Hi All.

Judging by the number of IJN Destroyers from WWII that appear here as well as the different classes that are represented in 1/700 scale kits as well as others, they would seem to be a popular selection for modeling. When I received my latest issue of Sea Classics Magazine this month I was pleasantly surprised to find an article that ran down thirteen of the fourteen that I was aware of, leaving out only the Shimakaze, most likely because it was a singular example of its' class. Reading through the article, which is mostly a breakdown by class with descriptions and illustrations of each mentioned with a small three paragraph lead in article brought back a project of mine that I have wanted to do for quite a while now.

The project being, build at least one of each of the various classes in use during WWII. I have built a few of them and counting those plus the ones that I have kits but yet to build, it covers nine of the fourteen. The remaining five that I have yet to buy or build are, the Asashio, Fubuki, Kamikaze, Minikaze and Mutsuki Classes. Doing some serious web searching, I have discovered where to buy or at least who made them, so it is entirely within the realm of possibility to complete this little pipe dream.

My plan is to utilize Photo Etch, Extra Detail Parts in styrene as well as resin and anything else I can come up with to attempt to make them up. I have in addition to the 1/700 scale styrene versions of these ships, a couple of 1/350 scale versions as well as 1/200 paper models that I will be using for references. I also have a pretty complete selection of Morskie Monographs and other reference materials on hand including a few copies of Squadron's booklets and some of the Japanese published 3D books to toss in. There are a few websites that I will also be referring to as I work my way through this idea including the Nihon Kaigun website and Joe Lowe's 3D website.

So if any of you have any ideas on the subject or suggestions for more reference material as well as links to web type sources, I would like to hear about them. Stay tuned as I start my little project.

Hi All.

As I am getting close to the end of my IJN Oyodo Light Cruiser build I thought I would start thinking about what my first choice of Destroyers to build might be. Looking at the ones I have on hand in the stash and going over various references I have decided to build up the Hatsuharu as my first entry into this project. The model I have on hand is Aoshima's offering of this older molding. It has been offered in the past by all four of the Japanese Big Boys and Pit Road/Sky Wave even has a newer molding offered with enhanced details over this particular kit.



It is a relatively inexpensive ship model to purchase as most of the small scale destroyers are and if building right out of the box is your game will present no great surprises. But ya'll know me and right out of the box has never been my style.

The kit was originally produced with two individual ships in one box, but economics have stopped that little feature for the most part. To offset the sting of that they do box it with one fret from the Light Ship Extra Equipment sets included. This not only provides enough parts to produce either the early version of the ship or the later ones, it also serves to add some nice pieces to your stash of extra parts that are suitable to use on ships from Patrol Craft up to Cruiser sizes.

Looking at the parts as they come right out of the box, this is what you get with this one.



The instruction sheet is written in Japanese Characters so other than the pictorial blow up of how it goes together it is pretty much useless. The IJN Light Ship Extra Equipment Set, if you are not familiar with it looks like so along with an individual instruction sheet showing the float planes, and listing the various parts (at least in English this time) provided.



The rear of the box provides a painting guide and decal placement suggestion. Be forewarned however that this does not show the location or extent of the ribbed linoleum sections. I suspect that this is mostly because these sections were not part of the original molding so they were just left off. You can refer to the Modelwarships site and the August 2003 review of the Pit Road/Sky Wave kit of the Hatsuharu to see their box art to figure out the positioning of these sections on the deck. Adding the linoleum hold down strips is quite easy to do with a little stretched sprue.



The next segment of this will be a bit of history about this interesting class of IJN Destroyers.

Jay;

Great project and no dream is to big. I will be following your progress on this mostly for the pointers.

I have a goal of building at least one class of every IJN ship from WWII, if not more for my display case.

I hope to have some photos for you by next week.

Sam

Hi Sam,

I am looking forward to your postings and pictures.

With all the great models being brought out in 1/700 scale it is a great time to work up a display case full of IJN WWII ships. Ah, for the good old days when one had more empty space than ships in those display cases.

Hi All,

As promised, this posting will be a bit of history and the story behind the Hatsuharu class of destroyers and why I chose them as my first foray into this run of IJN Destroyers.

