Thanks Mates,

Karl, I hear that "think like an Architect" suggestion. Especially coming from one who has already cut his teeth so to speak on large scale offerings. As this is currently in the planning stages for the moment, getting the layout of what I want to do and how to go about it is mostly what I am cogitating on. The Morskie Monograph has the lines of the ship laid out in lift style so copying that and upscaling it will get me the shape of things as far as the hull shape is concerned, stretching it out on the work board shouldn't be too diffiicult, famous last words.......

Rui, thanks for the link, that is a great project going on there. As to the Admiralty Class in 1/700 scale, I know that at one time one of the resin ship model sites had a four ship kit out that allowed it to be built as the original minesweeper configuration, a sub chaser and as a patrol craft. I will see if I can hunt it down for you if you are interested. At the time I built mine it was going for something like $28 US and that was for four model ships in one box.

Jan, I have just about gotten myself talked into making the whole ship, looking over the drawings and trying to see where I could cut it off to make a sensible looking set up just showed me that there were too many interesting things from one end of the ship to the other that I want to toss in there. The long lean hull shape and the rather purposeful look of the beast fascinates me so it looks like I am in it for the whole hog.

Hi Jay!

Do you have more than one Alf kit? It would be neat to have one dangling from the end of a cane alongside, its crew hanging on for dear life!

--Karl

Hi Karl,

Oh yeah, got another Alf as well as three of the Jakes. The local hobby shop had a sale, buy two Hasegawa kits, get a third for free so I took advantage.

Actually I was thinking of setting it up so that they were mounting the plane on the trolley since the Tama only had one plane along with a few spare parts. Rahter than a crane the Tama had a boom and jib set up which will make things a bit easier for me. Making the entire ship also has other possibilities for coming up with a few different scenes, my biggest problem will be modifying figures to populate the thing. Swabbing the deck is definitely going to have to be featured as well as the ever present scraping and painting tasks.

Hi Jay!

Yeah, the crew figures will be a challenge, especially with a pre-war depiction when uniform standards were much more strict.

The WIP pics will be interesting, however. Bon voyage!

--Karl

Ahoy Shipmates,

As I work my way through the research phases of this little project I have decided that building up the Tama as a 1/700 scale effort would probably be helpful as well as furnish me with a little more in the way of how to go about a much larger scale project. Drawing on Tamiyas' venerable kit, it was produced in 1973, I have started tinkering at it. The waterline hull is pretty nice, all the small boat cradles are molded in place on the deck as well as the bases for the various structures and even a few other items that I will be replacing as I go through it all.



The first thing that I like to do with these small scale ships is to replace the molded on anchor chains from the deck. Model Expo sells several sizes of brass chain that replace this part of the ship and makes for a much improved appearance. Also drilling out the hawse pipes so you can more easily add a PE anchor is best done since you are on that end of the ship.





One of the things that I usually do with these small scale craft is remove the dreaded "Aztec Temple Stairs" that they were so fond of as an easy way to get around any molding problems. These are carried on even to this day of Photo Etch parts that offer a much better way of doing things. Some modelers don't bother removing them, they just add the PE parts over the top of the ones there. I like to remove them. To this end a nice sharp Xacto chisel blade comes in handy. The ship has them in three locations.





After removing them and a little clean up work I can move on to the next bit of business, dealing with the after torpedo tube mounts. The ship carried four mounts, two forward aft of the bridge structure and two more in pockets midships. The kit would have you glue the rear most tubes to sockets that are on the underside of the deck, but this isn't a very good solution since they were mounted to the decks from below. They do have a divided section for you to work with a nice feature.



A chunk of styrene sheet cut to the proper size can be inserted in from below to close that area off as well as give you a place to mount the torpedo mounts. Naturally, to do this a little careful measurement is required to ensure that the mounts are at the right height as well as will have clearance fore and aft of the openings in the sides of the hull. You also get to remove the pins that would be glued into the sockets. You will also have to prepaint this area, once it is glued in place, it would be difficult to do it easily.



