The Ship Model Forum

Very nice job .

Always a pleasure to see you at the helm Dan The shot of Kyokuto Maru during sea trials looks gorgeous, Hope you choose to paint her like that..




Jose

Thx, all.

Jose, these builds are going to be in the UNREP configuration so, a pre-war build is going to have to wait. They did have some interesting pre-war paint jobs. Speaking of which, I've actually just received some old SOTW volumes with better photos of Kokuyo, Kenyo, and Nippon Maru with the same sort of "beauty" shots. I'll have to post them at some point on the Kawasaki class thread.

More importantly, the Kokuyo Maru image is at the correct angle to see the cutouts on the lower, port side of the bridge facing. The color of the banding is dark, so the cutouts appear in shadow and get lost in the pic. I've tried to lighten them up here. This means the Fujimi bridge facing showing an assymetrical cutout is wrong, for sure.

One thing that I neglected to mention above is that the hull siding at the base of the forward bridge has to be cut down. Unfortunately, I went a bit too far and had to then build them back up a little with styrene strip.

Though the bridge was better, I still wasn�t entirely satisfied by it. Admittedly, this was now about incredibly minor flaws that almost no one, aside from a digital camera, would pick up. After pondering it a bit, I decided to proceed on to building Kyokuto Maru�s forward bridge, along with a second version of that for Kenyo Maru. I adhered to a more rigorous round of spot checks and measures to ensure that the curve of the front edge of each deck level matched one another.

One adjustment I made was to work out a better methodology for creating the apertures that appear in the bottom left and right of the bridge facing, outside of the opening of the passageways. It worked out so well that I again replaced the just added apertures the original Kenyo Maru bridge.

There were decidedly mixed results. Kyokuto Maru�s bridge turned out extremely well, with only some need for additional tweaking. (important note: The bridge facing for all the Kawasaki class sisters originated at the same point/frame # on the hull. However, as Kyokuto & Toa Maru�s bridge were deeper, particularly in the curve of the facing, the hull siding under the bridge actually was errected slightly further back on the hull,m just a frame or two. Accordingly, the kit hull siding has to be cut further back, which I�ve yet to do in these photos.)

A comparison between the Kyokuto Maru & the original Kenyo Maru bridge

The second Kenyo Maru bridge actually suffered slightly in comparison. Surprisingly, the Navigation Deck (third deck up) did not align as well as the original, and required much more putty to correct it. Personally, I don�t think the variances will be detectible once covered with paint but, at this point, anyway, I�m inclined to retain the original Kenyo Maru bridge. However, I just might switch the upper compass bridge levels; I have yet to make a firm decision on this point.

Looking good!

Thx. One more view of the bridges.

Great progress!!



Bob Pink.

Coming along nicely, Dan!

Mike.

Thank you. One more shot of the the two Kenyo Maru bridge assemblies; newest on the left, original on the right. Keep in mind that the top levels are on loose, so all the vertical pillars are askew & not glued in place.

Those pillars must be torture.I empathize with you

Great work ! Now hurry up and get building a cruiser lol

Once again Dan, beautiful work!

A cruiser? No, no, no distractions...........

I was a little uncertain about which step to take next. My inclination was to start working on the deck mounted piping, which differs from the generic setup that�s molded on to the deck. So, I scraped off the molded-on piping, fittings, and winches, filling any divots with putty. Everything was sanded smooth. The �shadow� lines that marked the molded on lines will disappear under a coat of paint.

Looks neat thus far. Is there any reason you paint the decks so early? I'd be afraid to scratch the paint while playing with the other pieces.

I haven't painted the deck yet but, I think I will be doing so sooner than usual for me. I expect to explain why more fully later in the thread, but basically, there will be so much deck clutter that it will be impossible to neatly mask off every component, not to mention the safe walkways outlined on deck (as seen in this shot of Kyokuto Maru) to separate the deck color from the hull color.

Incredible work as usual, Dan. Honestly, when I see the quality of work presented by the resident masters here, I don't know whether to be inspired or just junk my entire stash!!! Can't wait to see the final product.

Thank you. Funny, I often feel the same way when at look at other people�s work on this site. Awed, inspired, intimidated, and feeling a bit inadequate all in the same moment.

While beginning work on the deck, I realized that the various locations of the piping could be problematic for the placement of the catwalks. So, I switched gears to creating catwalks. The tankers used for UNREP had their catwalks modified accordingly. The original, main catwalk was turned over to storing refueling hoses, and given partial solid siding, along with some substantial ribbing along the former walkway itself. (I actually don�t know if the ribbing was always there or added to help to keep (wet) hosing from adhering to the decking. I�m guessing the latter but, I truly don�t know.) Think of this section as a very long, open trough. Incidentally, both sides of the original catwalk were fenced in with three bar railing.

A new, narrower section for the actual walkway was added to the starboard side of the original catwalk, with wooden decking and two or three bar outboard railing. Some additional piping was run below this portion. No changes to the support trestles were made that I�m aware of. Some of this can been seen in the refueling photo above; a cross-section illustration of this new arrangement from Motoyuki-san�s second VGJWMM volume is also shown.

The Fujimi kit does provide for stainless steel PR catwalks for both bow and midship positions. However, I find them a bit too simplistic, devoid of both railings and the additional walkway.