Model Fleet: A Ship In A Saturday

A Ship In A Saturday

Posted by Matty on November 11, 2007, 10:36:04, in reply to "A Ship In A Saturday"
Message modified by board administrator February 2, 2008, 20:38:31

--Originally Posted 10/27/07--

Just as I threatened to do last month, after my "Airplane In an Afternoon" experience, I picked out a ship kit from my stash - suitable for exactly the same type of quick construction. That is, one with good enough OOB fit and accuracy to require absolutely no correction or modification; suitable for painting and detailing afterwards, at a later date.

Again, the near-perfect candidate proved to be a Japanese kit:

Click on Image to EnlargeThe Nichimo 1/500 Hiryu. This is not my pic but one swiped from the Web after my camera completely crapped out, midway through the project. Just before it did, however, I happened to capture this snippet of the instructions:

Click on Image to EnlargeNote they are similar to those of the prior, LS 1/72 Nell kit; including photography of the model and blue-line printing (of highlighted areas). I believe this kit, just like the Nell, also dates from the '70s. However these do not even attempt any translation from the Japanese - which wasn't too much of a problem as the drawings were excellent - though I did overlook two minor hull pieces until after it was too late.

Before my camera sh** and died, I got in a solid 5 hours' assembly on this kit:

Click on Image to EnlargeResulting in substantial construction; well on track to make the projected 10 hours for (structural) completion.

The fit was good, but not as well as expected considering the delicacy and accuracy of the parts in this kit. In particular, the two-level 5" gun sponsons comprise beautiful parts which simply don't fit in place all that well - resulting in vertical pylons that don't always align with the bases of their gun tubs.

Even worse misalignment was encountered for the flight deck supports, both forward and aft. Again, I couldn't take pics so I'll illustrate using another example of the same Nichimo kit; this build done by a guy calling himself "HighGeared" and displayed at this website: http://nabeck.web.fc2.com/503hiryu.htm :

Click on Image to EnlargeNote the bow AA platform. It is backed by three heavy columns, which (are supposed to) fit into very precise sockets under the flight deck. On the fantail is a similar arrangement between the boat deck and three aft flight deck supports. On my build none of these ended up aligning with their flight deck receptacles - the aft ones worse than on the bow; proper alignment absolutely requires that the flight deck be dry-fitted while these are attached. If the instructions did mention this (in Japanese), the pictures sure didn't. So builders: be advised…

Luckily for me, in all the above much of my construction was done using only white glue; per my anticipated future removal of these decks for painting and adding-in PE details. So here's another benefit of the "quick-build" approach: you really get to know the fit of your kit parts - with significant possibilities for do-over.

Note also from the above pic a (remarkably) still-unfilled and very noticeable sink-mark in the forward AA director. This is repeaated identically in the part from my kit; one of just a few - but rather prominent - sink marks in several of the parts. While this one should be easy to correct, two others in the after end of the flight deck will be much harder to fix without destroying the (beautiful) surface texture there.

Returning to nice kit parts which fit badly, another example involves the funnels:

Click on Image to EnlargeThe heavy piping detail here was added by "HighGeared"; look past that to notice the aft funnel (left) sits and is angled slightly higher than the forward one (right). On my build it was just the opposite. Clearly, the kit has problems both in the seating of the funnels and their (inadequate) clearance under the flight deck edge; the tops and mouths of both are undoubtedly supposed to be flush and level.

A final problem I blame, once again, entirely on the instructions:

Click on Image to EnlargeNote the abundance of projecting antennae and gun barrels all around the ship; the instructions would have the builder - and so I did - attach many of these well before completion of major construction. But given the above problems wrestling with the fit in particular, attaching such delicate parts so soon is definitely a mistake; many of my 5" guns, for example, were popped off - again, saved from damage only by my use of the white glue, which gave way before the delicate barrels did. So, although major setbacks were avoided, still a fair amount of time was wasted attaching these details only to see them detached again soon after.

Even so, I was still on schedule - with 9:15 into this build so far - when two factors brought the build to a complete halt:

Click on Image to EnlargeThis pic tells it all; my camera went completely spastic - making this pic look more like the wreck of Hiryu, detected on sonar, than a pristene model - and also the flight deck attachment using white glue required so much taping to hold it in place, that no further addition of detail parts was practicable.

In any case, there would have been little point in further progress without being able to show you decent pics of it. So this is where the build is suspended for now; 0:45 minutes "remaining on the clock" and in actuality she looks quite good.

As of this writing I've now gotten a replacement camera, so stand by to see her completed shortly here…

Cheers,

-Matty