In the late 1920's after the 1930 London Treaty limited weapons sizes, class weights and quantity of ships to be produced by the member nations that participated, there was a lot of thought given to just how far these numbers could be pushed to give the maximum effective weight and fire power combination's on the various classes of vessels. With the last run of ships produced and procured by the IJN at the close of WWI the Fleet Headquarters was determined that the rest of the Navy would be supplied by the home manufacturers rather than depend upon foreign ship yards and allied Navy's hand me downs to populate their proposed growing Navy. There were a number of ships in the IJN that were purchased or obtained as war reparations outright at this time.

To be in compliance with the Treaty limitations the Hatsuharu Class of Destroyers was designed to be smaller than the previous Fubuki and Akatsuki classes. Fleet Naval Designers pushed the sizes and quantity of weapons fits for the new design to be just slightly less than the previous classes. They also proposed features such as completely enclosing the bridge compartments with Steel Armor that would be proof against attacking aircraft, the AA control was to be more modern along with turret modifications that would allow the weapons systems to be capable of high angle fire as well as higher speed motors and gearing to allow the weapons systems to be more capable in the AA role. Add to that the torpedo launchers were to be given more Steel Armor Plating as a deterrent to strafing aircraft. To offset these design improvements which did add considerable weight above the center of gravity, certain features below the water line were to be made as light weight as possible. Of course, this did nothing to improve stability or handling. These shortcomings were rammed home in 1934 when the torpedo boat Tomozuru capsized in heavy weather due to similar conditions and again in 1935 when two of the Fubuki Class Destroyers had their bows ripped off in a typhoon. They were soon realizing all this modern construction and light weight standards were revealing a price to be paid in stability and durability.

As a result of these problems the first two ships of the Hatsuharu Class wound up being rebuilt twice before construction was even completed. When the Hatsuharu finally did get underway during her shake down cruise a turn of only 10 degrees on the ships wheel at high speed resulted in the ship heeling over at just over 38 degrees the realization that her center of gravity was just too high for a reliable fleet type destroyer designed to keep pace with an ocean going group. While her machinery had been designed with high pressure systems these were lighter in weight than the previous classes. To add some stability a set of 12 inch wide bulges that ran the length of the hull were installed to the first two ships and the next two were widened by a meter overall during construction. This little improvement did little to improve speed as the bulges were estimated to add 30 tons to overall weight. Another attempt to aid in stability was a plan to pump sea water into the fuel tanks as fuel was burned to help keep this valuable weight down low in the ship where it was needed the most. As the fuel oil floated on top of the sea water a floating pickup system was designed to feed her boilers.

Originally the weapons systems planned for the Hatsuharu class included the first superposed pair of turrets on the bow of the ship. The "B" Turret was to be mounted atop a cabin structure to bring it over the top of the forward turret and to save weight it was supposed to be a single mount with the forward turret a twin. With the higher speed motors and improved AA tracking systems installed the prohibitive weight problems finally caused this arrangement to be canceled in favor of a single High Angle of Fire capable twin 12.7Cm Turret with the high speed motors to drive the weapons and turret and modernized AA Tracking Equipment. To offset the original proposal of twin turrets forward there was supposed to be the same arrangement aft. This was slightly altered with the forward turret of the aft pair limited to a single barrel rather than two.

The original fit of secondary weapons was a pair of 40mm Vickers license built single mounts in the platform forward of the aft stack. As the war progressed, these were deemed to be too heavy, slow and short ranged being replaced on the Hatsuharu by two triple mount Hotchkiss 25mm Type 96 mounts. Other ships of the class received various combination's of single, double and triple mountings.

Originally there was going to be three 61CM Type 90 triple torpedo mounts along the center line offset slightly with the torpedo lockers and stacks to help in weight distribution. When problems started to arise in the design, the Navy's original requirement for only 6 tubes in two mounts was finalized over the designer's idea. The torpedo mounts were controlled by an electro-hydraulic system capable of traversing it a full 360 degrees in only 25 seconds, manual backup systems raised that to two minutes. Reloading the tubes from the endless wire and winch system used took only 23 seconds.

Originally there was provision for only 18 depth charges to be carried on the stern. In the Fall of 1942 this was doubled to 36 as US and Royal Navy Submarine forces started to show their teeth and capabilities. Originally there was no hydrophone or sonar equipment installed. This was remedied after the beginning of the war with a refit of Type 93 Sonar and Hydrophones. Originally there was no radar systems, as late as 1944 they finally did receive a Type 22 on the foremast and a Type 13 on the Mainmast.

