Yakatabune by Catopower - FINISHED - Woody Joe - 1/24 scale - Small

[catopower]

Since I was already on a roll looking at detail of the tatami mats, I started thinking about the table and some decor. The table is included in the kit.

 

I'm not positive about this, but I believe the table is called a zataku (zah-tah-koo). I was steered wrong when I was describing the table to a relative and they came up with a name that I don't recall at the moment, but it referred to a kind of individual tray/table, which this is not. I'm planning on finishing it in a dark brown color.

 

For people sitting around the table, there were individual cushions called zabuton (zah-boo-tone). These are kind of flat cushions about 2' square. I guess they're several cm thick when new and probably flatten out over time. I started playing around with making these out of sculpey to see how they'd turn out. Before I knew it, I made 6 of them. I figured these would be a mix of colors, and I chose colors that were mostly subdued. I think these kinds of colors are more traditional natural Japanese dye colors. The cloth used for making these might have had some kind of small repetitive pattern on it, but that would be too small to discern, so I just used solid colors.

 

I have yet to give the pillows a coat of some kind of matte finish, so they're a bit shiny right now.

 

 

In the meantime, I'm messing around with trying to model a shamisen to place inside. The shamisen is a 3-stringed fretless lute that sounds a lot like a banjo. It is played with a fan-shaped plectrum. I myself have been playing the shamisen for about 10 years now and I'm with a group that performs traditional Japanese folk music. So, it seems only right for me to try to include one here. We'll see how successful I am at that.

 

Here's a picture of a full-sized one that I'm using to help me model one in 1/24 scale.

 

Wish me luck!

 

 

Clare

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2019 by catopower

[GLakie]

The table and mats look good Clare.  Good luck with the shamisen! 

[usedtosail]

Those cushions look very realistic.

[RichardG]

Very nice.

 

Richard.

[mtaylor]

Wonderful work.  I'm sure your shamisen will look great.

[catopower]

I appreciate everyone's comments and faith in my mini (micro?) shamisen making skills. Well, I had to push forward and see if I could a halfway decent job on it. I found some drawings on the Internet and resized them down to proper scale. For the wood, I have a nice piece of Peruvian walnut that seemed perfect for the job.

 

I can't really explain what I did beyond that. It was just a matter of making it. 

 

Final shamisen is about 2-3/4" long. The tuning pegs are called Itomaki (ee-toe-mah-key) and I just made them from blackened sewing pins. The fan shaped object is a plectrum called a bachi (bah-chee) that's used to strike or pluck the strings. Oh, and those are 3 strings you see in the photo. I had some tan monofilament thread I used for that.

 

The entertainer's shamisen set aside in the Yakatabune's Tatami Room.

 

The entertainer's shamisen set down between songs.

 

 

Since we're looking at probably 19th century life, I thought a couple black and white photos seemed appropriate.

 

 

 

I think the only other detail items I may make are sake cups and bottle. One could go crazy making small plates of food, hashi (chopsticks), and so on, so I'll have to stop myself before I go overboard. I still have to think about lighting, wiring, and maybe some painting.

 

The kit calls for only a tiny amount of black paint on the tip of the stem and that's about it. I'm thinking about painting the lower hull black and also the metal plating that covers nails, beam ends and such. This would make the boat look a little more like those boats pictured in Ukiyo-e paintings. The only thing holding me back on the painting is that those boats are mostly different from the boat represented in the Woody Joe kit.

 

Clare

[GLakie]

Your shamisen and other details turned out splendid Clare. Nice work! 

[Canute]

Nice touches all around, Clare. Well done. The b&w shots look period perfect.

[catopower]

Nice touches all around, Clare. Well done. The b&w shots look period perfect.

 

But, I just have to hold myself back from the desire to hand tint them... 

[Canute]

Might try a sepia tone. Different colors will look interesting.

