Posted by Don Murphy on September 25, 2010, 10:00:19
Yes...I have finally broken down and bowed down to the battleship god. I will be tackling the Fujimi "New Tool" 700th scale ship and using photos of the 1/10th scale model at the Yamato museum in Kure for my reference material. For my PE I have the Tom's Yamato set.
Please keep us updated on this one! I've got six BBs in the stash - 2 1/700 Arizonas, the Dragon 1/700 '45 Pennsylvania, the big Revell Arizona and North Carolina and the 1/720 Massachusetts - but nothing with quite the sheer bulk of Yamato.
Well...it turns out (sorry I don't read Japanese!!) that this is Yamato as of 1941! Wow! Just built. Paint still wet.
However, if you possessed any of the Hasegawa or Skywave aftermarket part sets, you would have the extra guns needed for Leyte Gulf or Okinawa. Main guns missing are six twin (open) 5 inch mounts. There's around ten or so triple 25mm turret mounts missing as well.
Main guns have blast bag molded on. Seconaries have rivets you can see. The main radar director on top of the forward superstructure is really nicely done. Main turrets have the "step" in front. Vision slits and portholes on the main superstructure are amazing: crisp and accurate. The stack has all steam piping and mounting brackets. Beautiful box art too.
Do I understand you went from open box, including (still) unread Japanese instructions - plus consultation of the 1:10-scale Yamato website - to (at least) hull- and superstructure completely assembled and painted - plus then returned to ModelFleet, read Mikey's post and made your second post, above - in just 3 hours and 37 minutes?!! That would be an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof, sir.
Which, I guess your "first look" truly is - considering it occurs not within any pics on the screen, but in the "mind's eye" !
Just bustin' on ya, buddy - it really makes no difference how fast you built it - though we definitely do want to see pics of what you've got there. Speaking of which, those textures around the roof- and face corner seams of the secondary (triple-6", or whatever caliber) turrets - if you're talking about those "dotted lines" - represent braces and slots of the armor attachment (for blast-venting, I think) and not oversized rivets.
Also, speaking of armor - and the 1941-fit Yamato - I read somewhere (maybe CombinedFleet.com?) that a USN sub got a single torpedo into the early Yamato, causing a "total failure of her armor system". Which sounds to me like a whole side of the ship falling off - rather too much to believe - and I'm thinking "total failure" must denote the torpedo penetrating completely through the hull(s), totally defeating the armor system. That would be much more believable. Do you know any more about this incident, Donny?
Meantime, the detail you describe for this kit sounds like resin-class quality - again, can't wait to see it! And with something that good, for the light/AA weapons you'd probably want to go with aftermarket PE and/or resin anyway - even if the kit did provide everything needed - unless they've somehow managed to mold guns of the same quality as well. Which would also be a first (AFAIK), and a must-see item(s).
OK, did I insert "see", "look" and "pics" enough times to put across a "subtle hint"?
Cheers,
-Matty
Re: And for a SECOND "Look"...?
Posted by Don Murphy on September 26, 2010, 13:07:32, in reply to "And for a SECOND "Look"...?" Message modified by board administrator September 27, 2010, 8:29:36
Here she is with main turrets newly completed. The rear float plane deck has cut outs for the photo etch drainage grates. She's pretty clean as she's pre-Leyte.
Here's the bulk of the model right here. Right now you're looking at about 60 parts.
Check out those bridge/superstructure vision slits and portholes/windows. Some intricate stuff here.
Check out the steam piping and the brackets holding the pipes to the smoke stack.
You can make out the diamond tread pattern on the flight deck. The hanger well is pretty detailed too.
The deck planking is pretty excellent as are all of the deck openings, bollards, etc. This is a big ass kit for 700th scale!
The only conceivable way (IMHO) that any boat could have "been there" would have been if the USN Purple folks knew that she was being built and had a boat positioned to (a) film intel or (b) sink her. Taiho and Shinano were brute luck. A hit on Yamato would have been as well. Also, throwing USN torpedo performance (crap) in to the picture, I'd say that would have been the 1-in-a-million hit of the war.
Pretty impressive detail for 1/700 - the bridge details as good as on 1/550 (Nichimo) molds, and the 5" gun shields even better. Not quite up to resin capabilities - not the really good mfrs, anyway - with the possible exception of the diamond-star textures, which appear to be just awesome (and the deck planking, which I can't see). Plus, there are no seam lines, anywhere, from what I can see.
Interesting you should mention code-breaking with the sub attack, Donny - USS Skate SS-305, near Truk, on 12/25/43 - I looked it up, and that's just exactly what is claimed: http://www.combinedfleet.com/yamato.htm And it's (now) clarified that indeed the armor was only penetrated (though it may have been by two torpedoes, not just one).
In any case, I do appreciate these pics - of course you "love us" ( - and you're going to, a lot more after tomorrow - or the next day - when you discover what's in your mailbox, budy)! I'm particularly impressed with your masking/paint job on the deck. It would've taken me 3 hours to do that alone!
Speaking of which, I've been workin' on my Boxer - knocking out the details all the way up through the island - so it's all coming along, and will have pics of this weekend's progress, pretty soon.