So, as can be seen with all the teething troubles of this particular class, the IJN wound up with six destroyers of this class, although arguably the last two have been considered by many to be a separate Ariake Class. All six of them were lost during the course of the war, the Hatsuharu going down in November 1944 in an air attack in Manila Harbor suffering severely buckled plates and fires that saw her go down in shallow water.

Despite all the problems of the class, they were the first IJN destroyers with electro-welded plates rather than rivets. They also pioneered sea water weight replenishment in the fuel tanks as a displacement correction method. They were also the first high pressure live steam boiler systems in the IJN destroyer classes.

Hi All,

As I wind down the build of the IJN Light Cruiser Oyodo it is getting time to start working on the Hatsuharu. The first thing that I usually do is to take one or two shots of the unmodified hull to see just what I had to start with and act as a guide to remind me of any pieces that were originally represented that I may have forgotten about during the build.

While Aoshima's kit of the Hatsuharu is the older molding, Pit Road does have a newer one that is available. It does do a better job on the deck and structures as far as details go. But since the Aoshima kit is the one I have to work with, I will just add what I like as far as details are concerned and not be worried over their lack on an older ship kit.

As can be seen on this shot of the bow, you can see just how light weight the detailing is in things like the anchor chain, capstans and such. While it is possible to make them stand out by painting them over once the basic colors are painted in, I much prefer to add them as well as the chain plates which are completely overlooked. Mind you this is not a bad thing, it just reflects the level of detail that these old 1960's molds carried. At the time they were the only game in town. With the newer slide mold technology and other advances we can all enjoy on more modern offerings it is a great time to be a small scale ship modeler. While they did overlook the chain plates, I was pleasantly surprised to see a compete set of bollards and their mounting bases molded in even if they are a bit undersized. It does provide a location guide for home brew modifications to come later.



The mid ship section just offers basic shapes with kit parts to add a little more detailing. At least they left off the dreaded "Aztec Temple Stairs" to represent the ladder ways. I have already puttied in the anchor divots on the sides of the hull, sanded down and shaped the sides where the molding had a curious angled patch at the bridge deck. I also had to putty in the two places where the molding was joined with the sprue at two points. As careful as I was, there were a couple of bad spots that needed a little work. You can also note the two raised lines on top of the rear Torpedo Storage Magazine that they missed on top of the forward one for some reason. You can see all the dust that I have yet to blow off where my putty and sanding work was done. You can also notice the lack of doors, hatches, and storage boxes about the decks, features that we take for granted on more modern "tech" kits.



The fantail of the ship shows more of the "soft" detailing and shows where there are features that I will be removing and replacing with home brew pieces as well as PE.



As much as I grumble about these old kits, I really do enjoy working on them as it provides me a good inexpensive start to what can be a rather enjoyable project. With a few references, a good selection of PE sets from various manufacturers and some time taken, these can provide some very nice looking finished projects. I did find one of these models that I did a number of years ago, you can tell how long it is since it is strictly an out of the box build with just a few lines of stretched sprue rigging added. I will show some shots of it compared to the "revamped" version once I complete this one.

Hi All,

I couldn't resist getting started on this project. I used a shot that I found of the back of the Pit Road/Sky Wave version of the model to tell me where the linoleum started and ended on the main deck. I stretched out some sprue to a nice thin string of styrene to furnish the linoleum hold down strips and got started. In short order I came up to this, a little better detailed deck surface for my beginnings.



You can also see that I have mounted the forward torpedo magazine to the section of the engineering deck house it occupied and sanded it's top down smooth. I am going to be modifying it since the original molding didn't really represent the surface that the top of these sported. I came up with a picture of the Photo Etched set that Pit Road/Sky Wave has produced for the ship kit and one of the parts that it carries is the top and sides of the two torpedo magazines. That provided the information I needed to make the modifications but I will need a nice smooth surface to start with rather than the poorly molded on ribs that these carried.

The next thing I needed to do was rework the bridge deck house as it comes in the box as well as the single barreled 12.7Cm High Angle Turret and Barrel parts. These both suffer from some pretty bad molding flash, which is more of a sign of how old the molds are, a little gap is starting to appear with as many kits have been pulled out of the molds.



Taking a hobby knife and sanding stick to these parts made short work of all that flash. While I was at it, I smoothed off the sides of the deck house and discovered a few places where the styrene had sunk in a bit from the surface as it cooled off in manufacture. I also found a pair of ejector pin marks on the bottom of the mating surface that you can see here. These are just little things that you need to deal with in most model builds. More modern kits technology has seen things like this moved to less noticeable places or to places where they don't interfere with the assembly of the kit itself. But on older ones like this, you just need to pay attention and deal with them as they appear. I just sanded the surface smooth so that it would mate to the deck without being offset one way or the other.



