Looking pretty good Jay. That's a neat trick Rui. I'll have to file that one away.

Kenny

Thanks Guys,

Rui, yes, I know of the old trick of annealing the brass bits with a bit of flame, for the small stuff a paper match works better than a butane lighter, the flame is not as intense. From experience with the old "BIC", those rails turn into a nice neat little round ball of brass.

It is surprising at how well it works to soften the brass so that it can be manipulated, but you do have to pretty much make it a one shot deal, it can't stand as much tweaking back and forth once it is softened.

I now have two stacks done and will be overhauling the third this evening. I dug out the old Eduard IJN miscellaneous set so I coud do a little work with the two 20MM twin mounts that sit aft of the forward torpedo valley as well as some additions to the small boats that feature so promenently on the Tama. I also am planning on doing some more to the main gun mounts before adding them to the mix.

Great idea... I may get the "old" 700 scale Nagato before tackling the 350 Hasegawa baby...

Hi James,

Working over one of the smaller scale ships is a great way to get a feel for what you will be dealing with, not only that but it gives you a chance to get your references organized and see if there are any areas of the larger scale ship that you want to "tinker" at in more detail.

Just with what I am doing with this little guy has given me a few ideas for its' bigger brother when I get around to working it out. Just reworking the detals on the stacks has shown that it is an area that can be developed into a much more interesting area than what is commonly shown. Also the two ventilators with the range finder platforms on the tops of each is another place where upgrading can be done to good advantage.

Ahoy Shipmates,

Since I have survived the holidays and managed to get a bit more work done on the Tama I thought I might catch you all up on where I am now with this little kit. Working all the details in that I am spotting on my references is more fun than a barrel of drunken monkeys. Just when you think you have one thing taken care of another one catches the old Mark One Eyeball and it's off to the races again. Case in point, after overhauling the stacks as best I could, I came across the twin 20MM mounts that are just aft of the torpedo valley aft of the bridge structure. While Tamiya has done a nice job detailing various parts of the ship, some things are bound to come up a little short as far as things go. The area in question looks like this to start with.



According to the Morskie Monograph there should be a rectangualr bit of splinter shielding that goes around three sides of that location. Most of the time when working in this scale the splinter shielding in these kits is a bit on the thick side, a nod towards ease of casting I suppose. It is most common to replace these with some paper cut to size and applied with CA. The CA turns plain paper into a perfectly sized as far as thickness is concerned splinter shield. The tools required are pretty simple, a ruler or straightedge of some sort, a #11 hobby knife with a fresh sharp blade and something hard to cut on for a nice clean edge. The paper in question is nothing special, I have a notepad of small sheets that is basically typing paper cut down to 4'X6" size but a sheet of typing paper works just as well.



Once the pieces are cut, trimming them down to size is a straightforward proposition to give you a more accurate look to the placement of the little mount. In some cases you may have to adjust the height of the mount by adding a bit of styrene sheet, but in this case Tamiya got it right as far as making them the right height.



Grubbing about in the PE stash, I found my old Eduards' IJN Miscellaneous Fittings set which contains parts to dress up weapons of various types, ladders, rail sections of odd sorts, and small boat fittings. I selected a few appropriate parts and cut them off of the fret for application. So my little "dress up" set for this small area now looks like this.



With the additions made and parts added to the ship things are beginning to take shape a little better.



I added the small boat davits and loading jibs here and there as called for in the instructions and that puts it to the point where I have added about all the extra parts that I can up to the point of painting it. I chose Model Master Acryl Kure Navy Yard gray for the base coat overall and used some Model Master Leather enamel for the color of the linoleum decking. All this was applied with my Harbor Frieght double action air brush handling the squirt part for the overall gray color. The Leather was brush applied once the gray had dried overnight.







It is always sort of a drag to cover up all those various pieces of stuff that show the work involved in getting one of these little kits to look a bit better, but it is sort of a milestone that I like to get to. Now it is on to rigging out the various parts from stacks, first for obvious reasons then to the masts then putting the last parts, small boats, canvas cover over the widows walk and adding the plane. Once you get to this part, the instructions are sort of a done deal. Aside from showing where the last parts go, they are of very little help in rigging or the final weathering steps., that all comes from references and previous experience. That instruction sheet will be finding a home in one of my looseleaf notebooks for future reference in its' own right. They are always handy to hang onto in case you want to see if the kit can be used as a basis for a conversion or see just what the manufacturer had intended.

Hi Jay!

That's a good dress rehearsal. Now on to the Main Event!

--Karl

Very nice work Jay.

Kenny

Thanks Guys,

Gee Karl, wish I was done with it, sort of, but there is still a lot of stuff to be done yet. Next week is my vacation from the salt mines so I am hoping to get its' rails, rigging and other small parts added.

Jay, you are doing one bang up job on the old girl.

Thanks Jim,

I do like these little 1/700 scale kits, hard to beat for subject matter and the prices on most don't send you into sticker shock.

Of course, like Karl says, this is only a dress rehersal for a much larger project. Throwing all the stuff I can find in this small scale is letting me see just what I can figure out to add to a 1/72 scale production, wouldn't want to have too many bare spaces of deck with all that room to roam about in.

looks great jay, very well done....
your project also convinced me to get the old 700 Nagato before the "big one", and do the same for any other large scale projects I may do..cheers

Thanks James,

Nothing like a little practice to make things go easier, especially on a larger more expensive project. I get a bang out of working on these small scale projects on their own, but the level of detail that can be placed in a larger scale version can be breath taking not to mention enough to make your wallet cry "Uncle" as well.

Hi Jay!

Well, as long as you're not in a hurry, the construction costs for a 1:72 Tama can be spread out comfortably over months or years.

--Karl

Yeppers Karl,

I took two years ot finish one project once so I know how that works, of course, moving once in the midst of all ot it is something that I am not going to deal with in this one.

I have managed to get some scale sized drawings worked up for the frames and am considering what sort of wood I want to use to cut them from. I have found some dandy material to use for a keel, a solid bit of dry Red Oak that will be suitable for a one piece affair and it is even relatively straight! I figure that by making a wooden framework to hang everything else off of some strength will be gained in spite of a slight weight penalty.

I figure that by making a wooden framework to hang everything else off of some strength will be gained in spite of a slight weight penalty.[/quote]

Hi Jay!

Well, if you want to be a purist on this project, you can build to scale displacement as well which should give the model a weight of just over 76 tons! That way, structural strength won't be an issue at all...

--Karl

Uh, no, I think I will have to pass on that one there Karl!

I am just looking to make it nice and sturdy to hang all the other stuff off of, not exactily bullet proof, but just so it doesn't collapse under its' own weight sort of thing. I considered using styrene, but by the time you get all the other parts on there I was afraid that it might bow here and there.

It is an interesting way to pass the time, working up the frames and sizing everything. As long and narrow as the ship is keeping it all nice and straight will be my major concern, I never thought that I would find a use for a chalk string in a model before.

Hi Jay!

The Tama's compact hull and relatively simple superstructure should pose no hull buckling issues in 1:72. For my 1:48 carriers, I used plywood for bulkheads and .020 styrene for the shell plating. To be on the safe side, you may wish to consider birch ply as an under-layment for the main deck.

Please scrutinize Jose's 1:72 work on his Yorktown posted today. He's really got his stuff together!

--Karl

Hi Karl,

Thanks for the heads up on Joses' work and post. Rather a grand project going on there. I have been working on the Tamas' small boats and other details, should have some pictures to post soon. Since I am on vacation now for a week, I hope to get a lot done on the small model and some progress on its' bigger brother.

I ordered the Tama Morskie Monograph from White Ensign Models today, that along with the Kuma Class Cruiser volume, Model Arts' magazine, and the Chatham book I have should give me enough information to work a few more details into the mix.

Ahoy Shipmates,

Here I am again with a minor update. I added a few parts to the small boats from Eduards IJN Miscellaneous IJN Ship Fittings set. This set has a number of things that make small boats, various gun mounts and other ship type stuff that goes a long way to making for some more details. Before adding the boats to their cradles, I added the support wires to the funnels since it would make it more difficult to do so after the boats were in position. I also used a pair of floats for the seaplane the ship carried, trimmed them down, painted them and added them to the top of the small deckhouse aft of the number three funnel. Most all of these modifications came from checking out the Morskie Monograph on the Kuma Class ships. I found out that White Ensign carries the books in their product line and ordered the one on the Tama for a little more reference material for my next build of this ship, the big brother.





Turning my attention to the pointy end of things, I noticed that the kit had no bow wave breaker aft of the capstans for the anchor chains. It was a simple matter to take a section of PE Fret material and trim it down to size and add it to the build. I am planning on adding this build to a base to practice for the Divine Waterline Group build that is coming up and I want to have it anchored in harbor. Since I have already removed the original half shapes of chain that were molded in place before doing any other modifications and drilled out the hawse pipes to make room for this, I dug through my selection of chain material and used some 42 links per inch chain from Model Expo Stock number 516 to add this little detail. As you can see, it fits the holes and will offer a nice appearance dangling down into the water surface of my anchorage. When it comes time to do the deed, I will drill out some chain locker holes in the deck and route it around the capstans for a more natural look. I have some "Blacken It" also from Model Expo that is basically liquid bluing agent to change the appearance from the nice shiny brass look, it will also get a bit of paint and weathering before gluing it down.

