RGL

The secondary guns come with large superstructure, and the AOTS and the Tamiya instructions differ. According to Tamiya this is where the Paravanes are stored, but the AOTS states they are in closed magazines, which I expect the quad doors are for.

The door and the ladder configuration is different between the kit and reference, so I went with the reference and sanded down the door and will move the ladders and again add stanchions later.

I have also included extra rivet strips and handrails around the bottom of the turret ring from a set of cut down hand rails from spares.

The red things are a panel that is included by Tamiya as a decal, and there are two hatches no mentioned by tamiya. When painted it won't matter.

I only think in metric as imperial left Australia in 1965, before I was born

Do you want the measurements?

One bite at a time. Big bloody elephant

Its a matter of access Cog, I don't want t lose detail under paint. I did up the gun tubs that go on top of the main guns. The Tamiya piece is 1 piece. The pontos is 14pieces.

Are you putting it in a glass box?

Try using Lindt chocolate wrappers around a wooden mold

Moving on to something different, the main guns. Lots of internal (irrelevant) detail, and Tamiya provides some etch as well. Goes together very simply. The kit supplied AA guns on the roof will be replaced with Pontos.

There is a heap of detail I will not add until after painting, such as ladders, stanchions, AA guns, but first up I had to add the exercise aiming device which is provided by Tamiya but not referred to in the instructions but in every other reference book. I used stretched sprue as the cables.

The handrails were an absolute nightmare as they are 1mm high, and were a full days work to add then 50% of them full off. Luckily Pontos gives you extras.

The blast bags, there are some provided with the kit, but are very bland. 1 is the tamiya barrel and blast bag, 2 and 3 are the pontos provided bags being elevated and flat.

For anyone building this kit, there are lots of extra provided if you stuff up, but the secret is to drill out the front of the bag, the widen the back end as much as possible so the barrels will slide into the breach and allow you to keep the base of the bags within the correct area on the hull piece.

There is a heap of detail to go, but I will not even cut the off the fret until I am ready to paint. The local supermarket's cheap tupperware is now their home for a while.

I'm happy with that

I slide out the drawer to my desk and put a tea towel on it. Yes, some pieces occasionally go off but it saves a LOT of them.

Next is applying the forcastle so I can add the fairleads. Once that is complete I can replaced the deadlights that fell off and a couple of eyelets, then it is ready for painting, but I will start off other stuff first. Back to work this afternoon so delays expected.

As you can see I have also added the kits supplied scupper pipes and replaced the two big ones from the Pontos set. I have not attached these yet as they will get in the road of the painting. 

Moving along with the hull, I have placed the degausing cables. You are given two options, one closed and one open. I used the open one as it looks better and I suspect Tamiya got the idea from the photos of the wreck but I suspect the keyboard warriors are correct when they say the covers have rusted off. Still, looks nice..

So all up there is about a metre of it, which at 1/350 is a lot.

Freedom of expression mate! I'm sure some people look at my work and say that too!

Type in "Hull plating small scale ships" into u-tube, there is a tutorial on how to do it, I found it last weekend, very simple.

No doubt it's all about packaging and shipping fees. Just would have been more simplified on a zig zag patter along panel lines, meh, too late, move on. Its a nice kit limited only by my own ability. The putty syringe seems to have solved it and nothing masking and overspray can't fix. Don't blame the tools etc. any faults will be my own.

I saw an excellent tutorial in hull plates on utube

You will share my pain with the hull!

Nice

Bugger me, it worked! I expected having to spend days fixing this, but it was just a couple of hours work.

I threw the old tool hull together so you can see the comparison. This swill be my practice piece for painting. Given how much I have spend on this thing so far I think it is worth having a mistake zone.

Finally some days off! The hull is now joined up, but I have no idea what Tamiya were thinking making the upper hull in 5 pieces as the gaps are huge. Given the size of the ship, it needs a LOT of glue, and it requires a fair bit of spot glueing with off cuts of PE to slide into the gaps. The centre deck area (I'm sure the ex mariners will have a name for it), comes in three pieces which join up to the hull nicely with some thin PE.

In a moment of inspiration I found a syringe which I filled with Tamiya putty and ran along the gaps which will hopefully avoid a lot of sanding to avoid loss of molded seams. This is backed up by the prodigious use of masking tape

Quite a few of the dead lights have fallen off due to this handling but can easily be replaced. Once all the seams are fixed up I can add all the drain pipes on the side, drill out the stanchion holes and fix up everything I can before even thinking about adding the forecastle and rear flight deck.

Slog, North Star is now producing these in 1/200 with resin and brass but you're all over this, amazing work.

Thanks for the feedback gents, the intend to get the hull joined up, fill the gaps, and the use a Tamiya rattle can to prime, as their fine primer is excellent. Once that is bedded down I can start on the guns and superstructures, the numerous (I mean hundreds) of smaller guns, , and have everything ready to go for proper painting and weathering, the ships boats, aircraft etc, so my log will continue in that vein until it's time to buy and learn. Big build and large investment means being careful in what I do.

BTW, Mr Taylor, challenge is set for you to try one!!!!

Well, challenge set then for Mr Taylor to do a multi media kit with PE I take it?

There is a build I'mfollowing on another forum that's quite good as it points out the bits that the instructions don't tell you about and is nicely weathered. When I get an airbrush there is a wealth of info on it, I know how to but there is so much good stuff out there now on the internet that did not exist back in the day that it's a whole new world. I think the secret is to be subtle. I imagine the hull will be battered and dirty but the Japanese were and are so fastidious the areas that were accessible would be as clean as possible or their seniors would have flogged them.

I keep telling myself stop rushing.