I am trying to muster the courage to do my 1st ship build, this model was on sale and is a beauty.I am having difficulty finding info on how to build up a ship,I am looking for detailed info on a similar class of ship from any nation.The most daunting task to me would be masking the deck, is there a mask available? I know a wooden deck is available but it is too expensive, is the only choice to carefully mask off? seems like it would take a good deal of patience to do so compared to aircraft paint masking. I tried to find info on shiprights but not much detail given.A GOOD book or DVD out their to help squids like me?

Dade goes over your specific ship in his excellent build. In the feature section of this website.
Nachi

Even thought it may sound like bragging, I don't think I did to bad on my feature of my Yamato build Here. I go over how I used a liquid hobby mask to protect the painted wood deck while details are added. It basically makes a rubber coating when dry that you can pick off later.

Dave, there is no wood deck for the Nachi that I'm aware of... if there is, it's good you stayed away because it would be wrong anyway, as the Nachi had linoleum decks. It's actually not very hard to paint as most of the main structural work gets added on later, so just paint the deck before you attach the bridge, etc. Then touch up the small stuff by hand with gray. To add to Anthony's recommendation, make sure to read the forum posts about the article when you're done-- there is information contained about paint colors and rigging that I didn't think to put into the article itself. Hope it helps!

Anthony thanks for the kind words and link to my build. Also thanks for linking to your great Yamato article! I was wondering how I missed that until I saw the date was a couple years before I showed up here. Nice to see such an awesome blast from the past!

thanks so much! the Yamato build is VERY detailed and is just what I am looking for in regards to technique, it was very difficult to locate detailed builds like this as most are rather too vague for beginners like me and so many threads to scroll through! the nachi build will be quite useful too, thanks too all.