorities!!!

My son this month was diagnosed with a disease that will, if untreated would send him blind.
I needed 6000 dollars like, tomorrow.
Now this is all my concern, but what I want to share is this, I had a very , very large order with Loyal Hanna dockyard, and with out fuss, he cancelled it, no issues at all.
A big, personal thankyou don

I will resume shopping once his eyes are fixed..........

I am learning heaps, wish I knew how to photo etch, but continuing the Styrene theme, youwill see I have commenced railing construction on one gun using styrene.

Anyway, here are some photo updates