HIJMS MIKASA 1902 by Jeff59 - FINISHED - HobbyBoss - 1/200 - PLASTIC

[Jeff59]

Hello again guys, hope everyone is keeping well and being more productive than myself, on my last post I said it would be a while before I got back to the model again due to other commitments, think about six or seven weeks past before picking up were I was but have been working on her steady up till now and at last can show some progress 👍 Think I’ll show how  the individual parts were constructed then show photos of them all fitted at end, hopefully you’ll see some progress. 🫰First thing I’ll start with are the remaining search lights, these are parts I have purchased from Micro Master and tinkered with to resemble roughly what they might have looked like, as we are all aware she’s a hard ship to pin down for details, so it’s down to photos and best guess for anything we make, unless we want to live in archive files for ever, me, I want to see it completed, anyway the parts purchased are British searchlights probably from 1916 to 1940s period. Shall do a post tomorrow when my helper is awake and sort this first bit out, bedtime now. 🤛

Edited December 17, 2023 by Jeff59

[Jeff59]

Hi guys, got help from boss to start getting photos on board so I can sort things into some sort of order, so bare with me please, this isn’t my forty 🙄  I felt the Pontus searchlight etch and resin parts didn’t quite work for me, so I ended up trimming the Micro Master  part and altering the Pontos etch to fit on it. After removing some parts of the Micro Master searchlight to be left with basic shape  I started to make the etch work for me, some parts required nicking a tiny piece out to reduce circumference to suit.

[Jeff59]

The last photo shows them complete, I sprayed them with light gull grey, then painted the inside lens area black, once dry I applied Micro Kristal Klear, gradually filling it out till flush, they are still drying out at this point, also original kit part sitting here, so the size is in the ball park. Next part to get built was another five 3 pounder hotchkiss guns same as previous fab, also scratch built two Semaphore masts one for each bridge wing, port and starboard, just used small brass tubing here and small pieces of etch, scaled it from photos of ship with dividers on photo, kind of worked 👍 Next quest was finishing of ships boats on boat deck, had been waiting on 0.3 soft solder coming from China to complete the oars, now have plenty. One issue I had was Micro Master don’t do the 25ft boats needed or the 37ft open steam boat so l was stuck with the kit boats, joy 🙄 the best option for me was use canvas covers for 25 footers, no way on earth l was getting the open boats to compete with those Micro Master ones 😂 l remove all the plastic simulated tie ropes and the over heavy keel and stem post, replacing the latter with finer styrene stock, then painted the hulls and canvas covers. Before gluing these together l fitted fine thread for tie down ropes like l did on my first boat a good while back.  The open steam pinace was a different thing all together, this took me three weeks to complete, shall post some photos tomorrow of boats and make a start going through the build on the steam boat. That’s me for now guys 🤛

[Jeff59]

Thought I had taken more photos of the small boat work, can’t seem to find them, only one photo of upturned boat with over heavy rope and keel in the process of being removed, once removed, the keel and stem posts were replaced with styrene stock that l thought more to scale, also contoured the hull a little bit, just scraping and sanding till l was happy. Used fine thread for ropes holding down canvas covers, then glued parts together then fitted Pontos etch rudder which l trimmed and filed to shape.

[Jeff59]

Shall put some photos up of the Open Steam Launch and it’s boiler, engine layout that l think is the boat require, well it goes up to 36ft and the layout looks right 👍

[Jeff59]

As you can see it’s a rather lovely little steam launch with plenty curves, now you can understand why l wanted Micro Master to make it 👀 but alas the answer was no, said they don’t do Japanese boats. Guessing they don’t realise the MIKASA is actually a British built Battleship supplied to the Japanese under contract, fact is there are lots of these Battleships look very similar at this period in time, was like a production line rolling these ships out, shall put another photo up showing HMS Prince Of Wales built 1903 this photo was her in 1908, you can see the similarities, this photo also swayed me into how I’d paint this small boat.

[Jeff59]

Can see the hulls are basically same grey as the ships themselves with some crafts painted out in dark blue or black. Next photos are of the shapeless kit boat which matched the shapeless fifty foot Steam Pinnaces.

