Tosa "Wasen" by catopower - FINISHED - Thermal Studio - 1/10 scale - SMALL - Traditional Japanese Fishing Boat

[markjay]

Hi Clare,
The Hacchoro, to my surprise, showed up early. Ordered on 12/11 was told that it may be mid-January delivery, it was delivered 12/26. It just sailed through customs.
I've gone through the kit, very nice system of coordinating plans and parts, everything looks to be in fine order. Really nice to have this one on the shelf.
Mark

Edited December 29, 2015 by markjay

[Etcher]

Yes I'd like to know how to get hold of these kits too. Your build is a very good advertisement for them!

[catopower]

Hi Peter, Darren,

 

I'm working on it. Before you try to buy one, make sure to read through this topic and also this: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/12018-110-scale-japanese-fishing-boat-kit-from-thermal-studios/

 

After about a year of searching and thinking this was a discontinued kit, I had to buy mine on Amazon.co.jp here: http://www.amazon.co.jp/サーマル工房-木製模型-土佐和船-二十尺チヌ釣舟/dp/B0070HU3KI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451347724&sr=8-1&keywords=土佐和船 This required using a third party to handle the international shipping.

 

The manufacturer's site is http://www.thermal-kobo.jp. It doesn't have a web shop and the kit is not even shown as one of their products. I'm trying to find out if they are willing to sell regularly to international customers. The Amazon.co.jp shop sells one-at-a-time (inventory = 1), and Zootoyz.jp has been unable to get information about carrying the kit.

 

I'll post more about purchasing direct as soon as I get more info.

 

 

Clare

[catopower]

Hi Mark,

 

Glad to hear about the arrival of the Hacchoro. I'm sure you're going to really like building that kit! Looks great on the shelf too with the sails and all the oars.

 

Clare

[S.Coleman]

Ahhhh I love the clean cut wood in these kits. Doing a brilliant job. They look a dream to put together.

[Jim Lad]

Very elegant.

 

John

[catopower]

Thanks very much John and S.Coleman!

 

 

 

Buying the Tosa Wasen Kit

 

Okay, so here it is... I have some information for those looking to buy the kit. First, there's the hard way and more expensive way, which is through Amazon-Japan, as I described and where I got mine. The second is direct from the manufacturer for a very good price. To buy from the manufacturer,  send an email to the company: info@thermal-kobo.jp.

 

Price for the kit is 13,000 Yen

Shipping is via EMS (A Chinese Express Mail Service that ends with a USPS delivery) for 2,400 Yen

Payment has to be via Paypal, sending to the email address above.

 

This is a really good price. Makes the whole thing with express shipping only about $130. I went ahead and ordered a second kit.

 

The only thing that I'm not so sure about is that the kit is shipped in its own box, but wrapped with a bubblewrap bag. It's a long box, so it seems like it would be easy to bend in half. But, I received the first kit this way and it was delivered just fine. Then again, I generally have good experiences with the US Postal Service here.

 

Clare

[BRiddoch]

I'm going to order one next week Clare.

 

Bob R.

[catopower]

Hi Bob,

 

That's great news. Of course, judging from your Higaki Kaisen model, you're final model will probably look better than mine.

 

Anyway, I'm hoping they get a lot of international sales for this kit now.

 

Clare

[catopower]

Happy New Year All!

 

Well, I have made a little more progress on the Tosa Wasen, but I'll post that later. 

 

For now, I'm taking a moment to mention that if you're in San Francisco, my wasen model display in Japantown has been extended through January. It's in the Japan Center's East Mall building, in the window of Union Bank's community room. The next one I imagine will be in late Spring perhaps. It all depends on what others have scheduled for the display window. But, rest assured the next one will include the Tosa Wasen.

 

 

 

Also, with the start of the new year, I thought I'd take a moment to plug Douglas Brooks' book, Traditional Japanese Boatbuilding. This won't tell you step-by-step how to build a Japanese boat, but it will give you all the background about traditional Japanese boatbuilding, materials and tools used, and you can see some of the techniques used and read about Mr. Brooks' five apprenticeships with some of the rapidly disappearing master boat builders of Japan.