As I was unable to find a Morskie Monograph on this particular ship class, or for that matter, very much in the way of references, I turned to the box art for some hints of what I could add to the model. Looking at the area of the deck house there I did discover a pair of supports that were at the bottom of the bridge wings, a couple of port holes on the lower level and secondary level as well as a pair of windowed doors and what appears to be a cable or hose reel mounted there as well. You can also see the life ring mounted on the end of the bridge wing. A pin vise and mini drill furnished the port holes on the lower level, Tom's Model Work's IJN Doors and Hatches set provided a pair of windowed doors and White Ensign's Watertight Doors set carries fire hose reels and life rings. The little bridge wing supports were fashioned out of some PE Fret that got cut down to size for the purpose. On other later ships and larger ships they would have used perforated triangular pieces of steel for this purpose which can be had from several different PE Manufacturers. I still have to drill out the second level port holes yet. I did add a hand rail from some stretched sprue to the front of the deck house, but as it is the same color styrene and very fine, it won't show up very well until painted and weathered with some shading washes.

Hi All,

Carrying on with the work on the bridge deck house, I started drilling the upper level port holes. Oops! I managed to drill a couple of them out of line with the rest. Actually this is a bit of an object lesson in not worrying too greatly about, drilling, cutting, hacking and whacking on the styrene kit parts in the process of realizing what you want to do with one of these things. Just about any thing that you do with the kit parts can be fixed, repaired, substituted or replaced; styrene is a very forgiving material to work with.



To refill the nice round holes, I just used a sprue from the kit, heated it up and stretched it out to produce some hole filling material. Since the plug that I am making is tapered, to taper the hole, add a little styrene liquid cement to the hole and the stretched sprue repair material and let it soften both parts a bit by waiting a couple of moments before you stuff the repair sprue into the hole. You will notice as you push it in place that it goes in, then slips a bit further, you can always add a little more cement to the area, if you are unsure about the fit from the inside of the repair area.



Once it has set up nice and dry you can use a chisel type Xacto hobby knife blade to shear off the excess sprue without digging into the surface of the repair area by orienting the angled side of the blade up and the flat portion down against the surface. In the case of my repair area, a bit of putty went in to smooth out a tiny hole and make the area flat and smooth as it was before putting drill to styrene.



Using a regular old #11 blade as a measuring and marking tool this time (actually, I used it for most of the other holes on the opposite side to prevent this sort of mayhem ), I laid out where I wanted the hole to go, keeping the tip of the blade at the place where I wanted to drill. Raising it up off the surface of the plastic and spinning the handle of the hobby knife makes a mark that will catch the tip of the mini drill and offer a good start to putting that hole where it belongs.

Backing up a damaged spot with some sheet styrene and then a second piece placed inside the backing where the damage is, what ever the shape, then puttying it over to fill in any imperfections will take care of some pretty major sized boo boo's. Learning the tricks like this will make you a lot more confident in your ability to modify kit parts without ruining a kit beyond building. If you think you have done some major damage to something, make a post and I am sure that one of the members of the forum can offer a number of ways around, out, past, over or under the situation.

The second part of this little posting is going to be about one of my favorite online model shops, Pacific Front Hobbies. Wanting to get the five ship classes that I need to complete my little dream project here, I started looking around to see who made what as well as who had one offered on their shelves (and, of course,seeing just how inexpensive I could get it for). As Pit Road/Sky Wave is pretty much one of the best kit manufacturer's out there for 1/700 scale (they collaborate with Trumpeter and other makers to bring out new kits and update parts to make old ones better all the time). I pretty much had my heart set on them for the kits I wanted to get. I looked at more than one place, checked availability and finally placed an order with Bill Gruner at Pacific Front last Tuesday for three of the five.

On Wednesday I got a note in the email inbox from Bill that said he had to substitute one of the kits as he didn't have it in stock and probably would be a while before getting another one. The substitute that he gave me was the same class, just a different set of decals in the box. Today when I checked the Post Office Box, there was one of those "Magic Keys" for a larger parcel box. Inside that was my package from Bill containing the three kits I had ordered with some packing material and an invoice reflecting what he had charged me, the same as what I had originally sent in even though one kit was different. Fast shipping, attention to the little details and being knowledgeable about your product line will get my vote and dollar every time. Thanks Bill!