So while I work my way through Chatams Publishings' Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War by Lacroix and Wells, surf, er research various websites and eyeball Squadrons' IJN Light Cruisers and the Morskie Monograph on the Tama, I can entertain myself with Tamiyas' kit and all its' little interesting features.

Hi Jay!

Prototyping a large model project with a smaller one out-of-the-box is a smart way to reconnoiter the terrain. I also like downloading full reviews of resin kits to see how structures look in 3 dimensions. With a 1:350 kit coming out in a few months, you will have a wealth of references.

--Karl

Ahoy Shipmates,

Getting my feet wet with the 1/700 scale version will familiarize me with the general layout of the ship and a few of the little oddities that it may have to offer all right Karl. With all the little features that the Imperial Navy packed into the variations of their classes of ships it is sort of hard to keep up at times.

I added my torpedo tube mounts to the scratched up deck, masked off the areas where the glue would join the deck to the ship and slapped some Model Master Acryl Kure Naval Arsenal Gray #4251 on it as well as in the well where it goes. I also comstructed the two ventilator shacks with their platforms for the range finder untis that go midships between the three funnels. As you can see, the canvas covered dodgers over the rails that the sides of the platforms are a bit thick and out of scale. I could have whittled them down and replaced them with some CA stiffened paper, but since the ship actually had rails surrounding them, I chose a slightly different route.



Rubbing the platforms down to a more scale thickness on a sanding stick cleared the way for my modifications. I got a bit of spare two wire railing from one of my old Toms' Model Works frets and folded it to use for the platforms. Since I had pretty well removed any sort of a base for the two range finders to mount I punched out a pair of sheet styrene discs from some scrap, drilled a mounting hole in each for the range finder posts and then went to work first gluing the rails in place with some of Kennys' Gator Glue. I left an open space on one end of the rails so I can later add a ladder section going up to each once they are mounted on the ship. There is also a open section of railing that I will have to fix later, but for now it looks better than what I had to start with. I glued the styrene discs in place with some Testors Liquid Cement and now I can move on to other parts.

Ahoy Shipmates,

I have been having way too much fun on my Sunday off from work.

Delving into the Tama kit inbetween a midday break to do some shopping has gotten quite a bit done as well as remind me of some of the little oddities that working in 1/700 scale has to offer one. Aside from overly thick out of scale items when they do put things like the supports in areas under things like tubs for gun mounts and search lights, they sometimes miss the boat when it comes to additional parts to make this variation and that one out of one basic kit.

As to the supports for tubs, Lions Roar has a dandy little set of what they call Triangular Perforate Boards in several sizes that fixes that little problem. Of course, you do have to remove the bits that you want to replace. A chisel bladed Xacto Knife comes in right handy for such chores. It all started with the lower levels of the forward bridge and deck house.



You can see I have removed the ones from both of the front tubs as well as one of the side ones in the above photo. As I worked it all out deciding which sizes to use and then one thing led to another and pretty soon, the whole deck house was done.





I used some of Kennys' most excellent Gator Glue to attach the little parts, it gives you a little "fiddle" time as well as is easily removeable if you goof it up and have to redo your efforts, not that I would ever do that, yeah right!

The next thing that came to mind to tinker on was the deck extension that held the catapult tower and the aft three main gun mounts. They make this as a separate part for various iterations of this basic Kuma Class ship kit and as such, the parts that they give you can suffer from various maladies such as fit issues and a lack of certain details. Looking at the upper surface of the part, it jumped out at me that the lines for the linoleum hold down strips had not been molded in place, it was all smooth as the proverbial babies' behind without so much as a dimple. Once I had the two side panels glued in place to the upper part I laid it in place and marked out the locations for the lines that I would have to make up with some of my favorite modeling material, stretched sprue.



