photo etch. The boat parts, stanchions and wire are extra, the others come with the basic kit.

Other stuff...



Includes all secondary signal lamps and spotlights, but not the navigational lights, so that Ishida set will still be useful.

and more stuff













Lower parts of the main cannon barbettes. Also, note that the doors to the boat hangars are correctly portrayed.

and yet more stuff...





There are three sets of these, with canvas blast bags allowing you to put the cannon in raised or lowered position, or a combination there of. The sand bags around the two forward single 25MM guns can be built up with a couple of layers. However, there are no additional sand bags for the triple mounts, so the Ishida set would probably be useful.





The odd double-pronged pieces are the ships keel, molded separately. The thicker pieces are internal bracing.



Interior portions of the enclosed observation deck (the one just below the open one) are included, with additional binocular sets to go in it. There should be an included ladder and hatch going between the two, but that can be a scratch build project if you're interested.





Each of the turrets includes a full internal representation of the gun. Nott sure how you would display these for view. Also, includes the full barbette, going all the way down into the hull, so you can pull the whole thing off the ship and examine it.



The boat set is a generic "extra" that came as part of the HJ package deal. There is now room to place all these boats in a "stowed" position, not like you could see more than one of them. I may use this set for the original Tamiya kit and portray the new one "under way".



As in the original kit, Tamiya has faint representations of the jack stays along the sides of teh funnel. You'll probably want to sand these off and add the set included in Lionroar #2.

Thanks Doug, that is a very nice guided tour of the new Yamato. It contains some extremely delicate moldings and the parts tally must be huge, (explaining the price tag). Not too sure about the stanchions and wire though
Cheers,
Julian

Hi Julian, yes, parts list is quite extensive and there really is no comparison to the old kit. There are 3-4 additional "parts-up" PE sets that Tamiya has released to go along with it, the stanchions set being one of them. I'm thinking that Lionroar #2 probably would be the better alternative, both from an over-all price perspective (once you add the costs of all those together) for quality of the set, and for additional items it contains. Obviously the new kit is no longer designed to be a motorized toy, but there are still a few compromises included to allow construction by intermediate modelers. So, PE above what's included will be advised. The stanchion set could be useful in places where your simulated gutter guard would not be appropriate, such as on top of the main turrets. However, WEM does have PE railing without the lower guide and I may use that instead. We'll have to see what additional 3rd-party PE sets come out in support of the kit. I know that Mr. Ishida was not happy with the release since it potentially dried up demand for some of his sets, but actually, many of them will still be useful and improvements, if you want to spend the extra money to add them in. I'm going to go back and add comments for some of the posted pics now.

Hi Doug. I have followed your Yamato build since the beginning. It was going to be the inspiration for my own build of the "Old Tool" Yamato. I even went so far as to purchase the parts offered by Mr. Ishida. They really are quite nice. I already had all the other aftermarket parts you have mentioned including the LionRoar sets. I am disappointed that no new entries have been made to this thread since December of last year. Have you decided to discontinue your build? Is it because of the "New Tooling" Yamato? Do you plan a build of the New Yamato? Any update you can provide would be appreciated. I sincerely hope you plan to continue this build.

Jack

Hello Jack, I apologize to you and any others who may have been following this blog for the very long hiatus between postings. I do very much intend to continue with this build, and perhaps your inquiry can serve to rekindle my creative muse. Since the beginning of the year, I have been heavily involved in a musical project with several other persons here in Seattle, and that has been taking all of my time and energy to get off the ground. If you are interested, you can follow my progress on Facebook via the band page "The Science of Deduction". Composing and creating music (electronically) is much like model making and is my other great passion, so I made a conscious decision to put the kit temporarily on hold until the band was well along. I suppose I should have said something to that effect but I was not expecting the break to be quite so long. The fact that I am writing now this tells me that it is time to devote some attention to the kit again. Regarding the new Yamato kit, I have not worked on it either (or any other kit) during this time period. Although it is much superior to the old one in many ways, the vast number of add-ons I bought for the original kit do much to increase the quality level, and having spent so much on it, dropping it entirely is completely out of the question. So much thanks for your inquiry, I will post something soon. As a matter of fact, Mr. Ishida just sent me some photos for some new replacement parts he just released, so I will add them here tomorrow. Regards, Doug

It is good to hear that you are cmong back to it, even if slowly!
Guido

Hi Doug.
Same here as well.
I finally got ahead and bought the new tool kit along with the Pontos set .Flyhawk and LionRoar i think have released a set for it as well the last month.The new tool kit and the etch sets are beautiful no doubt and they can save one a LOT of time correcting the old Tamiya Yamato.Still as you said, i too have invest rather a lot of time and effort , not to mention the money spent on extras , on the old kit just to leave it aside.

As i was planning to put the old tool Yamato in a seascape, i am leaning now towards having the new tool mounted on pedestals so all the beautiful detail of the underwater hull wont go missing.Pontos have released a set of brass pedestals , so that makes my life a bit easier , plus i can make a nice wood base myself .

But as you have other activities keeping you away from the model, i too have other models which in the meantime scream for my attention , so even though i am eager to start (yet another!) the kit , i have to wait till i make some room on my workbench.

No doubt though this thread will come alive once again with a vengeance i might add

I am really looking forward to seeing make more progress Doug....Cheers Mark

Test shots for some new products being developed be Mr. Ishida. These can presumably be used on either the new or old toolings of the kit:



Updates to the design of the aircraft hangar doors and the venting fans to the aircraft hangar.



Updates to the open mount AA guns. Note the hanging mats that were draped over the shields of some mounts.



Updates to the linoleum strips, with correct designs for both Yamato and Musashi. If you are interested. Mr. Daisuke Ishida now has a Facebook page where you can contact him directly. I'm told that there are additional sets he plans to release in the near future.

