lmagna

Very nice build Greg.
 
I am not normally a huge fan of the modern day warships and don't know all that much about them, but this one is to say the least a very handsome ship. It is also amazingly complex and your build has certainly covered both those aspects well.
 
I am surprised to see the Soya in your stash. I thought I had the only Japanese icebreaker in captivity. I bought a Fuji class breaker some time ago as kind of a companion for my Burton Island icebreaker. If I remember correctly it is not all that detailed. Have you found enhancements for your kit? 

Very nice build Greg.
 
I am not normally a huge fan of the modern day warships and don't know all that much about them, but this one is to say the least a very handsome ship. It is also amazingly complex and your build has certainly covered both those aspects well.
 
I am surprised to see the Soya in your stash. I thought I had the only Japanese icebreaker in captivity. I bought a Fuji class breaker some time ago as kind of a companion for my Burton Island icebreaker. If I remember correctly it is not all that detailed. Have you found enhancements for your kit? 

Great progress Joshua
 
This looks like it is going to be a very impressive build.

Get out your reading glasses, or better yet invest in an electron microscope for the Veteran Models small caliber guns. I have a couple of their 1.1" guns and I have my doubts if they can even be built!
 
My kids actually prefer Ramen! 

With plenty of targets and almost 15,000 torpedoes fired from submarines, sinking slightly more than 1300 ships I still have some questions about  that claim, but have no interest in crunching numbers for the next few months. It is true that in the Pacific the US submarine effort cost the Japanese well over 50% of their losses and combined with their losses from aircraft and other torpedo launching platforms caused the virtual destruction of Japans nautical abilities by 1945. By that time there were virtually no Japanese ships left large enough to warrant the use of a torpedo.
 
This is really Mikes build log not a history debate and he has not really given permission to treat it as such. So I am done. Thanks for the reading. I will certainly look it over.  

October 25th 1944 The last torpedo fired by Dick O'Kane of the US submarine Tang.
 
A MK18 electric torpedo, the American copy of the German G7e torpedo that had been copied from German torpedos that had been recovered after running aground in 1942. It was the last torpedo onboard the Tang. It broached and curved to the left in a circular run. O'Kane fishtailed the sub under emergency power to clear the turning circle of the torpedo, but it struck Tang abreast the aft torpedo room approximately 20 seconds after it was fired. The first MK18 was fired under war conditions by Mush Morton in the Wahoo and Eugene Sands of the Spearfish in September of 1943. Sands reported that he "experienced enough torpedo problems to drive an ordinary man berserk": one sank, one broached and ran wild, three fishtailed at launch and hit the outer doors before disappearing, and seven missed astern
 
Either O'Kane was a very bad shot or the torpedo guidance system on the MK 18 was still having issues in 1944 just like the MK 14.
 
Suggested reading,  Clear the Bridge!: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang by Richard O'Kane.

Stands to reason when at least on paper this single ship carried the ability to take out or even sink a battleship if used properly. Think what could have happened if instead of the USS Johnston and Taffy Three vs. the Japanese it had been this ship maned with the same determined and trained crew under the same conditions in the battle of Taffy Three off Samar! In fact if the US had had a torpedo as effective as the Long Lance going into WWII the entire war would have been over in very short order even after the losses at Pearl Harbor. 

With plenty of targets and almost 15,000 torpedoes fired from submarines, sinking slightly more than 1300 ships I still have some questions about  that claim, but have no interest in crunching numbers for the next few months. It is true that in the Pacific the US submarine effort cost the Japanese well over 50% of their losses and combined with their losses from aircraft and other torpedo launching platforms caused the virtual destruction of Japans nautical abilities by 1945. By that time there were virtually no Japanese ships left large enough to warrant the use of a torpedo.
 
This is really Mikes build log not a history debate and he has not really given permission to treat it as such. So I am done. Thanks for the reading. I will certainly look it over.  

That is some questions i can only partly answer Mike.
 