Hi Jay - sorry for the late reply!

It looks good and in a much advanced stage than my own Tama (still in the box!!!)
Just a hint for the chain and anchors: Only one of them should be down

Another tip for scale drawings: Model Art Special Waterline Issue Nº13 has a great 1/350 scale drawings of this Light Cruiser

Keep up the good work!


Rui

Ahoy Shipmates,

Back for another update on my progress with this pre build build.

Using the Morskie Monograph as my reference for the masts and rigging showed that I needed to do a bit of changing. This is what the two masts came out of the box as.





According to Morskie, it should actually look a bit more like this.





I used some stretched sprue to make my modifications and then got happy with even more stretched sprue to add the rigging, there was a lot of rigging. I got as close to what I could observe from the diagrams and tried to figure out the best way to get it on there.





I did take the liberty of adding a pair of styrene stick flag racks to the sides of the flag deck aft of the bridge house to give me a place to anchor the 10 lines from the yard arms and looking at the pictures, I see where I will have to fix one of them, fortunately an outer one that seemed to grow together when I painted things.

Turning my attention to the base for my little project, I dug out a chunk of red oak that I had in the stash and cut it to size, trying to give enough room fore and aft to make it look appropriate.



Using the red plastic hull bottom plate, I cut a piece of masking tape to size and applied it to the base.



Before adding the Liquitex Basics Acrylic Gesso Medium, I ran strips around the edges to make a border. I poured a generous amount of the stuff over the open wood sections and used a one inch chip brush to spread it out as evenly as I could. After that I wet the brush under the tap and drew it across the surface length wise to make a sort of wave pattern. This was left to dry for a couple of days.



Once it had dried and set up hard, I used a straightedge to guide a hobby knife blade the length of the outer taped lines one at a time and slowly peeled the tape off. I could see a faint outline of the piece of tape that I had made with the red plastic base as a template in the Gesso and using that same plastic part as a trim guide, I ran the hobby knife around the edge to allow me to remove the tape and leave the Gesso more or less intact covering the wood.



With the ship in place you can sort of see what I have in mind, just a lot of painting, decalling and final finishing to do now.

Ahoy Shipmates,

I have had more fun with my base and the aircraft for the Tama the last couple of days. After a retape job on the set up Liquitex I got out some Tamiya Acrylic Royal Blue and went for the gusto, covering everything up. After that had dried, I added some Tamiya Acrylic in Green and then topped it off with some Tamiya Clear Blue to tone the Green back a bit so it looked like it had a little depth to it. After the paint had a chance to dry nice and hard I used some Modge Podge, a decoupage finish in gloss that I like to use for a top coat of water since it dries clear, shiny and hard to cover it all up.





When it dried, I started by running a hobby knife around the edges of the taped up spots and begain to peel tape. While I didn't have any bleed under on the tape, I did have a few white lines on the very edges of the water. For the most part, the ship fit pretty well in its' pocket with just a hint of white here and there on the edges.



I got out my striping brush, in case you aren't familiar with the design, it is made with longer than normal bristles, they are about an inch and a quarter long and quite soft, and using some more of the Tamiya Royal Blue color which is gloss, I carefully went around the edges to catch the white that was showing through. I also put some over the places in the pocket for the ship so it wouldn't show through there. Once it dried, I added some more Modge Podge to the pocket and smeared it around to catch the edges, placed the ship in place and weighted the stern and bow down with a couple of heavy objects to make it sit even.

The little float plane got some struts on the wings from stretched sprue and it got a prop from one of the PE sets that I have in the leftovers stash. A shot of some rattle can silver gave it some color and a second shot of some gloss coat made a smooth surface to apply decals over. I used some generic red hinomarus for the wings upper and lower and fuselage and then made some Japanese looking character marks on the upper wing. After everything had dried I shot another coat of gloss to seal it up. It now has been CA'd in place on the catapult. I will probably wait a few days for everything to get nice and hard then cover the sea part of it up and then go to town with the supports for the after deck roof, railings and a pair of crew embarkation ladders on the sides. Once all that is done I can add my anchor chain to one side and an anchor and chain to the opposite. Then a little weathering and she will be done.

Jay, another great update! Nice water technique..thanks for jotting down the details of the various steps (like what type of brush to use), really helpful! Cheers

Hey Jay!

Nice work. That tripod mast should be especially interesting in 1:72.

--Karl

Very nice work Jay! Awesome job.

Kenny