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

[madtatt]

My big towers took a little longer, but they’re finished.
So here’s another little update today.

 

 

Into the barbettes. With their wedge shape, they could still win a design award today, I think.

 

 

And towards the rear. Its unusual shape is truly impressive.

 

 

This completes the main armament and I can now focus on the bridge.

 

 

The Mikasa looks so cool from the front.

 

 

 

 

[madtatt]

Just a quick snack at my shipyard today.
Before I start on the bridge wing and the wheelhouse, I wanted to make a few neat handrails to simplify and make things safer.
For this, I made small, custom-made handrails out of a multiplex board.

 

 

Then cover the surface with BluTack.

 

 

And the two components were placed on top.

 

 

Now I can work on them properly without having to worry about tearing off the outer support struts again.

 

 

I always play it safe whenever possible.
That’s how my workstands, which I like to call dry docks, came about.
By the way, if anyone is interested, I’ve created a short construction guide on the IPMS website.

 

Dry dock

[Jeff59]

Hi Jolle, hope you’re keeping well. That was the first thing l thought, looks like chocolate sponge cake, immediately gave me hunger pangs 😂 you’re model is coming on a treat, sitting here having my super, hungry now 😂 Seriously though, certainly putting the hours in, that £150 kit certainly gets its moneys worth from us modlers, am looking at Bismarck beside me and glad it’s not the Mikasa 😂 think you know where lm coming from there. Must say your painting skills are phenomenal, looking so realistic. You’ll be so impressed with how totally crammed with detail this ship ends up, certainly not the £150 kit you started with 😂🤛 looking forward to your next post 👍 If you got paid minimum wage for every hour spent on this you’d have one fat wallet 😂 Catch you next time 🤛

[Jim Lad]

A clever solution, Ilhan!

 

John

[madtatt]

@Jeff59

Haha, you need strong teeth to bite into that cake.
And believe me, Jeff, I know exactly what you mean. Compared to this small, complex model-building marvel, the Bismarck was as easy to put together as Lego bricks. Speaking of which, when will you continue with your Bismarck? I'm so excited to see how you'll make it.
But I also think the finished Mikasa model will be worth every hour of sweating and cursing.
And I'm very happy when you say my paint job looks realistic.

 

@Jim Lad

Thanks, John.
Yes, that makes handling the delicate components much easier.

[madtatt]

I don’t have too much to report today. I’m finding very little time for model building at the moment, and I’ve had to rethink and implement a few things.

First, the ingredients for the next construction phase.

 

 

First, the door frames were installed. These were painted with a slightly lighter grey to increase the contrast.

 

 

The partition wall and interior fittings for the wheelhouse were then made from styrene.

 

 

Difficult to capture with the camera, but you can get a sense of the room’s interior. More staff will arrive there later.

 

 

On to the steering rudder station. Here’s another picture of the large compass.

 

 

Only the MK1 kit offers anything here. But I didn’t like the way it was supposed to be assembled. The sight glass was simply placed on top of the brass turned part. Unimaginative.

 

 

At first, I considered using the part from the original kit. However, I was annoyed by the poorly designed sprue attachment points. Why not just attach it from below? But I couldn’t really warm to that part either. It was too crude.

 

 

So I looked at the brass part again and thought, hey, I’m a locksmith and I do have files…

 

 

Better…

 

 

And here’s a direct comparison. Which looks better?

 

 

I think, for my part, the Ka set has won the race again. With a little help from me.

 

 

[Canute]

Nice scratchbuilt compass stand. 👍

[madtatt]

Thanks, Ken. 😊

The only thing I don't like about the brass part is the way the adjustment balls look compared to the plastic one. But I'll fix that. I've ordered 0.5 mm thick steel balls to replace the flat disc.

[madtatt]

So Ken, I'm afraid it's all starting over again.

 

The compass was finished except for the correction balls. I then placed it on the two wheelhouses for a test fit and thought, wow, that’s quite a big piece.

Then, together with a sailor, I placed the compass on a piece of modeling clay and wondered, were they really that big, or did Trumpeter and KA Models make a slight mistake with the dimensions?

 

 

The viewing window comes right up to the boy’s chin. And that would mean this compass would be at least 1500 mm high. Probably higher.

I asked in a German forum with some maritime experts whether that could be the case. The unanimous opinion was no.

But I had almost expected and feared as much. But whatever, we’re model builders after all, and we’ll master the challenge.

So, I’m starting my compass challenge now. Well, I have plenty of styrene profiles and quickly found the right thickness: 1.5 mm instead of just over 2 mm should be correct. Then I roughly cut them to size to see how they look on a person.

 

 

Next to it you can already see the attempt to create a foot from the good old scrap box.

 

 

What’s still missing is the compass head. I’ve ordered some more parts online for that. This time, 2mm ABS beads.

They’ll arrive tomorrow, and then we’ll see what’s next.

[outcast2]

The ship I was stationed on had theirs about waist high, maybe a little taller.

[madtatt]

Thank you for this information, outcast2.

I measured the compass this morning. I could have done it right away. The result is 8.2 mm. That means it would be 164 cm tall ( 64,5 inch). The diameter is 2.3 mm, which would be 46 cm(18 inch).

So, quite a hefty piece. I don’t think that’s going to work.

So, I already started tinkering with the new compass this morning. The beads won’t arrive until this evening, but I was able to take care of the base.

I think it looks a lot more authentic now, both in height and diameter.

 

Edited 15 hours ago by madtatt

[madtatt]

So, I’ve finished my first test compass. A few things are still missing, like the compensation spheres, since it’s just a prototype. The acrylic beads are quite easy to work with. It’s just rather difficult to hold them steady while cutting them. But it worked.

 

 

And here it is, primed. Now you can really see if it turned out well.

 

 

I think the compass looks quite good. It’s just a prototype; it can be made a bit more accurate. But now I’d like to show you a picture of what actually triggered my compass crisis.

 

 

When I placed the huge thing on the small wheelhouse at the stern, I thought to myself, something’s not right. That’s why all the fuss.

So for now, I’m just glad I’ve found a solution. I’m actually still considering making it half a millimeter taller so it reaches halfway up the window.

 

 

I’ll think about that tomorrow.

Edited 2 hours ago by madtatt