Mikasa by madtatt - Merit International - 1:200 - PLASTIC - pre-Dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) - appearance after 1905

[Jeff59]

On 1/14/2025 at 5:47 PM, madtatt said:

Hello Jeff.
That's very kind of you. Respect that you bought an extra Pontos set for it. I just thought I was crazy enough to work with two sets. Nice to find a like-minded person here.
But I'm afraid that despite everything there wouldn't be enough coal hatches. There are 22 on the main deck and another 14 on the outer deck. So basically you can only have eight hatches. But that's not a bad thing because I still have plan B. There are still hatches from my KA set, but they are much smaller.

 

 

 

And since I followed your build report closely Jeff, I don't use the Pontos guns for the 3 pounders. I also have them as a 3D print from Micro Master.

 

 

And so I can use the bottom flange of the gun. In conjunction with the too small KA component, a formidable coal hatch is created.

 

 

I'm really happy with that. And by the way, I put the deck together loosely. Fits perfectly even before sanding and looks really great.

 

 

On 1/14/2025 at 5:47 PM, madtatt said:

Hello Jeff.
That's very kind of you. Respect that you bought an extra Pontos set for it. I just thought I was crazy enough to work with two sets. Nice to find a like-minded person here.
But I'm afraid that despite everything there wouldn't be enough coal hatches. There are 22 on the main deck and another 14 on the outer deck. So basically you can only have eight hatches. But that's not a bad thing because I still have plan B. There are still hatches from my KA set, but they are much smaller.

 

 

And since I followed your build report closely Jeff, I don't use the Pontos guns for the 3 pounders. I also have them as a 3D print from Micro Master.

 

 

And so I can use the bottom flange of the gun. In conjunction with the too small KA component, a formidable coal hatch is created.

 

 

 

I'm really happy with that. And by the way, I put the deck together loosely. Fits perfectly even before sanding and looks really great.

Looking great Jolle👍 l also used the 3 pounder guns from Micromaster, had them up in gun tubs on masts, found them tricky to remove from their spruces, very delicate. Ended up purchasing extra sets to cover for miss-haps, same for the ships boats, very tricky to remove without damaging the tillers. Can see you are at a point where another discrepancy appears, it’s with the Pontos step ladders from boat deck to bridge structures and the step ladders from the main deck to the boat deck, they are the wrong length or angle, seems to be a height issue error from Pontos, the main deck steps to long and the boat deck steps to short, you can see how l ended up resolving this, it’s also tricky trying to get the handrail around the opening in the boat deck here where the steps are, doesn’t work like the Pontos drawings suggest so take time when bending these, tricky to get good. While you’re at this point of build another thing to watch for if you’re using Micro Master boats, involves their boat cradles, if you can still look at my log, l had to add extra styrene for supporting the cradles, this was also used for tie points for funnel rigging. Worth checking out at this stage. Hope lm not being a pain here. 🤞

 

[Jeff59]

By the way, the deck finish and texture is excellent. 🤛👍

[madtatt]

1 hour ago, Jeff59 said:

Hope lm not being a pain here. 🤞

 

Absolutely not Jeff.

I'm happy about any hint you can give me. I think that the purpose of a forum is to pass on the experiences that have arisen during such a construction.

Edited January 16 by madtatt

[madtatt]

After a long break, I'm finally getting back to work.
Thanks to Jeff's tip, I've been thinking about the deck being too high and how to deal with it. I also created the remaining 12-pounders.
And since it's very monotonous, it took quite a while.

 

 

They stand beautifully in rows.

 

 

And again, Jeff, you're not annoying at all. I'm very grateful for your advice, as it helps me avoid such annoying mistakes. What would be the point of a model building forum if you couldn't build on the experiences of others?
And so I simply shortened the carriage of the eight guns that go below deck.

 

 

Let’s move on to the next conversion. Again, I liked the MK set better than the one from Pontos. Since I will be showing all the gun port covers open, I thought the rope shown was very nice.
What I changed are the hinges. Since they fold down when open, I simply replaced them with a narrow piece of profile.