Hi All,

Spending a little time at the bench over the course of the last couple of evenings has yielded a little more progress. I got to the point with the bridge that I needed to decide how to fit the windows and open that area behind them up a bit for the "see-through effect" I like to add. When they first started out with the 1/700 scale model ships, they suggested painting the area black, then they provided a small printed piece of paper that had the black areas sectioned with white dividers that could be clipped out and glued in place. I prefer to open the area up with a file first then smooth it and square it off with a sanding stick below where the roof section mounts like so.



You can also see that I have added a lot of small squares of styrene strip to the tops of the torpedo magazines to replicate the surface they carried. I picked this up from the PE set that Pit Road has made up for this class of IJN Destroyers. To fill the opening that I created in the front of the bridge I chose some extra vertical ladder stock from a Tom's Model Work's PE Fret. Trimming the railings and uprights off the sides provides a section that looks pretty close to right. Also these trimmed off bits will be handy in detailing other parts of the ship so don't toss them out quite yet.



The next thing to deal with is the range finder platform that was used to direct the fire of the forward turret. The kit part that is provided is a little thick and clunky as it is supposed to represent a platform with a railing that has been covered over with canvas as a spray guard. To remedy this situation required a little work.



I used a pair of fine pointed tweezers to hold it by the mounting pin and sanded it down on a sanding stick to remove most of the original thickness down to something that more closely looks like a platform. In reality it would still be too thick, but short of replacing it with a punched disk of brass this is an easier way to get there.



To finish it off only requires taking a small length of railing and curling it around a round object about the same size as the platform disk and adding it to the bridge in the mounting hole. Looking at the box art also shows a radio direction finding loop on a tripod on top of the bridge roof itself. There were also a set of spotting binoculars on binnacles on the roof wing platforms. I added these from a sheet of them I had made by Hasegawa. With the railings added, portholes drilled out, doors and other small bits of detail added, it is beginning to look more like what the picture shows.



You can also see on the bow of the ship that I have removed the original molded on vent, capstans and anchor chains. To replace all of that I started with a section of some Fly Hawk Fine Tread Plate that I found on the Lucky Model site. I also added an edge of some trimmed down styrene strip and a bit of smooth brass Fret to represent the anchor chain plating the ship carried. This looks a bit better than any plastic sheeting and I can attach the capstans and chain to it with some Super Glue. There is also a pair of bollards that will be going on there as well as a Fair Lead that went at the forward tip of the bow. All of these little details were picked up from looking at the frets of the Pit Road/Sky Wave model review mentioned earlier. On that model, using more modern molding technology, the entire bow piece is separate and attached allowing for all those little details that this older kit missed. But as you can see, adding them to this model really is just a matter of a little study and patience using various materials. Here is a shot of the Fly Hawk Tread Plating as you buy it, from the looks of the size of the piece, several bits for a few ship models can be had from just one.

Jay;

Another great class and I'm learning so much. Keep it coming.

Sam

Great work Jay! There are 2 new kits out by Skywave on the HLJ page. The Akikaze and the Kaki. I believe they are Minekaze class DD's. They are real cheap too, I preordered the Akikaze for myself.




Bob Pink.

Thanks Guys,

Appreciate the nice comments.

Bob, anything that Pit Road/Sky Wave is putting out is definitely worth a look see in my opinion. I currently have 15 of their kits in my stash and have built about that many or more in the past. Their newest offerings are bound to be nice ones.

As one of the Minekaze Class, the Akikaze should be a nice choice. Built immediately following WWI and in first line service through the 1930's, these 336 foot long rather speedy (39 knots or roughly 45 MPH) destroyers saw service through the second World War. By the out break of WWII they were considered obsolete due to riveted construction. They were used as Mine Sweepers, Air/Sea Rescue platforms and even Kaitan Carriers and service ships. It speaks volumes for Pit Road's choice of her as an offering considering that while escorting the Aircraft Carrier Junyo and Cruiser Kiso towards Brunei she put herself in between a full spread of torpedoes fired by the submarine USS Pintado at the Junyo. She went down with all hands as a result of her actions. Used mostly as an escort for troop transports, convoy escort and patrol duties earlier in the war, she saw lots of action. I look forward to seeing your build.