Yes you can use the red car to build any of the three 1969 team cars as in fact it IS car #1 with the wing mounted in a lower position in order to make it legal for the 1970 Can Am season. By the same token,  you could in theory by slightly modifying the rear deck and eliminating the wing all together make it into a 1967 M8A team McLaren car. This is possible because the 1968 #1 car was built from the two 1967 cars in 1968 and then sold and had the wing lowered in 1970 but was otherwise the same car driven by team McLaren in 1969. Is that confusing enough?
 
The part I don't know is if the kit that you and Craig have has shortened wing struts to reflect the 1970 car or if as a kit maker they just kept the taller struts of the orange 1969 team cars. My kit has long struts for the orange 1969 cars. If they kept or supplied the taller struts then you can easily build either car by using the taller or shorter struts. If they only supply a tall or a shortened strut then you will have to lengthen or shorten the struts depending on the car and what part was supplied. How is that for confusion?  You can also build the 1970 team McLaren M8D just by adding wing supports on the rear fenders!

 
One of the reasons McLaren was so successful in Can Am was that unlike Jim Hall, he didn't show up each year with a new car design that was so innovative that it needed a full season to get the bugs ironed out. He showed up each year with an improved version of the car that won the year before with just enough modifications to keep it at the top of the completive pile. So with basically two bodies, a M6 and an M8 you can pretty much build any Can Am McLaren from their most winning years.
 
The spoilers on the cars were at a fixed height. Jim Hall had brought the innovation to racing three years earlier with his Chaparral 2E, (Along with a few other innovations that were not as noticeable) and they were adopted by almost everyone both inside and outside Can Am racing. The struts were fixed in height and were mounted to the rear wheel hubs rather than the body like prior wings. McLaren was one of the few who avoided the concept until in order to remain dominant he decided to mount the high wing concept in 1969. The wing angle could be adjusted in the pits but unlike Hall's Chaparral it was not adjustable by the driver while being driven. Because of wings flying off of cars while racing, (Mostly F1 cars) the FIA, ( Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) made both the movable wing AND the raised wing illegal and after 1969 no car would be able to run them. These rules also applied to the Can Am series of races by default. So in short high wing or low wing is a matter of years not an adjustment system.
 
One of the things that still concerns me is the decals supplied for the Accurate Miniatures kits for Team McLaren. I have already discussed this with Craig. All of the pictures I have been able to locate for the 1969 team cars shows the numbers in the roundels a being black. Both the kit and the aftermarket sets of decals use blue numbers. I know that after Bruce died Denny ran most if not all of the team cars with blue numbers but I am not certain this was the case prior to 1970. I have seen a picture that if memory serves, shows all three team cars lined up side by side with blue numbers but I am not certain what year the picture is from or which book I have that I saw it in! Fine researcher I am!
 
Of course, after spending FOREVER typing this up, (I am not all that fast at typing) I at last find the picture I was looking for of the three 1969 team cars in the same photo. Looks like my memory was wrong on the numbers as well. They are clearly black.

The full set of decals are available through https://www.indycals.net/decals/canam/70mclarenm8d.html
The 1969 markings are virtually identical. They have a pretty nice set of tire decals as well.
 
 

How can you heat up PE   or am I just being thick.
 
OC.

Almost a year since I last touched this model, been busy on another project.   Had fun building these hatches tonight.  Remembered to anneal the metal this time, what a difference!  

I love these updates, and I’m saving your photos for reference. Considering the IJN Mikasa is in the same rarified category as the HMS Victory or USS Constitution, I am mystified why there isn’t a readily available good comprehensive reference for her.
 
Cheers, Tom

Your are very kind! I was also amazed at her depth below the waterline, perhaps a testimony to her armor. Not everyone knows she had torpedo tubes down there, and I historical accounts indicate that she fired torpedoes  at the Bismarck.
 
Cheers,  Tom

Chilliard, I am surely impressed by your build of the Black Pearl.
I don't know whether you have heard about this website, which has a lot of goodies for us builder in many way.
It's called Historic Ship Model.
They have a true wooden deck for your kit and other items you might want to change.