 

 

I recommend ordering the book direct from the author's website as all profits go to helping support research instead of supporting the resellers (not that there's anything wrong with resellers). Here the link: douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com

 

 

Clare

[catopower]

The next step in construction of the Tosa Wasen kit is to add the deck boards. This part of the build turned out to be a lot tricker than I'd expected. This is an area where you really want to take your time, and it's easy to want to rush through it.

 

The deck boards serve as a deck to walk (or sit) on and work on, but they are also designed to be removable, allowing the fisherman access to storage space under the deck. This allows the deck to be kept clear and free of clutter, making for a tidy looking boat.

 

 

Beam supports glued into place. The beams are sanded to fit, but I left them unglued, so they'll remain removable.

Ledges are then cut to length and glued to the beams for the deck boards to rest upon.

 

 

The deck boards themselves are rather interesting in that they are made such that almost no two are alike. Each one can only fit in one location, with the possible exception of the boards that cover the live wells in the center of the boat. But, given that there are many boards, it would seem to be something of a puzzle trying to figure out which one fits where. To make the positioning more obvious, there are two lines scribed into the top of the boards.

 

 

 

The lines form a sort of an arrowhead with the point at the front of the forward most board, and each compartment has a 3 or more deck boards covering it, with its own arrowhead pattern scribed on it. This makes for a quick recognition of the order of the deck boards and also makes it easier to keep from mixing them up. Note that at least one deck board of each set has a square notch cut into one edge that serves as a finger hole to make it easier to pull up the board.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kit supplies the deck boards as laser-cut pieces, which look they'd make it easy to put them into place. However, in order to allow some variation between models, these parts are cut over-sized, so they have to be sanded to fit. This turned out to be a far trickier than I'd expected, as the Japanese cedar is pretty soft, and really wanted to avoid small gaps between boards. In fact, I used every scrap piece of cedar that I could find in the kit in order to finish the deck boards.

 

 

If you're building this kit, Proceed Very Carefully here

 

 

The next step was to scribe the patterns into the deck boards. I found it easiest to take each group of deck boards which are part of the same pattern set and marking the endpoints on the first and last board, then scribing them all together as a group. I lined them up against a straight edge to keep them in alignment.

 

This was pretty much the last of the difficult work. There is one more step that was a little tricky, but in a completely different way, and that was the next step. For those following along with the kit instructions, this is step 33. This involves the construction of the covers for the cargo compartments in the bow and the stern of the boat. If you haven't built the model kit yet, I would suggest doing this work in steps 17 and 18 before the compartments are decked over. It would just be a lot easier.

 

 

 

 

I'm not positive why the kit has you build the compartment covers now instead of earlier in the build. Possibly, it's because the real boat would probably be built in the order shown in the kit. That would be okay, except that trying to reach in with your finger and thumb to get the covers into place without knocking parts into the compartments is pretty difficult.

 

The kit includes a small pair of wooden tweezers that you're instructed to build for handling those compartment doors. In the long run, these will be necessary in order to be able to remove or replace these doors without damaging the wood.

 

 

Clare

Edited January 4, 2016 by catopower

[catopower]

While I'm at, I thought I'd go ahead and post some pictures of some of the accessories included in the kit.

 

These include a bailer, a small paddle, and a pair of wooden seats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were a fun and easy part of the build and add some life to the model. In earlier pics, to get them out of the way, I just put them into the compartments under the deck.

 

 

Getting close to the finish now. Should be done in the next one or two posts...

 

 

Clare

[cwboland]

Coming along nicely Clare. Really well done

[BRiddoch]

Thanks for making my future build easier.

 

Bob R.

[catopower]

Here it is, the final entry on the Tosa Wasen build.

 

I took a little time figuring out the knots used for the anchor, which had a Japanese name. Also, I wanted the model to represent an Edo period boat, though I couldn't find any information of the exact age of this design. In fact, this small fishing boats of the Tosa region were built to the needs of the individual and there were many boat builders, so there were probably many variations.

