Some molds really don't reveal just how bad their fit problems are, until the gluing actually begins - such a kit is precisely what this Nichimo is turning out to be. A week ago I completed the following gap-filling and even reshaping/sculpting required to fix the last major problems (after the ill-fitting funnels) cropping up in this kit:
 
Click on Image to Enlarge Firstly, the 5"-gun tubs simply do not meet properly with their supporting pylons, a mismatch smaller for the two located aft (left), but grossly unacceptable for the pairs on each side forward, requiring substantial filling during attachment (right) via again using a "glue/putty" ("glutty"?  ) of thickened/accelerated CA. After it hardened, finishing required not just smoothing the joint but reshaping each entire pylon, which ended up looking good, though thinner and doubtless less accurate. Note also the earlier gap-filling around all the pyramid-like sponsons under these "stalks". (This, BTW, was an ingenious design to both support the guns out away from the flight and at the same time route their ammunition hoists (within the pylons) outside of the hull, directing any detonation effects away from the ship.)
Next, a whole "second-tier" of puttying was required to fill numerous sink-marks in many kit parts:
Click on Image to Enlarge At left, the gun director already attached to the bow AA platform (sorry it's out of focus) took a dollop of glue/putty in the sink-mark right on its face, which otherwise would stand out like a sore thumb (or, more aptly, like a big pimple right on the schnoz ) in the finished build. Likewise, the already-attached starboard-side aft director (right, at top-left), as well as virtually all the open-mount 5"-gun carriages plus half the ship's boats, had prominent sink-marks needing filled. Smoothing the gun director faces necessarily destroyed their viewport/hatch detail, which will need restoration (probabaly with bits of PE).
Next tackled was the last major fit problem (knock wood ): the forward AA platform itself:
Click on Image to Enlarge The platform's forward legs are assigned locator holes in the deck, as are three vertical flight deck supports which also have receptacles in the flight deck overhang, and finally are meant to snug into notches in the back of the AA platform. However no three of these - much less all four - groups of locators in fact match up - unless the pylons are significantly raked, which you may have noted I did earlier, chopping their lower ends to do so - which was clearly inaccurate and prominently visible when assmbled. The solution: position the pylons correctly by attachment to the back end of the platform via extended masses of glue-putty (bottom), sculpted to look like more platform and positioned high- and inside to minimize visibility - and in the process replace the platform legs, broken in all the abuse (Oiy vey! ) with (heavier) plastic dowel.
Finally the build reached the stage looking ahead to the more "fiddly bits":
Click on Image to Enlarge But for the open-mount 5" guns, filling their sink-marks (top) was far from the end. For one thing, the notch accepting the trunnion uner the gun piece (bottom-left, sorry it's out of focus) is on the front of each mount, such that the guns will only seat well, if at all, with barrels depressed. But as I extended the notch backward on one of the mounts and began to hollow out the shielding (bottom-center and -right) I became not only restless at the thought of having to repeat all of this five times, but increasingly (un)impressed that the correct appearance was not being produced.
And I was right:
 
Click on Image to Enlarge As proven by these truly excellent drawings from my Anatomy of the Ship: The Battleship Fuso (Janusz Skulski, 1998, Naval Institute Press - well worth the money, if you have it), showing firstly that I was hollowing out the wrong side - but more importantly how grossly inaccurate is the Nichimo mount overall, with its portside cab only about half as wide as depicted in the drawings, plus completely devoid of substantial machinery and other detail prominent on the real thing. So, while proportions and detail on the Nichimo gun pieces (which also take a brace of quad-recoil cylinders, not shown) are at least passable, the carriages I decided should be re-mastered for casting in resin - the better not only for this build, but also to greatly assist all future IJN twin-5" open-mount installations, in this scale.
I know, I know - but what else are you gonna do when spending all this time to make the rest of the build look (at least passably) decent...?
Cheers,
-Matty
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on November 1, 2009, 14:21:54, in reply to "Matty's Nichimo HIRYU Build In Progress"
