Seishu Maru by Landlubber Mike - Five Star - 1/700 - Resin and PE - IJA Crane Ship

[Landlubber Mike]

While on the road a couple of weeks ago for one of my daughter's softball tournaments, I decided to bring a small kit to work on while at the hotel.  This one is the really nice Five Star kit of the IJA crane ship Seishu Maru.  The kit is a combination of resin and PE parts to build a fairly interesting ship besides the typical warship.

The Seishu Maru was completed in 1927 with a 147-ton crane and two 20-ton derricks.  There's not much information on the ship out there, but combinedfleet.com notes that it was designed to transport and handle 12-inch (305-mm) turrets of old disarmed battleships.  The ship transported the turrets from the breakers’ yards to various locations for use in coast defense. The ship was surrendered at Singapore at war's end, but lost in 1946 to a Typhoon off Hong Kong. 

 

Some blurry pictures from Shanghai 1937:

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

For this build, I found some really cool pictures of the ship delivering a locomotive off the coast of Hong Kong.  I can't find a clear date for the pictures, but my guess is these pictures depict the Seishu Maru sometime between 1945 (when surrendered to the British) and July 1946 (when it ran aground in a typhoon near Hong Kong and was deemed a total loss).  From the Trains Magazine forum site, I found the following additional information: "The former Imperial Japanese Army crane ship Seishu Maru unloads a US built 160 ton 2-8-0 for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency at Hong Kong in 1946. This class of locomotive was identical to the US Arny’s (sic) S-160 class Consolidations."  I plan to recreate this scene in a diorama:

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Landlubber Mike

[Landlubber Mike]

The kit is quite nice - I'm working on some other resin/PE multimedia kits from Five Star and really like them.  The parts fit well and have great detail.  The kit unfortunately simplifies things quite a bit so I'm adding details to it to get it closer to the 1945/6 configuration in the pictures.

 

First I started with building up the detail pieces from PE:

Next, I started to build up the crane arm.  It's a little tricky in that you have three pieces come together in a pyramid, which took some time to get the correct angle.

 

The kit asks you to add the support pieces using styrene, but here I used steel rod instead.  I figured the added stability would help, as want it to be able to hold the locomotive as per the pictures:

 

One issue I noticed is that the kit is designed where the crane arm connects to a hinge at the end of the bracket. I don't think this is correct as it would be impossible for the crane arm to be fully extended as per the pictures.  Instead, from the pictures it looks like the bracket holding the crane arm has rails along the top where the crane arm slides along as the arm is extended and retracted. I tested this out and this seems to be how the arm actually extended and retracted, rather than pivoting at the end of the bracket. So, I added 0.3mm brass wire to the tops of the bracket to simulate the rails. 

 

For the hull, I simulated hull plating lines by masking off strips and painting the uncovered sections with Mr. Surfacer 500.  I also added PE to line the port holes and the anchor chain frames at the bow.  Then I glued in the crane arm bracket.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Landlubber Mike

[Landlubber Mike]

Before I got too far adding the various details and the bridge, I cut out the wooden decks for the ship using an Artwox generic wooden deck sheet.  I figured it would look nicer than trying to paint the deck itself.

Then I noticed that the 1945/6 configuration included a very tall mast at the box.  This was added using a mast set from Five Star.  I also added the bow and stern railings, as well as cut some links for the anchor chains that were included in the Artwox deck packet.

 

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Landlubber Mike

[Landlubber Mike]

Along with the tall bow mast, from the pictures it looks like the mast on the bridge was lengthened considerable.  So, I added a base built up from perforated structural beams from Ocean Spirit:

Here is the bridge:

'

I noticed from the Hong Kong pictures that there were two derricks hanging off either side of the bridge.  The Five Star kit only gave one.  So, I built up two derricks from a Tom's Model Works set:

I also noted that the crane arm should have a cross piece, so that was added to the arm and it was painted:

Finally, the pictures show that the crane arm slid out towards the stern along railings.  I scratched built these out of square brass rod and styrene:

[Landlubber Mike]

Where I am at the moment - took a lot longer to get here than I would have expected, but so far so good I think.

 

Thanks for looking in!

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

I plan to recreate this scene in a diorama:

 

Great idea! Something a little off the beaten path always makes an interesting diversion.

[hollowneck]

Niiiice!!! Kool build. Get small Mike!

What would we do without those Bounty "Quicker PickerUpper" paper towels?

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

I cut out the wooden decks for the ship using an Artwox generic wooden deck sheet.  

Where do you come up with cool things like this and why have you not told me about it before!!  That looks perfect for my SIBs - a heckuva lot better than the pencil lines I've been drawing for a deck plank look. 

 

Oh, and by the way, what a cool project you are working on, Mike!  Can't wait to see how you present it in a diorama (with a hanging locomotive I hope)!  The Seishu Maru looks like the type of industrial vessel that @Javelin might model, albeit a vintage one.

[Landlubber Mike]

2 hours ago, ccoyle said:

 

Great idea! Something a little off the beaten path always makes an interesting diversion.

Thanks Chris!  I tend to prefer these auxiliary ships, especially on the Japanese side where they converted ships intended for peacetime and other purposes for wartime auxiliary work.  They have some quite odd looking ships!

[Landlubber Mike]

2 hours ago, hollowneck said:

Niiiice!!! Kool build. Get small Mike!

What would we do without those Bounty "Quicker PickerUpper" paper towels?

Thanks Ron!  Part of the reason I had the paper towel was to get a better visual.  My hobby mat is pretty stained at this point.  The model at this scale is tiny, probably about 3" long, maybe 3.5".

 

Eventually I need to get back to wooden modeling, but it's a bit hard given that my father-in-law lives with us now and his bedroom is right next to where I have all my power tools.  Really limits the amount of time I can spend there making any noise - at this point it's usually bad words coming out of my mouth for one reason or another.

Edited 2 hours ago by Landlubber Mike

[Landlubber Mike]

1 hour ago, Glen McGuire said:

Where do you come up with cool things like this and why have you not told me about it before!!  That looks perfect for my SIBs - a heckuva lot better than the pencil lines I've been drawing for a deck plank look. 

 

Oh, and by the way, what a cool project you are working on, Mike!  Can't wait to see how you present it in a diorama (with a hanging locomotive I hope)!  The Seishu Maru looks like the type of industrial vessel that @Javelin might model, albeit a vintage one.

Hey Glen!  Sorry to not shared it before.  I have to say, having worked on a bunch of models in 1/700 scale, I think whenever I return to SIB modeling I will probably use a lot of photo etch, decking etc. from that world.  Working in 1/700 has also gotten me to use other types of materials, adhesives, etc., which I think will come in handy.

 

@Javelin might indeed enjoy building this subject.  I'm building this as a warm up to building this US crane ship - the AB-1 that was converted from the USS Kearsage.  Five Star makes a very very nice kit for it so I'm hoping to learn a lot from this build to take to that one.  It's a much bigger ship, and the crane arm is really impressive but a lot more complicated to build than the Seishu Maru: