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

[Jeff59]

[yvesvidal]

Wow, you have been quite active !!! Maybe you should start another Build Log for your Arizona.

 

Very impressive kit and all these metal parts make it very precious and beautiful.

 

Yves

[Jeff59]

Thanks Yves, I’ll stick with Mikasa, that’s the goal, to finish a model, this goes to my eldest son Gordon, the next one goes to youngest son Rory, his is 1/200 Bismarck, last but not least Titanic 1/200 for eldest, my lovely daughter Charlotte. So my slipways are fully booked for the next few weeks. 😂  there’s about another 800 up the attic so I quest I’m not going to manage them all. 👀 not unless it goes like the film cacoon.

[yvesvidal]

35 minutes ago, Jeff59 said:

 So my slipways are fully booked for the next few weeks. 😂 

 

Few weeks or few months ....? 

 

You are gifting your children with wonderful masterpieces. I hope they will treasure them and care for them as you did during their construction.

 

WE (the People of this Forum) need a TITANIC build Log. Please.....

 

Yves

Edited September 9, 2021 by yvesvidal

[Landlubber Mike]

Really nice work Jeff.  Your PE work is outstanding.

[Jeff59]

Thanks Yves, think they’ll look at them when I’m gone and think of me, as I do with my mums paintings. Not a bad thing. The Titanic build will have to come after the Bismarck build unfortunately, but I will enjoy both, so there is an incentive to get on with the Mikasa. Wish they would expand on PONTOS set to upgrade some details for the 1902 version. Otherwise going to buy more of 1905 set to complete mine, dam expensive, wonder how I’ll run this past the wife. 😂 

[Jeff59]

Hello again guys, hope everyone is well and happy, it’s time for an update on progression of Mikasa. I have been adding photo etch and brass fittings to starboard side hull and have now more or less completed this side, have to say this is quite a busy hull. Only when you compare it with the port side do you realise just how much detail you are adding.  It’s pretty much the same procedure all the way along the hull. Glad l made the frame for supporting the hull on its side, works well, although I did knock a small piece of through my own fault due to not having a tidy workstation, and immediately said this is rubbish I need lots of room to manoeuvre this to give me a chance , so hit table with a tidy bomb. 😂 what a difference that made. 👍 Only when I got towards the stern had a few changes to break up the monotony, small boom at waterline and stern walk, stern walk was quite hairy when it came to installing, only fitting the lower half, mental fitting this, not easy. Well all I can say is better lucky as gid. 😂 somehow managed to get it to come in tight to the hull and at the right height. 🤪 The handrail part of stern walk is just sitting in position just now, I want to paint this separately having an mahogany painted top rail. Also progressed with the forward deck, Fitted the breakwater to barbet, Note this is possibly not correct in the kit itself, to low down compared to the same part on stern, so decided to cut it of, moved it up about 2mm. Think this is better now, so watch for that one if you’re following in my footsteps. Masked up and painted, first time used air brush since painting funnels. No mishaps. 👍 Also stained wooden deck and glued in position, like the wet method, using white glue. Only grumble I forgot to scrape small part of plastic at bottom of barbet that allows the deck to sit tight down, forgot I did this with the after deck, a well such is life. Shall put some photos on now . Take care everyone, shall continue with port side and forward deck details.

[yvesvidal]

Superb.

 

Yves

[mikegr]

Museum quality

[Jeff59]

Hello again, it’s that time of life again to show some progress with Mikasa, but as usual it’s not a lot. Starting with fitting the handrail to the stern-walk, this is a very delicate piece of etch so you need to be careful when handling it, requires you to shape the rail to match the joining grove in perforated plate as close as you can, the better you get this before gluing the less stressful it’s going to be fitting it. I started with the stanchion in middle at the stern, applying a very small amount of glue by using my fine tweezers then using a second set without glue on them to pressure the rail into the joining groove, care and patience should see you through safely, repeat this process with the top rail. 👍 won’t actually glue this part to model at this point, have some small details to add first.

[yvesvidal]

Truly museum quality and a display of what PE can bring to a model, in the 21st century.

 

Yves

[Jeff59]

I decided to fit the ships nameplate at this stage and paint this assembly separately, so far so good, then decided to scrape the paint from the Japanese lettering with my new found skill of scraping paint off 😂 worked a treat 👍 lol, the nameplate was upside down 🙄 must have been the amount of times it fell off when I was trying to position it on the rail to glue it never noticed , too excited at getting it in position, the wee man that looks like he’s skiing should be on the left. Deary me said Jeff, that’s a lie by the way😂. Have found a great talent at fixing things these days, managed to ease the nameplate off with blade and re-glue. Lucky white heather.

[Jeff59]

Shall try and do another post tomorrow, thanks for your patience, 🤛

[Jeff59]

The bottom photo is it upside down. 👍

[mikegr]

very nice work and very clean pics

[baskerbosse]

Looks excellent!