[catopower]

On a roll with the Yakatabune, I need to figure out if I'm going to want to paint it or leave it completely natural with shiny copper plates. 

 

To help me decide, I took some blue painter's tape and painted it black. When dry, I stuck some on the model to see what kind of effect it would give.

 

 

One thing I've noticed is that as they say with clothes, black has a slimming effect. It makes the boat seem sharper and trim, which I like. I think it's getting a paint job...

 

Meanwhile, just in case I come up with a different lighting plan, I thought I'd copy the lanterns by making a mold of them. One possibility is to cast them in clear resin or using opaque white stuff and just hollowing them out a bit and then paint the outer surface.

 

 

I'm in no big rush to light the model. I don't expect it to help in a the window display, where it's well lit. Given that there is no rigging to get in the way, the model design is such that the deck house is easily removable and I can make the roof removable too, so I can actually add that feature in later on.

 

Anyway, I have some concerns about light leakage and a glow showing through the thin wood roof. If I am planning on making a roof removable so that you can more easily view the interior, I won't want to coat the inside of the roof with something that blocks the light. Anyway, we'll see how things go.

 

Clare

 

 

[mtaylor]

Lovely work on the shamisen.  That's a great detail.  Did you tune it?    Ok.. I'll quietly.... 

[catopower]

Thanks Mark. I would have tuned it, but the bachi (plectrum) is only paper and kept bending when I tried to pluck the strings. Otherwise, I absolute would have... 

[druxey]

And played the instrument too, no doubt! Is there no end to your talent, Clare? Nicely done!

[catopower]

Thanks for your comments Druxey. I couldn't play it though because it was out of tune. And to answer your question... No... No, there is no end! 

 

So playing catch-up just a little, here the rough text for step 22:

 

22 Assembling the sides of the boat cabin

• Install the vertical columns

• Cut and install part 36 to fit.

• The left and right cabin sides should be symmetrical.

• Add sliding shoji-A panels into the door frames. Do not glue!

• Install the lintels.

 

My Notes:

This is pretty straight forward. Part 36 is a pre-milled strip that the shoji panels fit into and it allows them to slide open and closed. The screens are supposed to fit so that the paper is on the outside. That means that you just have to pay attention to the fact that one cabin side has the panels facing one way and the other cabin side is the reverse. The illustrations in the instructions are pretty clear there.

 

Note the two sides of the cabin are mirror images.

 

Note that when cutting the parts 36 and 37, you'll have to measure to make sure they fit properly. 

 

Here's what part 36 looks like. Before the era of laser cutting, Woody Joe kits used to use a lot of milled wood parts, so it's not uncommon to still see a few pieces like these in their kits.

 

 

23 Attach Shoji

• Assemble the sills and attach the sides.

• Insert sliding Shoji Panel B

• Add the lintels

 

 

After completing steps 22 and 23, the cabin looks something like this...

 

 

Oh, and if you want to minimize light leakage from the kit or other internal lighting you may add, make sure that the lintels, that's the upper piece above the panels, is flush with the tops of the vertical posts. I wasn't too careful with that, so I may have to add some kind of very thin shim or something.

 

 

Clare

 

 

[BRiddoch]

Looking great Clare.

 

   Bob R.

[catopower]

Thanks for the nice comments Bob. I've been really enjoying this kit.

 

Clare

[catopower]

The next two steps are very straight forward and involve the deck house roof...

 

24 Assembly of the ceiling and Interior lights

• Glue the sockets using instant wood bond adhesive

 

There is a note in red at the bottom of this step that reads: Test the bulbs. In case of burn out, the bulb is 2.5 Volt, 0.3 Amps. Please use equivalent rating.

 

Most of the parts in this step are pre-cut and only require assembly. Only Part 18 comes from the supply of strep woods. This is a 2mm x 3mm strip which needs to be cut to 200mm.

 

Here's the section of instructions:

 

Here's the roof structure I built.