Edited February 10 by Jeff59

[Jeff59]

At this stage I’m wondering if l can make this look better 😢 next post will show me cutting it to pieces 😂

[Jeff59]

Most of the work on this is guesswork and artistic licence, started by marking the hull with a black marker pen so I could get an eye on the shape I was getting, then slowly cut this away, right away I could see results starting to happen, also used sanding sticks and my trusty knife to contour the hull, almost sanding through the lower hull on bow, you can gauge how close you are to going too far by holding it in front of your light to see how thin the plastic is getting, just take it slow like Tina Turner - slow and easy 😂Still was  too  square at transom end, best I could do was drill a line of holes down port and starboard sides at rear transom just inside thickness of hull plastic, drill about 2 to 3 mm down each side with 0.3 drill then clean out the fine slot, the gap left was then gently squeezed together in vice then glued. Once dry again attacked with sanding sticks and knife, the whole purpose was to try and get a nicer shape to the stern, you just have to keep looking at it and keep trying🤛Won’t keep going on, or I will end up with a book and publishing rights 😂 The hull is the important bit though, this is where all the shape kicks in.👍 The rest is straightforward insanity, looking at the actual boat I counted out 18 ribs inside the hull, simulated these by using original handrail etch from my Trumpeter 1/200 Arizona cutting ribs out of top rail, see, nothing goes to waste😂The funnel I made from brass tube, drilling out the top 2 to 3 mm to thin it out so I could try to flare the end out, partially successful here, didn’t think that tapered funnel from the kit or Pontos looked right, the one on the real boat and illustration of engine proves I was right to question tapered funnel. The rest of the boat was scratch built from anything at hand, so will put some photos up in sort of order, bear in mind this took me 3 weeks, the end result turned out better than I hoped for, doesn’t look too bad against the Micromaster boats, happy chappy.  😄

[Jeff59]

Thought I had taken more photos of the small boat work, can’t seem to find them, only one photo of upturned boat with over heavy rope and keel in the process of being removed, once removed, the keel and stem posts were replaced with styrene stock that l thought more to scale, also contoured the hull a little bit, just scraping and sanding till l was happy. Used fine thread for ropes holding down canvas covers, then glued parts together then fitted Pontos etch rudder which l trimmed and filed to shape.

[Jeff59]

See if l can sort some more photos out guys, feel like a bull in a China shop. 🙄

[Jeff59]

Hello again guys, shall try and show work done on davit arms and 12 pounder guns next. 

Edited February 10 by Jeff59

[Jeff59]

Decided to make the Davit from brass tubing so as to make it slightly lighter or finer in appearance, so the wire was pulled around a piece of welding equipment that lent it’s self to the cause, then just fine tune the result with forming pliers till it matched the plastic part curve then trimmed it to size, 0.3 wire was used for fixing it to the original plastic part that attaches to the ship, also used 0.3 to plug the top. The photo etch was then added to the brass wire. Wasn’t going to use the flat Davit arm replacement for the aft deck boats, liked the details but not the flat appearance, so l decided l was going to cut the bits l wanted from these details and fit to whatever l end up making. Also notice that the davit arms for the open steam launch are slightly larger than the other ones on boat deck, works out about 5mm longer, photos of ship back this up. 👍 worked the small handling davit at double side door the same way, making them from tube to make them slightly lighter 👍 As l said, the ones on the aft deck got same treatment, made them finer again and from brass tube, adding all the salvaged details to this, work in progress.🤛

Edited February 10 by Jeff59

[Jeff59]

Working on the remaining 12 pounder guns for boat decks and bridge super structures, eight in total, the four on the boat deck l used the metal etch gun shields from my second set here the remaining four l made the gun shields from paper, seemed to work quite well 👍 won’t dwell on this to much we have all seen these guns built now so shall just show photos of production 👍

Edited December 20, 2023 by Jeff59

[Jeff59]

Thought I had taken more photos of the small boat work, can’t seem to find them, only one photo of upturned boat with over heavy rope and keel in the process of being removed, once removed, the keel and stem posts were replaced with styrene stock that l thought more to scale, also contoured the hull a little bit, just scraping and sanding till l was happy. Used fine thread for ropes holding down canvas covers, then glued parts together then fitted Pontos etch rudder which l trimmed and filed to shape. Don’t know why this bit keeps reappearing, driving me nuts.

[Jeff59]

That’s me up to speed now, bit of a mish mash, sorry for that. Shall try taking some photos of it all together and post tomorrow. 🤛

Edited December 21, 2023 by Jeff59

[Jeff59]

At last, won’t do that again, to much to try and post at once, l was just trying to show that things had progressed, keep my posts shorter and more frequent from now on. 👍 Took some photos today, hopefully you can see a difference in her. The next part of build shall be finishing the details on aft deck area, that’ll be next year so you all have a great Xmas and an even better New Year. All the best. Regards Jeff. 🔔🍻🌨️

[yvesvidal]

16 hours ago, Jeff59 said:

 

incredible work on the davits. What a difference !!!!

 

Yves

[Tim Moore]

Your Mikasa is looking incredible Jeff, really well done! Nice work on the boats.

[Jeff59]

On 12/21/2023 at 3:08 PM, yvesvidal said:

 

incredible work on the davits. What a difference !!!!

