1/350 IJN Yamato (Tamiya New Tool)

[davetwin]

Seeing as there seems to be a bit of interest here for my current Yamato build I will post it, sorry to those that have already seen my thread

EDIT: Just noticed that my work system removed all the img codes so I will have to do it later this evening , update to follow

[Mark]

Don't you just hate fire walls ! Looking forward to seeing the photos

[davetwin]

7th April 2014 NOTE Worksite nowhere near as neat now

Ive not introduced myself officially, so will do so starting this work in progress

So I am returning to modelling after a 18 year break (I'm 36 now) and have got myself the new tool Tamiya Yamato, Tamiya IJN utility boats pack and detail up kits from Pontos, Lionroar and MK1. I purchased a house in September and just got the garage emptyed and setup 2 weeks ago to start getting back into modelling

This is by no means going to be a quick build so settle in for the long haul, a few pictures of my current build area and the keel being laid, nasty seem to be filled already although as I understand it the rest of the fit should be very good.

Apologies for anyone that has already read this on another forum

Some pictures of the work bench as it is, I have a nail technicians 5x magnification table lanp for when I really get stuck into the PE






Really bad seem putting the hull together, the box is big enough for it to have been a single peice hull

[davetwin]

10th April 2014

Just some cutting, trimming and sanding here to get bits ready

[davetwin]

14th April 2014

As its been a lovely day today SWMBO decided she was going to spend the day sun bathing, so after I put together the new garden furniture I got to spend about 6-7 hours in the garage "playing with my boat" (as she puts it)
 
I also got to play with an airbrush for the first time using Vallejo primer, got the hang of it pretty quickly so went ahead and primed up some small pieces, didnt get any pictures of these.
 
All my pictures will be taken with my Samsung Galaxy S4
 
Although Im not going for 100% accuracy I do have some reference material

 
A little side project, I picked 2 of these up cheap as chips on fleabay so thought I would get them made up to hold my small bits, didnt take too long

 
Seem all filled using perfect plastic putty, really nice stuff, had to build up numerous layers to get it right, perhaps that was just my technique as I havent used fillers before.

 
Seeing as I had previsouly spent a lot of time cutting, trimming, sanding and drilling I thought I would dry fit all those bits. Wooden deck dry fitted is the MK1, I will be using the Pontos one in the front of picture

 
Hull and stand primed using Tamiya Fine Primer, I am going to finish the stand in a matt black, didnt like the plastic black of the stand.

 
Time to tackle some of the PE, Ive kicked off fitting the deadlights from the lionroar kit, damn small and LOTS of them, there 660 supplied but I havent counted up how many are on the ship


 
Thanks for viewing, as I have been out of the game for a while comments and criticism always welcome  :thumbsup:

[davetwin]

17th April 2014

have fitted some more deadlights as well as refining my technique making them much neater, now I have applied a small bit of blu tak to the pointed end of a pin for picking up and applying the PE. I am applying a small tab of gator glue with the end of a cocktail stick
 

 
Also had a total nightmare, went to pick up the hull to examine it to see if I needed to wet sand before applying final colour and the worst possible thing happened, I DROPPED it  :banghead:  This is a picture of the damage, could have been worse I suppose, down the local hobbybase today for some milliput.

This will be a bit of a learning curve as I have never used milliput before or even had to make a repair like this, doesnt look to bad to putty up and shape so I am confident 

[davetwin]

24th April 2014

Not been up to much as other things keep coming up that need doing.
 
I haven't fixed the hull yet, perhaps will get on that tomorrow. Over the last few days I have been putting together number 1 turret. Cant believe how many parts are involved with this, about 40 used so far, most are internals. 
 
I also started on some real PE use, not just sticking flat bits on, this is my FIRST time and Im glad I've got a few different sets as I ruined a few ladders getting the hang of it. I have straightened the front ladder since this photo was taken after leaving the glue to dry)
 

[davetwin]

25th April 2014

An update of todays goings work, had the day off again.
 