Another issue that cropped up when I laid the three part assembly in place on the deck was a fit issue. The whole piece was too short leaving a step from one deck section to the next. Cutting and gluing strips of .015 styrene strip in place to the underside brought it up and a little pass or two over a sanding stick once the pieces had hardened up made it fit as it should. You also get a view of my altered after torpedo mounts in their little hidey hole.





I also added another section of the perforate board to the end of one side and will continue on with some more to bring the detailing up to par with the rest as I go along. I painted the color of the linoleum on the after deck since once I glue that deck section in place it will be nearly impossible to do it easily without slopping some up on the sides of the bulkheads in such close quarters. After adding the rest of my details to the undersides of the deck edges and a few hatches and doors here and there on the bulkheads, I will also paint these areas up using the same Kure Arsenal Gray Model Master Acryl. It will give me a nice break in the lines of color to limit any repainting. I will also be adding some supports that the kit does not provide but does show on the boxart as well as in the pictures of the ship that I have for references. I used Model Master Enamel in Leather for the decking itself, these will be the basic colors for this job overall.

More to follow, but not quite at this pace as I get to go back to the salt mines for another week of fun and games.

Hi Jay,

I'm new to the site, well a member for awhile, just lurking in the shadows. I've a few ship models I'm planning on building and in the stage or getting all the aftermarket stuff too.

I saw you mentioned you had the Revell Snowberry kit in 1:72 scale. I recently visited Halifax and saw the H.M.C.S. Sackville. Got home, saw the revell kit, picked it up for $90 Canadian, then learned the kit is not that accurate. Discovered a company in Wales that makes a detail set for it, essentially replaces the whole kit except the hull in brass, metal and resin parts. Well i've ordered half the sets, and already into another $400 or so lol. I figure by the time I get everything, this little gem will cost me around $900. So no, you are not crazy my friend!

You may already know about the detail sets, but if not...google "Great Little Ships" and you can see what they have., or feel free to ask me and I can get you the info.

Hi Joseph,

Welcome to the site first of all.

As to the Snowberry kit, well, it is a bit inaccurate here and there, but if you want a really big ship model, aside from submarines and torpedo boats, it is one of only two that I know of short of scratch building one. That said, starting with it as a base from which to work, it can be made into a real museum quality display piece. It takes some effort on the modelers part as to research, there are a few places on the web as well as printed material from which to work. As to the aftermarket, I found the Great Little Ships site as well as a couple of others that offer "improvements" to the basic model. You can also do quite a bit on your own through building up some assemblies with styrene shapes and other media saving on purchasing some of those expensive parts.

The old Lindberg "Blue Devil" Fletcher Class destroyer kit is another large scale offering, while not in 1/72 scale which makes it even more difficult to deal with, as well as having a lot of basic shapes that are way off the mark, but even so, research and scratching up various assemblies goes a long way to making it into a much more accurate display. It has a lot of things going for it just like the Snowberry kit, sheer size alone makes these two worthy of putting in time and effort to come up with a "Texas Sized" model that you can get without resorting to building one from the old time honored wood carpentering skills that have been used in the past.

Working in the smaller scales like I am doing here gives you a good basic idea of what you are getting yourself into as well as helps to develop skills that you will be using when you decide to start your own large scale fleet. Kits like the catapult and aircraft from Hasegawa also help when it comes to equiping the large scale ships that may interest some.

Looking forward to seeing your Snowberry when you get to working on her.

Ahoy Shipmates,

I have been spending my last couple of days of off time tinkering at getting a few details added to the after deck section of the Tama. The hardest part of all was making the two ladderways match and the one side come up through the opening provided for it in the section of deck that gets added to the rear of the ship. Patience and perseverance as well as the excellent features of Gator Glue for attatchment purposes won out though.



While Tamiya does have lots of little features added to the bulkheads of that section, these are all sort of squashed in appearance since the two sides are actually shorter than what they should be. After adding my sections of styrene stick to the bottom of the panels, it was even more apparent. Using some hatches and doors from Gold Medal Models Watertight Doors set I put them in place over the top of the already existing molded on details. I had already added several support pieces from the Lions' Roar Triangular Perforate Boards set and getting clearance for all of these little bits was a trip but nothing that was impossible.