Yes, I have heard about the website.  I actually bought the rigging kit for the guns from them. 

Will be restating soon. I just finished refurbishing my shop to the point I can start working in it, and found the wood I bought for the mast and boom, that had been packed away.

I love the flawlessly clean look of your build so far... well done sir!

That's looking great!  Your technique worked really well.  Gives me a little more confidence to try something similar on my builds, though it looks like the plate lines are already built into my Shimakaze hull so it will have to wait for a future build.

No worries at all guys, no apologies necessary!  Frankly, I find all this fascinating and it makes me more into my builds when I'm learning history, mechanics, etc. alongside the build.  For me, it's less the final destination and more the journey that makes modeling fun for me.  I could probably put models together in half the time if I just opened the box and went straight to work.  Instead, I like all the learning about the subject that goes along with it.
 
So, again, no need to apologize!  Feel free to discuss these types of topics any time they come up!  Since I don't have the knowledge that you guys do, I'm more than happy to extend the build log real estate for these kinds of discussions  

With plenty of targets and almost 15,000 torpedoes fired from submarines, sinking slightly more than 1300 ships I still have some questions about  that claim, but have no interest in crunching numbers for the next few months. It is true that in the Pacific the US submarine effort cost the Japanese well over 50% of their losses and combined with their losses from aircraft and other torpedo launching platforms caused the virtual destruction of Japans nautical abilities by 1945. By that time there were virtually no Japanese ships left large enough to warrant the use of a torpedo.
 
This is really Mikes build log not a history debate and he has not really given permission to treat it as such. So I am done. Thanks for the reading. I will certainly look it over.  

Depends on the museum! Some of them are stuck up and you might have some problems but any museum that can recognize quality and skill would grab this build up in a heartbeat. Look up the pictures of the Providence Model in the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts made by Charles Davis and then compare it to the Providence made from the same plans by Alfred Brownell in Mystic Seaport museum.

 
 
Your build is just as nice as either of them and much better than Davis's version. Possibly Brownell's as well.
  

Thank you! I'm using an Optivisor, two viscosities of cyanoacrylite, acrylic floor polish, bending tools, several tweezers, muttering, and some patience! They would remove the aircraft from the turret and stow it; even so, I imagine the blast would be a maintenance concern.
 
Cheers,  Tom

With plenty of targets and almost 15,000 torpedoes fired from submarines, sinking slightly more than 1300 ships I still have some questions about  that claim, but have no interest in crunching numbers for the next few months. It is true that in the Pacific the US submarine effort cost the Japanese well over 50% of their losses and combined with their losses from aircraft and other torpedo launching platforms caused the virtual destruction of Japans nautical abilities by 1945. By that time there were virtually no Japanese ships left large enough to warrant the use of a torpedo.
 
This is really Mikes build log not a history debate and he has not really given permission to treat it as such. So I am done. Thanks for the reading. I will certainly look it over.  

October 25th 1944 The last torpedo fired by Dick O'Kane of the US submarine Tang.
 
A MK18 electric torpedo, the American copy of the German G7e torpedo that had been copied from German torpedos that had been recovered after running aground in 1942. It was the last torpedo onboard the Tang. It broached and curved to the left in a circular run. O'Kane fishtailed the sub under emergency power to clear the turning circle of the torpedo, but it struck Tang abreast the aft torpedo room approximately 20 seconds after it was fired. The first MK18 was fired under war conditions by Mush Morton in the Wahoo and Eugene Sands of the Spearfish in September of 1943. Sands reported that he "experienced enough torpedo problems to drive an ordinary man berserk": one sank, one broached and ran wild, three fishtailed at launch and hit the outer doors before disappearing, and seven missed astern
 
Either O'Kane was a very bad shot or the torpedo guidance system on the MK 18 was still having issues in 1944 just like the MK 14.
 
Suggested reading,  Clear the Bridge!: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang by Richard O'Kane.