Primed all my blast bags and main gun barrels using panzer grey Vallejo primer, this sprays really nicely with no thinners and can just pour back what I didnt use.
 
Stuck a bit of plastic in my chip ready for the milliput, now I have the plastic in it looks even less scary of a fix to make  :speak_cool:

 
Seeing as I  needed to fix this I decided to get more filler on the seam, its so much better than before, nice and smooth, sides still left to sand and a bit of polishing to plastic before repriming.

 
Another go at some PE, definately a lot of patience needed for these small rails but Im slowly getting there. Im hoping it looks a little bit better when the gator glue has dried, it does dry clear.

[davetwin]

7th May 2014

Well I did say it wouldnt be a quick build. Here is a little update.
 
Spent a bit of time playing with milliput to get the feel for it and must say I am really loving the stuff, wet your fingers and its almost like using clay. I've got the white milliput. 
 
So after having a play I made a first attempt at repairing my damaged hull and must say for the another first Im am quite impressed, I need to do a little more work then polish the plastic ready for repriming and painting. Yet another first was attempting to rescribe the lines.
 
I also learnt that my digital camera has a macro mode and macro zoom mode so spent some time learning to use it so should be able to get some better close up pictures now
 
What do you think


 
Flight deck completed, this took quite some time to complete but patience paid off, redid 2 rails as used the worng glue to start with which looked a bit messy

[davetwin]

14th May 2014

Another small update, not lots done but thought I would add some pictures of what has been done. Hopefully im not bombarding you all with too many pictures too often.
 
I am kind of jumping back and forward in the instruction manual rather than following their steps.
 
Lots of little parts cut off, cleaned up and ready for spraying. Its amazing how long it actually takes to get all these little bits ready
 


 
Bit of work on boat deck and more tiny bits added


 
More photo etch added to flght deck

 
Turrets in varying degrees of build

[davetwin]

16th May 2014

Some more pictures, hopefully not picture overload. Let me know if the pictures are too big on screen as I do not resize them and am not sure if the forum does or not. They look fine when viewing on my tablet and phone.
 
Prepped the secondary gun barrels and replaced the plastic with turned brass



 
All done ready for spraying

 
Hull repaired, reprimed and final colour added, I am going to do a bit of gentle wet sanding on the bow to soften the rescribed lines as I think they look a bit sharp and rough, also a few at differernt angles to try and show the work at hiding that nasty seem, its not 100% but you have to really look for it to see it and I am very happy with what I have done with them. The little white specks you can see just wiped brushed off after I noticed them in the pictures.




 
You can just see the stand in the background with its matt black coating ready for varnish coat. You will notice that I did a pretty good job of the seam as it runs all the around the bottom of the hull however I didnt do such a good job with the seam running for to aft, not quite so happy with this one, I am not going to go back and redo it now as its not going to be seen once mounted on the base.

[davetwin]

25th May 2014

Time for another update.
 
I have cut all the planes and boats off of the sprus and cleaned them up. As you can see from the first picture the base and hull have had the gloss coat applied, I am undecided yet if I am going to leave the base in gloss or apply matt over it. You will also notice that I have started to apply primer to various parts, started priming before i realised I hadn't put the degaussing cables on. It took my ages to get all those dead lights on, there must be about 300 of them.
 
I have now decided to stop where I am and get the hull finished, decals, matt coat and then get the upper hull attached so I can finish the de-gaussing cables and get the upper hull all sprayed up.
 
Lets see if anyone notices the little error I have made on 2 of the turrets
 

 


 

[davetwin]

30th May 2014

Time for another update, Not a great deal of progress as working shifts and jobs left by SWMBO have limited my time. 
 
I have resized my images now so hopefully shouldnt fill your screens up.
 
I am probably not doing things in the most efficient way but I am really enjoying myself and as I have previously said am not in any hurry. This is showing the hull all assembled and screwed down rather than just dry fitted as in other pictures. Will finish the de-gaussing cable over the next few days then the upper hull is ready for spraying, then I can fit the wooden deck.