The Kaki looks very nice too, although the Hasegawa Wakatake is a very good kit, Skywaves should be better. I have a couple in progress builds of early war conversions as Patrol Boats. The Kaki would be interesting because in 1943 all her main armament was removed. I believe she only had secondary guns.
Hmmmm, looks like I'll be ordering her too. Now if I can just get my keester into the model room I'll be all set.

Keep at it Jay!

Hi Bob,

"Get my keester in to the model room, I'll be all set." Hehehehehe, yeah buddy, I hear that one. From the time I get up out of bed to go to the salt mines, it is the one thing that propels me through the day, that and the girl friend, money for more models, and time to enjoy them all.

Well, turning my attention back to the Hatsuharu, I got to work on working on the bow section some more. I added the start of the capstan and anchor chain handling gear first. more or less to establish their position on the chain bearing plate. To frame in the holes that go to the chain lockers I used some fine wire. I get the wire from Radio Shack, er. pardon me, "The Shack" as their current corporate name game insists they be called today. While you can often dig up fine wire from alternate sources such as old electronics and discarded house hold items, I like the convenience of having a standard size of enamel coated wire that readily accepts a coat of paint.

Wrapping a few turns around a conveniently sized mandrel, in this case the shaft of the metal compass point that I use to apply Super Glue to projects, turns out a number of small sized rings of wire. Using a fine pointed set of scissors to trim them off of the coil of wire yields several small circular wire shapes that I can form using a set of tweezers. Usually when you clip them off, they get deformed into stretched shapes that have to be tweaked a bit, but the circular curved shape over the majority of the wire holds up and lets you easily bend them into what I want. In this case, the wear surfaces that surround the openings into the chain locker and exit openings in the sides of the ship.

Looking at my reference picture of the Sky Wave model version let me locate and Super Glue the home brew parts onto the chain plate. This offers a little more detail to this area as well as provides a easily defined area to poke the hole for the chain to go into. I also clipped a pair of anchors and chain sections from one of the Tom's Model Works IJN Ship PE frets and assembled them.

Working with such tiny parts is a daunting task for some, but once you tinker around with these things you develop a method for your madness. In my case, I use a 4" X 4" white ceramic tile that I came up with. The White Tile lets various colors of material in tiny sizes show up very well and offers a hard surface to cut them on. One problem is that you need to use a finger tip or something to hold the parts down when you cut them otherwise you will discover the joys of "tweezer-pulting" or having your tiny parts disappear into the carpet monster or Twilight Zone as they come free. I have also seen some modelers use a layer of clear food wrap to help in holding the parts down and keep from losing them. But I prefer to use the ever handy Mark One Digit for this task. Dipping the tip end of the anchor into a dot of Super Glue then picking up the cross bar with the now sticky end of the anchor and positioning it in place where it should go with some fine pointed tweezers is the easiest way to get these two parts together for me.

The section of chain that is attached to the head of the anchor needs to be twisted so that it looks more like the alternating links of chain rather than a length of flat links. Using the fine pointed tweezers, in this case two sets makes this happen. I used a set of locking tweezers to hold one link while twisting the one above and below to shape the chain. Working down the length of the chain makes it look as it should quickly and easily. While some ultra tiny chain would be nice, in this case for this size of a ship model it would need to be along the size of about 75 links per inch. Unfortunately, the smallest size I have managed to come up with is 42 links per inch. That works okay for ships larger than destroyers like cargo ships, cruisers, air craft carriers, and battleships.

So here is the top view of what I have managed so far on the bow.



Looking at the side you can see where I mounted the openings and their chain bearing surfaces. You can also see the puttied over dimples that is one of the usual problems that model makers run into forming the graceful
compound curved bow sections of these small scale ships. This happens as the styrene cools after being injected into the mold. In some cases they try to disguise this problem by molding the anchor openings at this point but looking at the box art actually shows the location to be a bit further forward than where the dimple is. This little wrinkle is not just a problem with destroyer sized ships, I have seen it on all sizes of ship classes and more or less try to make the correction as early in the build process as possible to avoid trying to handle a model that is rigged out and railed.



I will be poking a set of holes into the chain lockers onto the upper deck surface with a mini drill and pin vise then use a pointed round Swiss File to further shape it. Doing all this work sometimes makes the wire forms come loose. It isn't a big issue, but it does happen. Replacing these is easy enough once the holes are formed and having them glued down to start with makes for an easy location device. Having a ready supply of extras is also easy and cheap in case the parts disappear into the carpet monster or Twilight Zone when they come loose. Can you tell that I am "very" familiar with both.