 

 

Because I'm planning on adding my own lanterns and using LEDs instead of the included bulbs, I didn't add the wooden  mounts for the lights. I'll be dealing with lighting at a later time.

 

Step 25 is nice and simple and just involves creating the roof panels.

 

25 Assembly of Roof Panels

• Make 2 sets.

 

Again, the parts are all pre-cut, so this is simple assembly.

 

The labels in red simply say, on the left "Front Surface" and on the right "Back Surface".

 

Now, I had one little accident with the deck house recently. I was working too close to it with a rag that had some wood oil remnants on it. The rag apparently touched one of the shoji screen panels and the oil marred its appearance. Worse, there was a spare included in the kit, but I couldn't find it. I came up with display options for keeping the panel hidden from view as much as possible.

 

 

Fortunately, I found the small piece of paper, which had fallen on the floor at some point, but was in good condition. So, I removed the old one, as can be seen in the above photo (the tear is from removing it from the panel), and replaced it with the new one. No problems...

 

 

Clare

 

 

 

 

[catopower]

The next section is very simple and straight forward and involves finishing the roof panels and gluing them onto the roof framework structure.

 

This involves the most cutting of strip woods since planking the deck. All the pieces are 1.5mm x 2mm and 15 pieces are glued across the roof planking. Nothing special to know here except that one of the plans sheets shows this in full scale, so I simply used this to mark the locations of each strip. 

 

 

With the shorts strips in place, 3 long strips follow the seams of the roof planks. The final result looks something like this...

 

 

 

The Japanese text here is really simple and simply says:

 

 

26 Assembly of Roof Panels 2

 

• Please glue evenly using the plans.

 

• Roof installation

 

and a label showing... Installation of a building strip #44

 

There are some pieces shown in the instructions to install at this stage, but I'm still considering ways to be able to only temporarily mount the roof panels so I can access inside for lighting.

 

Now, because I have more need to add this model to a display than I do to light it up, I'm going to put off lighting until after the rest of the construction is done. I can then display the models and after I take the display back down, that will give me time for the lighting details. 

 

I have, in the meantime, drilled out holes in the corner posts of the deck house to allow for wiring. I've also added holes and brass pins to allow me to fit the whole roof structure on and be able to remove it as needed. Finally, I dug out channels under the ends of the roof framework to allow me to continue the hidden run of wires to the underside of the roof.

 

 

 

 

The next step in the instructions is to add the hanging lanterns to the edge of the roof. I painted the lanterns already, they are just resin moldings, so no LEDs there, but will not add them until I have a method worked out for making the roof panels removable. 

 

This means that the next step for my model is to add the photo etched copper pieces which will line the hull of the boat.

 

 

Clare

[catopower]

Kit Instructions:

 

27 Installing Lanterns

 

• Use instant clear adhesive to attach the copper wire.

 

Drill a hole 0.8mm to 1mm diameter.

Insert wire, leaving 4mm length of wire sticking out.

 

Lantern ends paint black

Lantern body paint red 

 

Attach 5 lanterns on each side.

(Use clear instant wood glue)

 

 

28 Stem Color

 

Paint black above the upper etched line.

 

 

I skipped the installation of the lanterns in step 27 for now, but I did paint them and added the mounting wire. The lanterns are resin and I cleaned them up as well as I could and painted them using water-based acrylics.

 

 

 

Then, because I've altered the paint scheme on the model, step 28 didn't really apply any more. 

 

As it is, the model now looks like this:

 

Sorry, it's a little bit blurry. Note too that I started adding the etched copper pieces from Step 29, which I'll get into next time. I sprayed the etched copper sheet with Rustoleum satin black and bent the copper caps to shape. After bending, the paint layer broke at some of the seams, to I resprayed the caps afterwards. These cover the ends of the beams as you can see in the photo.

 

The next step is probably the one step that requires the most patience in this whole build. It involves laying down rows of copper pieces, evenly spaced and in straight lines.