 

 

This is what it looks like for me. I used a slightly lighter grey to accentuate it.

 

 

And attached to the gun ports.
These are the first external structures. Since it is inevitable that the gun barrels will stick out here, I wanted to have them attached already.

 

 

And so the eight 12 pounders could take their place.

 

 

A few boxes are still missing.

 

 

And so I am quite happy with the position of the guns.

 

 

Now they urgently need the protection of my sheet pile wall. After applying the clear varnish, I will screw it to the dry dock . I am curious to see if I will tear it down again before the construction is finished. 😵‍💫

 

 

[madtatt]

Another litle update.

To protect my model from further harm, I wrapped it up nicely.

 

 

This should protect it pretty well from any carelessness on my part. 🙄

 

[madtatt]

On to the next construction phase.
The plan is to breathe a little life into the deck in the form of a crew. And this is where the next 3D print comes into play. This time I’m using the figures from ION Model, which I won in a competition with my Bismarck.
After an initial inspection, the quality is excellent.
Then I started looking for photos showing IJN sailors in their uniforms, like the following image:

 

 

Wow, much easier to paint than the DKM guys.

I had a few leftover Kriegsmarine sailors and wanted to use them to save on figures. The first ones were supposed to go behind the gun ports, where they’re almost invisible.
So I shaved his head and punched out flat caps from styrene. A small dot of superglue on the top hair, and the Japanese sailor is complete.

 

 

Painted and ready to go on deck.

 

 

To the cannon sailors, ahrrrrg…

 

 

Fire free…

 

 

And so the lid can go on.

 

 

And the deck portside

 

 

Aged and found to be good

 

 

You don’t see much of the figures, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. The hint of the sailors at work below deck adds depth to the whole thing.

 

[Jeff59]

You absolutely nailed it with the height for the 12 pounder guns on boat deck Jolle and the figures are working a treat 🤛  a little pointer as to where l was at at this stage , find the logical way to proceed with ship models is from the centre outwards and upwards so your not working over details that can easily be damaged, think if you have a look at the funnel next along with the etching details for the boat cradles, since your obviously using the Micromaster boats these sit on three cradles per boat and when positioning said boats the cradles don’t tie into the Pontos etch setup so ended up adding extra etch in to catch cradles and at the same time theses extra pieces helped with funnel rigging. Rigging, that’s another challenge to work out, old photos and common sense best way forward with this, you can possibly see the tie points and etch used for this on my build log, did mention this model isn’t as straight forward as you’d like it to be, no books or 3D drawings for this one. Hope this is off help to you. Brilliant job so far 🤛 regards Jeff.

[madtatt]

Hello Jeff.
That's how I always work on boats, always from the inside out. It served me well on the Bismarck, too.
I'll take a slightly different approach to the funnel rigging and use deck eyes on the boat deck. I don't know the technical term in English, but they look like this.

 

 

And by the way, your build report is my standard reference when building my Mikasa.😉

 

Let’s move on to the support structures that connect the boat deck and the internal superstructure.
I soldered these to ensure maximum strength for these delicate T-beams.

 

 

After testing it, everything seems to be fine.

 

 

Only this connection needs to be slightly adjusted. It’s only provided by Pontos; it’s simply missing from the original kit, and it would create a large gap. Therefore, there’s no offset for it in the model, and the length of the component needs to be exactly right to ensure proper attachment.

 

 

New sailors have taken up their duties.

 

 

Get to work with them immediately.

 

 

Spread nicely on the deck.

 

 

Provisions have to go into the belly of the ship and the first sailors have to scrub the deck under the supervision of an officer.

 

 

A sailor climbs the ladder to search for the missing funnel.

 

 

Afterwards, I opened the dry dock again to see how it all looked through the gun ports.
I think it looks very lively.

 

 

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Really nice job Joelle!  Those 12 pounders look fantastic!

 

I like your use of the figures.  I've bought figures from a few different suppliers, and I really like the ones from Ion as well.  I haven't used the 1/200 scales ones, but the ones in 1/350 and 1/700 are very nice.