 

Yves

Thanks Yves, kind as always 🤛 it wasn’t actually to difficult, just patience and time, the kit plastic davits just a tad to heavy and the Pontos etch davits just looked to spindly and slightly to big on size taking the boats to far inboard, so best option was to steal the details from these and add them to brass tubing, feel I could have went slightly thinner on the three sets remaining on boat deck which are the same diameter tube as the bigger ones used on open Steam Launch, the diameter I’m using on the after deck would have been better here and reduced the diameter again for the aft deck davits if you get my meaning, would make it all lighter and finer, to late now, that’s the way it goes with modelling, quite a few things I would have did differently on the ship, but still happy with how it’s going, can’t believe I’m about there with this now and still sort of enjoying it. Thanks for your encouragement throughout the build. 🤛

[Jeff59]

On 12/22/2023 at 1:31 AM, Tim Moore said:

Your Mikasa is looking incredible Jeff, really well done! Nice work on the boats.

Thanks very much Tim, I was enjoying watching your build then lost track of it, hope you completed it, some lovely bits I would have copied from you. I take my hat of to anyone who builds this model now because I know how difficult and the amount of work involved, not easy at all. 🤛

[Tim Moore]

1 hour ago, Jeff59 said:

Thanks very much Tim, I was enjoying watching your build then lost track of it, hope you completed it, some lovely bits I would have copied from you. I take my hat of to anyone who builds this model now because I know how difficult and the amount of work involved, not easy at all. 🤛

Hi Jeff. We moved across the country late summer and are now living on Vancouver Island. Mikasa unfortunately suffered some damage in the move, which I’m going to have to repair before finishing her off. A week or twos work there for sure. Been really busy doing some new house renovations here which has kept me away from the model studio, but I hope to back at it soon in the new year. Might do something new first before tackling Mikasa again, you are right it’s a pretty intense build especially with the Photo etch add ons.

[Jeff59]

Hello guys, hope you’re New Year was gid and the rest of the year gidder. 🤛 I have been working at a steady snail’s pace and  have progressed incredibly slowly 😂 been progressing with the ship's boats remaining on stern deck, Jacqueline said did it really have all those boats? Yip, sixteen, almost as many as the Titanic. 👀  Did decide to add a small part of deck that I did wrong at the start of build, misunderstanding the instructions and not knowing anything about Mikasa. I removed the main deck here to fit this part, ending up with a flush deck, common sense nobody will trip on this 🙄 photo I found ages later solved it.

[Jeff59]

So I decided to cut this deck again from the second set and fix this small detail. Had to break of the capstan, stain and paint the edge of the wood light grey then set into position with a little bit white glue, then reset the capstan. Cut a couple of small port holes from etch sheet that were for the fifty ft boats, seems ok to me.

[Jeff59]

Was easier to do this before fitting the davits and boats 👍  Have only finished the Starboard side of ship so far, it’s a bit fiddly doing this, made more davits from 0.5od  0.3 I’d cut all the other details from the existing etch to switch it over. Used 0.3 brass wire slid inside davit at the bottom, about 4mm sticking out. Then carefully drilled the existing original plastic lower part of davit that was fitted to hull years ago 0.35 The reason l cut the plastic davit was thought it would just get broken during handling and l wanted to paint all the hull detail in one go. Worked in my favour though, it let me reduce the diameters of all the davits to make them less heavy looking. 👍

[Jeff59]

This all had to be set up by trial and error to get it all working, as you can see necessity is the mother of invention 🤞

[Jeff59]

When l did eventually get what l thought was ok l glued the boat to the boat pulley blocks and then to the supporting frame at side with a small touch of glue, next thing was to lift the whole assembly slightly on the 0.3 pins not yet glued, this let me ease out my plastic packing that was supporting the boat, once this was removed checked how it was looking then glued the davits in place. Easy 😂

[Jeff59]

Shall try another update tomorrow guys, my eyes are starting to come together 😵‍💫 hope everyone is well 🤛

[Jeff59]

Back again, found some early photos of Mikasa being built, so have tried to capture some details from these photos, note the bracing on bridge wings underneath at each side, copied this, maybe my styrene is a shade to heavy but still gives the effect, also the rail around the bridge superstructure looks like mahogany, so l did my best to paint this, easier done before waiting to this stage, that’s my faults, used to be indecisive now l just don’t know 😂 Also spotted a workman relaxing watching everything going on around him, think I’ll open the turret hatch for this and immortalise this guy forever 👍 some photos for you to ponder over.

[Jeff59]

You can make out the strapping tying back the boats in some of these pictures. I asked a member in the model club what l could use for making the straps, l thought some very fine lead foil might work, he said try tin foil and fold it over then cut a strip. Well raided Jacqueline’s kitchen and tried this, the bugger didn’t tell me this was some sort of modelling torture 😡 Can recommend this to anyone, think I’m now a masse-kissed 😂 Don’t know if this is quite correct, not enough info, so l did it in the Frank Sinatra  style, l did it my way, so l hope you’ll not make a song and dance about it. I know, my humour is getting worse 😔

Edited January 22 by Jeff59