 

I'll get into some of the details later, but for now, here's a shot of how that looks:

 

 

The original kit design calls for shiny copper parts, looking more like this, if you recall:

 

 

 

Clare

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BRiddoch]

Good detailing with the black coppering. I like the contrast.

 

Bob R.

[catopower]

Thanks Bob. I think this is working out pretty well. The model is supposed to have a row of plates at the base of the upper plank as well as the lower plank. But, since I've painted the lower plank black, I'm not sure that it's necessary to add the plates there. Real plates were actually inserted into recesses, and I know that on many boats, the lower recesses were often filled with putty instead. I presume that would then be painted over after the puttying.

 

The trick after all this is done is that there were often plates, or maybe they were just painted areas, on the deck house too. Not quite sure how I'll deal with that yet.

 

But, in the meantime, I was able to finish off the row of plates on one side of the boat. Turns out that a section of text I was having trouble translating was telling me to do pretty much the following:

 

 

Laying out a strip of masking tape with sticky side facing up, in my case I chose blue painter's tape, I taped the tape down to a flat surface and placed one of the copper plates on the sticky face, right at the edge. Then, using the plans as a guide, I laid down copper plates with 7mm spacing in between.

 

I trusted my skill with 5 minute epoxy since it's viscous enough for me to control and to keep a very thin layer, so I started with a needle, putting just a touch onto each plate, then going back and spreading across the plate with the side of the needle, regularly wiping off excess from the needle. I then peeled the tape up and laid the tape, sticky side down, along the edge of the plank, so that the plates were held in place in proper position until the glue set.

 

I think the Woody Joe instructions suggest applying instant adhesive one plate at a time and then rolling the tape down so that it holds the glued plate into place, then applying to the next plate, and so on.

 

This actually didn't take all that long. I carefully peeled up the tape after the glue had set, but while I could still push the plate slightly with my thumb nail to straighten and make final adjustment.

 

 

 

With this one side complete, I feel like I'm nearing the final stretch on this model!

 

 

Clare

 

Edit: Forgot to add this shot of how I was using the tape method at the bow...

Edited October 3, 2015 by catopower

[Jparsley]

clare  i generaly am not into asian ships  but yours i just beautiful   great job on it   thank you for sharing this build and the techniques  

[catopower]

Hi Jeff, thanks for the nice comments. You know, I wasn't into Asian ships or watercraft either until about 2 years ago when I found Woody Joe's Higaki Kaisen kit and some articles about the ships. Now, I can't stop!

 

The next Japanese watercraft I do will either be an attempt to scratchbuild a small Japanese boat, while learning how the actual boats were constructed, or I'm going to build another ship like the Higaki Kaisen, but one that is a larger scale. 

 

Clare

[druxey]

Clever technique with copper plates and tape! Looking lovely.

[Jparsley]

Hey Clare good to hear can't wait to see your next build Can you post a picture of your first build Would love to see what the ship you were talking about looks like

[catopower]

Hi Druxey, I thought it would be a lot more difficult and time consuming than it's turned out. It's a good thing I was dwelling on the one translation in the instructions. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have done things a much harder way!

 

Jeff, here's the Higaki Kaisen I was referring to along with the other Woody Joe kits I've built since...

 

Higaki Kaisen

 

 

Hacchoro - Fishing Boat

 

 

Hobikisen - Fishing Boat mini-kit

 

 

Yakatabune - mini-kit

 

 

Clare

 

P.S. Make sure to check out Bob Riddoch's Higaki Kaisen build here: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/7020-higaki-kaisen-bob-riddoch-woody-joe-172-scale/#entry206798

Edited October 4, 2015 by catopower

[Jparsley]

Those are all very lovely I can see why the fascination with Asian ships You've done a great job

[mtaylor]

Beautiful, Clare. 

[Canute]

Clare, they all look good. Nice work!