Before I do any painting on that section, I have to add the stretched sprue linoleum hold down strips as well as a few other little details that are on the deck back there. I also have a few more additions that I want to make to the after section of the ship before I get much further along to the point of smearing some more paint. But it is starting to resemble what I have in mind more with each additonal part. The Morskie Monograph and IJN Cruisers of the Pacific War are quite helpful in locating where a lot of this stuff goes.

Good job, Jay!

It's these small details that make a difference
Keep up


Rui

Doing a thorough job in a smaller scale before tackling the mega-scale version is an excellent dress rehearsal. Will you get the 1:350 kit next year?

--Karl

Thanks Guys,

I wasn't aware that any of the companies was coming up with a 1/350 Kuma Class Cruiser, but it would be interesting to have. But I am considering going to the really big scale one from this point. I am trying to add as much detail as I can get with the references that I have available to see if it would translate into the larger 1/72 scale well or not. The few closeup shots that I have show some things here and there, but not enough to fill out a model in that size. I would like to keep the "imagineering" to as small amount as possible. I have been haunting the sites for more shots of the ships to get an idea of what sort of things I could add.

Jay - great work and great blog as usual... and thanks for posting the PE fret with the part # visible, helps us ask the obvious "which PE fret is that one?" LE700044, on my TO GET list!

Great attention to detail... I have a little list somewhere, I write all the little tid bits of details I learn from the WIP blogs... just added two more, including the matching ladderways


Cheers

Thanks James,

The Ladderways Fret is from Gold Medal Models. Not only does Loren provide the ones for use on the ship deck levels, he also includes a few that were attatched to the sides of the hull with the platforms included as well as the davits to hang them from. There are also a few vertical ladder sections tossed on there for good measure. His doors and hatches set as well as cable reels are all little jewels made just for dressing up the small scale ships. Provided the modeler has the patience to bend and tweak them into shape of course.

More to come as I just got started on my weekend.

Ahoy Shipmates,

Having had some time and some new bits to tinker with, I have been enjoying the weekend to good effect. Working on the aft section I began by using the new Hasegawa IJN Rangefinders to replace the small cone shapes the kit comes with. I also built up the star platform on the after mast with some more perforate board from the Lions Roar set. The searchlight platform also got some attention. The kits' crane was replaced with one from the Toms' Model Works IJN Battleship set as well as the catapult itself. I also built up a pair of GMM Cable Reels to replace the molded on ones immediately aft of the catapult deck section.





The Hasegawa Rangefinder Set also replaced the two rangefinders on the ventilation shacks that I had previously built up using kit provided parts and a styrene disc. The rangefinders offer a much more realistic appearance. I will have to tweak the forward one a bit bending the attached upper part down a bit, but they do look better than the plastic ones.



Looking at the kit instructions, the references from the Morskie Monograph on the Tama and the IJN Cruisers book provided the information to replace the Widows Walk that sat aft of the bridge structure over the torpedo valley. I used some PE fret material, spare railings and some brass and styrene sprue to build it up. The kit part was more of a styrene blob that had no real look of the originals' appearance. I will cover this over with some lightweight paper and glue so that you can actually see the entrance and light through it, much better than a solid indistinct lump. I also added ladderways to the gun deck and small boat deck from the torpedo valley from Gold Medal Models Ladderways fret. Another ladderway found its' way up under the second level of the bridge structure courtesy of my references. I also added some more perforate boards to the forward star platform on the forward mast as well as a pair of Hasegawa Rangefinders to the covered bridge deck. This would have been easier had I done it when building that structure up, but it worked out okay. The next IJN ship I build will have a better appearance thanks to these little gems.