Jay, another amazing WIP and build. As I mentioned before, your builds are a must read for me and are always bookmarked for future reference. Again, thank you for taking the time to explain so many of the steps, techniques and background info on the ships. As another poster mentioned, your WIPs are a "class"..cheers

Thanks James,

Sorry for the delay in posting but it has been a busy couple of weeks for me at the salt mines and aside from that and a little time in the evenings to work on my little project that was about all I had time to deal with.

At any rate, I have been busy. I assembled the stacks after looking them over. They suffered from some sink holes in the sides which needed to be filled and I like to open the tops up so I can install some vents and grills, even on such tiny subjects as this. I also removed the steam vent pipes that were molded on to the front and rear of the front stack and the forward one on the aft stack. I like adding these later after all the clean up and fill work is done. Drilling out the tops of the two cap sections for each was accomplished easily enough for the forward stack. The after stack however was so small that when I started to drill it out the sides cracked and it just went into pieces. I made a replacement piece from some appropriately sized styrene stick, drilled out the opening and shaped it from the inside before attempting to match it to the stacks' outside dimensions. Having the thicker material to work with saved it from suffering the same fate of the original. I added grill work from some sections of old PE tower pieces.

With the stacks shaped up it was time to turn my attention to the steam vent pipes. I made these all up from some stretched sprue. While the kit supplied molded on ones for the stacks, they omitted the one vent pipe that went up the side of the forward stack and was terminated with a double headed tip. I found the tip from one of the Sky Wave Extra Equipment sets I keep on hand for such things and after shaping the pipe and gluing it in place I added the tip.

The next thing on the list was the two single mount 40mm guns I wanted to use for this version of the ship. The kit supplies some generic triples that would be used if modeling it for a later incarnation, but the single mounts were appropriate for the earlier unmodified ship. The platform that holds these was first sanded down top and bottom. The top to remove the overly thick splinter shield and over sized gun mounting positions, the bottom to remove the molded supports and overly thick supporting flanges. Once I had it's basic shape I started to rebuild it by using some typing paper cut down to the size for the splinter shielding. Working in segments and using CA to attach it to the edge of the platform I soon had a much thinner splinter shield in place. I selected a pair of PE wood base platforms and topped these with a pair of single mount 40mm guns from the Sky Wave Extra Equipment sets. Four Ammo Lockers from the Fly Hawk AA Ammo Locker set were added and then I flipped it over and added a pair of support posts from some styrene rod. Using the remnants of the original triangular supports that had been molded on, I used some Lion's Roar Triangular Perforate pieces to add more in scale replacements.





The main gun turrets were the next thing to work on. The shot below shows what I had to work with and what I did with them. The first pair of turrets on the left are the original kit pieces. These had sink holes and some sloppy molding and were one of the reasons that they included the fret of Light Ship Extra Equipment pieces with this kit to give you a much better choice to use. The second ones are what the Extra Equipment set supplies, much nicer. The third pair are the first stab I made at adding a few things to make them look a bit better. I tried adding sections of trimmed down railing but these required too much CA that dried looking pretty bad and was not what I liked. The fourth set on the far right side are the ones I made up adding the vents to the sides and using sections of a radar mattress trimmed down to add all the sections of railing that these particular mounts featured.



So with all these little improvements that I have accomplished in the last couple of weeks, this is where I am at with the Hatsuharu now. I have to add the deck plating section on the fantail and a few other details here and there before I can add the masts and then some paint.

Hi Jay:

She is coming along nicely! Not to nitpick but the two 40mm guns you selected are actually 4.9 in main guns. The single 40mm's are much smaller in comparison.



Keep up the good work, I love to follow your progress.



Bob Pink.

I love your work so far Jay. Just awesome....Cheers Mark

OOPS!

Sorry, it has been a while since I posted to this one hasn't it. Well, lets see, uh, Bob, I did replace those over sized guns, finally found some that were more suited to represent what I wanted. Just had to dig around through the Sky Wave Parts sets a bit. Since then, well, spring has sprung and rolled into summer, with that comes the yearly fish bite. Between work, fishing and getting my first 1/1 scale Kayak to fish off of at Lake Mead, modeling has sort of taken a bit of a hit. But I haven't given it up, just sort of sitting on the back burner. When the cold weather comes back, I won't be sitting out there on the kayak and I will be back at the bench.