 
In the meantime I have started to prepare more small bits ready to spray and stick on after the deck has been applied. This has involved more PE work, starting with the rear gun platform which has had sandbags from the MK1 PE kit added as well as MK1 rails, their rails are really nice giving a chain effect. This was the first time doing rails and just these rails alone took me hours. I think they came out pretty good. They do look a bit rough in some areas but this is full zoom on macro zoom mode.

 
One hose real completed

 
3 hose reals completed

 
More railings, this one was a bit easier

 
Finally all the little parts ready for spraying

 
All comments and reccomendations welcome

[davetwin]

6th June 2014

Another small update.
 
I have deflated myself a little bit since my last upate. When I sprayed up the upper hull and small little bits I made a bt of a mistake and have been pondering what I should about it.
 
The issue is that I read that airbrush cleaner sprayed on the model is good for cleaning any finger grease off before spraying so i gave the parts a once over with this. My problem being that I thought that the cleaner wouuld evaporate quicker, so I didnt leave it long enough to dry out.
 
When i started spraying the primer (Vallejo) it was watery due to the airbrush cleaner still on the model, I then made a further mistake of just spraying some more not thinking at the time it was the cleaner. The end result is that the primer is a little too thick and in the out area it has pooled.
 
It sounds worst than what it actually is and you need to get really close to see it, I am thinking about just leaving it as is and spraying the top coat as due to all the little details added to the upper hull it would be extremely difficuly to sand down.
 
If anyone can offer any advice with regards to removing Vallejo (Acrylic Polyurethane) primer easily and safely withough affecting the lower hull I would consider it to get a better job on the upper hull. 
 
In the meantime I have assembled a couple more small parts, I am really getting the hang of this PE work now
 

[davetwin]

16th June 2014 NOTE All white Vallejo primer was stripped and redone with Tamiya fine grey

Not had much time to get much modelling done due to family life getting in the way, here is a little update as to what I have been doing
 
All the little bits in post 50 have been stripped back from when I put the primer on too thick and are now ready for repriming.
 
Been doing a bit more PE, first picture shows the external boat housings (not sure of the correct name), PE ladders, railings and boat winch thingie attached to both sides. Excuse the shiney glue marks.
 

 
Turret number 1 finished and ready for painting

[davetwin]

20th June 2014

Time for a small update and some pictures.
 
Cut up the parts for the smoke stack and made up the internal PE parts, pictures just show dry fitted. II know that some of the ladders look wonky but it really doesnt look that bad in the flesh, using macro zoom and then zoomed in so shows warts and all.
 



 
Next lot of pictures  show some of the small ladders for the secondary turrets and the 1 secondary turret finished pre paint. Excuse the gaps on the turret base sides, I stuck the side bits on the wrong way round so had to cut them off and correct, nothing a bit of filler wont sort out.
 





 
 
Thanks for looking, any and all comments welcome 

[davetwin]

3rd July 2014

Just a very small update, unfortunately I have not been getting too much time for modelling over the last couple of weeks as work has been getting the way as well as this beutiful weather that we have been having here in Wiltshire resulting in lots of family time.
 
I installed the railings rond the entire hull now from the MK1 PE set as well as cut numerous parts off of sprues, cleaned up and dry fitted as can be seen in the 2 photos.
 
I just need to prime the railings then the hull is ready for its paint, after which I will attache the wooden deck then put away in a box while I concentrate on the rest.
 
Thanks for looking
 

 

[davetwin]

4th July 2014

3 of Yamatos E13A 'Jake's' assmebled, just quick phone pictures as I couldnt be bothered to go in and get my camera 
 

[davetwin]

6th July 2014

Still jumping around all over the manual and made a start on the main superstructure. This PE work is taking me hours but I am enjoying it.
 

[davetwin]

12th July 2014

I have been ploughing on with the photoetch and made quite some progress, pictures of current progress of the superstucture top to bottom as well as the smoke stack. I will be leaving them all as sub assembies as I am thinking they will be easier to paint this way. The long ladder on the smoke stack is currently just dry fitted to show all the PE lined up correctly