IJN Notoro by Landlubber Mike - Pit Road with Five Star set - 1/700 - PLASTIC

[Landlubber Mike]

 

 

A month ago, I started conversing with someone who was building this kit on one of the FB groups, which led me to talking to someone who was researching the Notoro for an upcoming build.  So I decided to start it while some of the discussions were fresh in my mind since there seem to be some minor inconsistencies in the kit and the Five Star set. 

 

This ship launched as an oiler in 1920, was converted into a seaplane tender in 1924, and then reconverted back into an oiler in 1941. This ship, though damaged on multiple occasions, ended up surviving the war and was scrapped in 1947.  I will build the Notoro using the Pit Road kit and Five Star detail set as a seaplane tender from 1929 and I'll probably try to recreate the colorized picture in the picture below. During that time, the Notoro carried up to eight Yokosuka E1Y (Type 14) reconnaissance aircraft.  I  just need to come up with a few more aircraft as the kit only provides two of them.  

Thanks for looking in!

[Landlubber Mike]

Some pictures of the ship over the years:

 

1930:

1931:

1934:

1937:

1938:

 

 

1944 (back as an oiler):

 

The Yokosuka E1Y reconnaissance plane:

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

This project is going to be a little different from the other IJN ships I've build in that there is a combination of wood and linoleum decks, and multiple decks (and canopies) at that.  The other ships I've built I was pretty much able to completely assemble the ship, paint the deck, mask it, and then paint the hull and above deck items in one pass.  This is going to be trickier and will require painting and assembly in stages I think.

 

To start, I glued the hull halves together.  The bottom was very thin, almost to the point of the hull being too flexible for my liking.  So, I ended up gluing a strip of plastic card underneath which made the hull more stable and helpfully raised the ship a little given that I'll put it in water diorama.  I had pre-drilled some holes in the bottom of the kit hull so that when I glued the new bottom onto it, I could flow Tamiya extra thin cement into the holes and help secure the new bottom all along the base of the hull.  Worked pretty well.

 

Next I taped the hull plating lines, in preparation for spraying Mr. Surfacer 500 to help give definition to the plating runs:

Next I worked on the small deck at the bow.  The kit is correct in that the deck, from what I can tell from grainy black and white pictures, was wood.  The Five Star set includes a PE deck that represents a metal deck which is probably incorrect.  Since I am planning on using stick on wood decks to have some consistency throughout the ship, I decided to make my own deck out of plastic card with the cutouts for the winch, anchor chain holes, and pole for the elevated bow platform.  Seemed to work out ok.  I'll add the bollards, vents, etc. after.

 

Thanks for looking in!

[Canute]

I've got one of these buried in my stash. The Five Star PE adds to the interest. I'm in on this one too, Mike.

[Landlubber Mike]

3 hours ago, Canute said:

I've got one of these buried in my stash. The Five Star PE adds to the interest. I'm in on this one too, Mike.

Hey Ken, thanks for following.  The Five Star set is really nice and ups the kit considerably.  Maybe some accuracy questions, but the details are much improved over the kit parts.

[JohnB40]

Hi Mike, Great research,you are becoming quite an expert on the Japanese Imperial Navy. I'm looking forward to following your build log on this ship.,

Regards, John

[Landlubber Mike]

2 hours ago, JohnB40 said:

Hi Mike, Great research,you are becoming quite an expert on the Japanese Imperial Navy. I'm looking forward to following your build log on this ship.,

Regards, John

Thanks John, appreciate you following along.  Should be a fun build!

[Javlin]

You got some burners going don't you Mike?

[Landlubber Mike]

3 hours ago, Javlin said:

You got some burners going don't you Mike?

More like I do a lot of work on a kit, then get burned out or stuck or distracted by another kit.  Keeps me continually building I guess, rather than taking a long break and stepping away from the hobby.