I am working over the stacks at the moment. For the most part if one was to build it up from the box as they are, they would be okay with some careful painting and weathering, but I have been inspired to try something a bit different from the Model Art #29 on 5500 Ton IJN Cruisers and will have some pictures for the next installment of my modifications. I also have a few more cable reels to build up and place where I have noticed them from the references that I have. This proving to be a pretty enjoyable build letting me use a few new part sets that I have discovered as well as try my hand at some new techniques, always a good thing.

Great detail work Jay.

Kenny

Good bit of detailing Jay, having just recently received my Model Art 29, I too have an urge to work on one of these 5500t beauties.

Frank

Hello.That made me remember an article on a greek modeling magazine in late 90's (i wish i have kept those mag's)A guy basically built Gneisenau 's whole stern up to and including the rear main turret with the catapult on top in 1/72 as he started to built an Arado in 1/72 from Matchbox and couldn't stop expanding and adding to his project.It was a beautiful diorama and very impressive in size,and after several years when i visit one shop by chance in Athens i got to see it from up-close as it was sitting proudly on the display window .

Thanks Guys,

That Model Art #29 is pretty nice as far as detailing stuff goes. I am enjoying working this kit over, replacing little odds and ends, and digging through references to come up with extra features to add. When I get around to making the large scale version, this will all help to add enough things to add to the build to make it interesting.

Great work Jay, amazing attention to detail... this WIP blog has been a modelling lesson for me...cheers!

Thanks James,

Hmm, is that a "how to" or "how not to"?

I have been working on my stacks trying out adding some of the railings that they sported and using the pics from the Model Art #29 and a couple of other websites from over in Japan to pick up tips on how to do it. Right now stack #3 looks like it could do with a shave.

Oh well, being totally unashamed, I will post some pics pretty soon of how my "experiment" works out whether for better or worse. One must be willing to experiment on these things in order to develop some new tricks here and there.

Ahoy Shipmates,

Merry Christmas to all, I hope there were lots of styrene and related items under the tree for everyone.

Tinkering at the stacks for the Tama has been a bit of a learning curve for me. I tried to emulate the styrene method from the Model Art #29 but it didn't turn out quite as I had expected. I can only attribute a lack of experience or some mitts that can palm a basketball for that.

At any rate, having no shame at all, here are my first efforts, a stack in desparate need of a shave.



And after trying to get some stretched sprue to cooperate to make the rings around the stack using both styrene cement and CA, I finally decided that this would not do.



Casting about for a better solution to my situation, I shaved off the offending stubs, sanded and then penciled in some lines using remanents of the original molded on lines as guides, trimmed off a run from a bit of left over railing (never toss out any leftover from any sort of PE) and had my way with tweaking them into rough semi circular shapes to fit the funnels.



It took a little doing and some CA to attatch the bits to the funnel, but I am much more satisfied with the results. You can see a bit of daylight between the rails and the sides of the stack and adding the vent pipes from the kit as well as the two part top assembly it is looking more like what I have in mind. When I go to a larger scale version this should be a great deal easier since the size will be 10 times greater and the resulting materials that much easier to handle. I gave both curved and straight mini tweezers a workout on this bit. I also added a bit more detail to the boom arm after looking over the references from the Morskie Monograph.



I have two more stacks to rebuild, one got drilled as well and the other just got the original molded on lines sanded off. The nice thing about using a mini drill, is to plug the hole a bit of stretched sprue from a runner of the same plastic covers all that right up and once sanded back down, you can't even tell there was a hole drilled at all. Once all this is done, I can turn my attention to the small boats and adding a bit of detail to them. The railings and other details after that and then I can smear some paint on there.

Hi Jay

Looks good and a very honorable effort on making that Tama looks good!
A little tip for "converting" PE to sit more proper to a place where it was not supposed to be (or in other words: adapting PE):
Try to anneal it with a flame (gently and fast, so that the delicate bits don't melt - use a gas cigarette lighter). This will make the brass softer and can be "convinced" to make better round curves - I did use this technique on my Alvares Cabral

Keep up,


Rui