The top one is right side up, but written old style right to left. Confused me at first too. Looks at first glance like it says 'Sakami'. 🙂

The bottom picture is upside down.

Great work!
Peter

Edited November 15, 2021 by baskerbosse

[Jeff59]

The bottom photo is it upside down. 👍

[Jeff59]

Hello again, thanks for the nice comments, very encouraging 👍 This is the forward deck we’re I left the last post I think. Decided to try fitting pipes for anchor hawse pipes, don’t know if that’s how you spell it, but you know what I mean, this means lifting the gratings and reaming out the plastic to suitable contour using dremel with a small bit, have to be gentle as this chews the plastic out very easily, so slow and sure. 👍 then cut some suitable plastic styrene pipe at required angles and lengths, this might take a few shots to get right, or at least good enough. This stops you seeing right through the hull at these points and helps when it comes, to introducing the anchor chains. Is it worth the bother? well that’s up to the individual. Glued these pipes into position using styrene tube glue. Remember building all my Airfix models this way from a very early age. 😂 Just make sure everything is lining up to your satisfaction. 🤛

[Jeff59]

Well there are quite a few deck details to wade through on the forward deck, always more than you think. Have noticed for a while that there’s a lack of guidance as how to run the anchor chains, either with kit Pontos set or even at the ship museum, so have came up with my own solution, doesn’t mean it’s right, but my best guess. Mainly the spare ? anchor if that’s what it is, not sure , but there are only two capstans. 

[Jeff59]

On the etch anchor plate that has both chains on it you will see a tiny piece of small etch at bottom left hand side, it dawned on me that this is the same size as the cleat and shackle point for securing the anchor chain further forward, so I think Pontos might have looked at this but didn’t want to commit ? They did supply four of these cleats, think I shall fit the fourth one at the top left of this plate. I see this working as both chain could be man handled over the capstone, it also means the chains all pass into chain lockers from the rear, stops them taking green water. That was a bit long winded but hopefully you can see we’re lm coming from. 👍

[Jeff59]

One downside is there are no holes in this etch that lets you feed the anchor chains down into the chain locker rooms so had to make my own, again best guess, oh for a decent detail book on the Mikasa, how much easier would this build be.

[Jeff59]

Drilled these hole out, gradually increasing the size till the anchor chains would pass through comfortably, angled forward at about thirty degrees, also making sure the plastic parts are also going to accept the chains.

[Jeff59]

Shall try and do another post tomorrow guys. Take care. 🤛

[king derelict]

The detail is spectacular and the PE is so clean and well done. Excellent work

Alan

[mikegr]

indeed. The detail level would compare to a lower scale lets say 1/100

[Jeff59]

Back again for final post, thanks for the kind remarks, always good for The spirits, here’s a photo of ships anchor  to show the details that I have tried to copy, well as good as I can with a knife and some styrene. 

[Jeff59]

Can kind of work out how they lift and secure the anchors from this photo, does look like a lot of work for quite a few sailors to drop and way anchor, no wonder they changed to just pulling them up into the hawse-ways when you see all the space and manpower needed to store them on sides of ship. 

[Jeff59]

Looking at the actual anchor it took a while to pick away at it to get to were I was happy, hope you think it was worth it because I still have two to do.

[Jeff59]

Did start by carefully cutting of plastic shackle that looked way oversized, thought  I could alter this, but then came up with a better solution, used a bit fuse wire to form up new shackle, and managed to flatten end with pressure using flat pliers for working with etch, and luck has it passes through the anchor chain 🤪 A lot of scraping away at plastic and continually looking at the shape of real anchor payed off , also drilled through the head and inserted a piece of styrene rod, but didn’t go as far as putting a nut on it, got to draw the line somewhere. 😂 also noticed how the anchor seems to be lifted into heavy bracket and bolted in, then secured by chains up to the deck using some sort of mechanism using levers, incidentally on looking at aft anchors, seems they used similar mechanics, so had my best guess at this as well.

[Jeff59]

Also had to break of the gun hatches at bow and re-set them to accommodate the anchor chains, found a fine piece of wire helps here, must have worked like this anyway. Finally the small davit arm on forward deck next to locker was made from brass wire styrene tube and parts of etch cut from the flat etch davit arms for boats which I didn’t fancy using. Also cut the first deck handrail to try as template for positioning forward resin cleats, this was an eye opener as to how delicate these actually are, broke it during the folding process, just as well I need another set. Don’t have the necessary jib and hooks for forward mast, don’t see PONTOS doing an additional set for this, that’s a shame, there are so many additional parts required, ha ho. At least I can paint the handrail dark grey to see if that works for me. 👍 Shall put some final photos up. So if I don’t advance enough for another post before Xmas and New Year you all have the best time possibly. Again thanks for the experience of doing this, have really enjoyed it so far.  All the best Jeff. 🤛