 

But, the model is done and I'll figure out how I want to display it next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, with the Ro in place (the long sculling oar), the model is quite long. With it in the stowed position, it's 2' long. With no masts, it will fit easily on a bookcase shelf, unlike most of my other models.

 

This has been a really interesting build and great kit for those who don't want to go as far as using Douglas Brooks' drawings and the information in his book to try to scratch building a traditional Japanese boat. I think this is about as close as you're ever going to get in a kit. Still, I'd recommend reading his book while building this kit, to really get the fullest experience. 

 

I plan on bringing this to the NRG Conference in San Diego this Fall. So, hopefully, ship modelers who don't get around to trying out this kit can see it in person. But, if you're interested in building this kit, don't wait. Here again is the contact info for buying the kit from the manufacturer who seems very happy to sell to faraway customers, payment via Paypal.

 

Email Mr. Tanimura at: Thermal-Studio

Website: Thermal-Studio (remember the boat kit is not listed – They manufacture glider kits)

 

If you contact Tanimura-san, please say hello for me. 

 

Also, be sure to check out Mr. Toshihiko Shibafuji, who assisted with the design of the kit:

http://wave.ap.teacup.com/wasennfunadaiku/

 

Hope to see some more of these in build logs here on MSW soon. (Yeah, I'm thinking about you, Bob)

 

 

Clare

[markjay]

Clare, looks great beautiful lines for a small craft.

[Jim Lad]

Crikey!  I go away to a conference for a few days and this little masterpiece is finished.  Excellent job, mate!

 

John

[druxey]

Just catching up with your work, Clare. What delightful vessel! I'm sure other builders will appreciate your comments and helpful tips. Well done!

[RichardG]

Very good.

 

I like the look when Ro is stowed, otherwise it looks out of proportion (and it's a lot less likely to get broken).

 

This just makes me want to make another Japanese model (for me this time instead of my daughter!). However with 2 full and 2 partial builds in the queue I really must wait.

 

Please keep building these - I can a least get the pleasure second-hand .

 

Ok, now I've scrolled up the page and looked at the picture again. It's so clean, so elegant, so Japanese.

 

All the best,

Richard.

[Piet]

Magnificent build, a jewel.

 

Cheers,

[catopower]

Thanks again all for the nice comments. Sorry, it's taken me so long to come back here. Once I got the model off the workbench and onto the shelf, I got preoccupied by the next piece of business. For one, I just wrote up a piece for the Nautical Research Journal. Hopefully, it will make more people aware of this wonderful kit.

 

In the meantime, I know of two others who will be building the Tosa Wasen kit and I hope to see a build log from one of them soon! mwb??

 

 

For the record, I'm tinkering with the construction of a 1/10-scale Japanese traditional boat workshop display. It's really just the framework of the shop with much omitted for visibility. I'm not sure how interesting it will end up. I'm still tinkering with ideas. If you don't know anything about how these boats are/were built, you should visit Douglas Brooks' blog and/or buy his book: http://www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com. To get to his blog directly, visit http://blog.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com.

 

He was just in Japan for a couple month building a rice field boat for a museum up on the Noto peninsula and another boat, from Northern Japan I believe it was, for a museum in down in Kobe.

 

 

The boat I'm going to piece together for the boat workshop is an Urayasu Bekabune, a small fishing boat used on Tokyo bay. You can find more info about the boat on Brooks' website. The one for the boat workshop display will be only partially built, since the idea is for an "under construction" scene. But, I'll complete another one, since at some point in the project, I'll know how. And, it's a very simple type of boat – much simpler than the Tosa Wasen.

 

Clare

[catopower]

I've been playing around with making slide show videos on Youtube and the Tosa wasen kit is officially my second video. 

 

If you want to see about 5 or 6 weeks of work compressed into a 3-1/2 minute video, with music, please check it out:

 

https://youtu.be/1M1qmJFEMOo