Another set from Mr. Ishida, in this case, life rings and their frames:



Although several other PE sets have the frames, I have not seen this many in one place or with resin life rings.

Also, I have finally started back to work on the kit, adding new replacement pieces to the bow area. I should have a photo or two to share tomorrow.

Nice to see you back online Doug, keeping us in suspense here
Cheers,
Julian

Hi Julian, I have actually been working on the kit again the last several nights, adding deck details (mostly Ishida pieces) to the bow area. Right now, I am adding very thin strips to simulate the plate welds on the deck of the bow, using the piece from the new mold as a guide. It's a bit tedious, so I may be another day or two until I get some photos posted. Cheers...

Hi Doug!

Good to see that you are back! Go on with this build, and you'll set a new
standard!

Many greetings from Switzerland

Michael

Looking forward to seeing you get back into this one also Doug.....Cheers Mark

OK folks, as promised, I have not given up on Yamato and am now back to work, although I can't guarantee how constantly I'll be working given other commitments. Below summarizes my efforts on the Yamato's bow deck over the last several days, with the intent on adding much more detail than is included in the original mold. Most of the corrections shown here are included on the new mold:



Overhead view that shows everything worked on recently, which can be divided into Ishida replacement pieces and scratch builds to represent plate welds and a replacement chafing plate. BTW, Super Illustrated Yamato (and no one else) shows two elbow-style air vents/fans located directly in back of the capstans. Since the pieces are included in the Hasegawa "extras" package, I went ahead and added them. Also note that I built up the break water located at teh far end of the area. This is represented in the original mold, but is much fainter and less pronounced. My new piece also serves to hide the filling necessary to adjust for my new deck.



Angled view with a better view of how the new pieces appear so much nicer than the originals. While scraping off the molded-on anchor chain, I was left with an unattractive corrugated effect on the chafing plate and scratch-built replacements out of thin clear plastic sheeting. The mottled effect is actually the glue on the underside, which will disappear from view once painted. The new mold does not have chafing plates under the two secondary anchor chain pieces, but this was impossible to represent without sanding off all of the deck grid pattern first.



The pattern for the weld lines was copied from the new Tamiya mold, but stylized to a degree since my plastic strips are a bit over-scale, and adding all of them would have made the area just too busy. However, note that unlike earlier representations, the plates along the sides of the deck are angled to follow them, rather than parallel to the hull.



Another over head view with a better look at the capstan replacement parts. There are four extremely tiny brake handles included in the Ishida set that go here, but I will not attach them until after spray painting to avoid losing them to the air pressure.



One more close-up of the bow, showing the Ishida fairleads and chrysanthemum piece.

Probably not as easy to do as you make it look Doug but it's a great way to liven up that piece of deck. Have to remember that if I ever get around to the Yamato that has been lurking in my stash for a few years
Julian

Wow..... Nice work!!!! Uuuffff my god!!

Excellent Kit ... excellent Photogravures ...... excellent modelista ....... is this going to be??????? ... jejjeje only excellent!!!!!
Hereabouts I will be!!!

Reagards Daniel

Thanks Daniel and Julian, the weld lines are made with Plastruct 0.3 mm rod, which is the smallest that is commercially available. Some brass rod might be smaller, but adjusting to the right lengths is an involved process requiring several fits, which is not conducive to using brass. What I did was take a large size Post-it note and cut off most of it with an Exacto blade, leaving mostly only the sticky section. I then placed the post it note along the line where the weld is going to go as a guide. Then, you dip the far end (only) of one of the adjusted rods into super glue and align it adjacent to the starting point of the line. Don't dip the entire rod at once, because the pieces are notoriously difficult to align, being very light and subject to every slight movement or your breath. Once the far end is attached, lift up the rest of the rod with your Exacto blade and run some super glue from a pin along the bottom side of the rod. You have to keep turning the pin because the glue will gravitate to the bottom side of the pin. Then, move your blade out, and the rod will drop right into place, already attached. The rod is so thin that you can still adjust the length after gluing with the tip of your blade if necessary.

Hello everyone, another long break, and all I can say is that getting to that magical retirement date and having enough time for multiple hobbies is looking better and better. Anyway, I should be back to work on Yamato shortly. Before I do, I want to take the time to post some additional reviews of the new Ishida sets. Shortly after posting pictures of the new sets, Mr. Ishida sent me a copy of all of them, so I have been very remiss in not reviewing them before now. I plan to post an additional review on the main page of MSW as well.As mentioned, all of these sets are intended for the new 2011 Yamato mold. As you can imagine, the release of this kit has damaged his sales of existing sets, so not only has he begun the process of filling in gaps in the new kit (and yes, there are a few places that can be enhanced), but he has upgraded his packaging with a view for placing on store shelves, at least in Japan.

First, a review of the life ring retaining racks and the aircraft/boat hangar ventilation windows:



As noted previously, the set also comes with resin life rings. The windows each have a ventilation fan that goes inside them, which required a little bit of folding.



The instructions show you exactly how to go about doing this...

Another look at the linoleum non-skid strips on the aircraft handling deck, which contain versions for Musashi, Yamato 1941-44, and Yamato 1945



Scan of the instructions for placement...

Instructions for placing the AA screens that are included on the main PE sheet.







You'll note that unlike Mr. Ishida's prior version, which had sand bags included for all open mount deck shields, this set includes Tatami mats that drape over the sides of many shields. I don't know the very latest thinking on which mounts had bags and which did not, so I think where you place them may be something of a personal decision. Tatami, by the way, is a straw color, much like the "new" hinoki cypress that everyone still insists on painting their decks.