Normally, i do figure and armor modeling, but i have gotten a great deal on a tamiya 1/350 battleship musashi kit recently off of ebay (26 bucks). when i build kits these days, i tend to go all out with aftermarket parts such as PE which brings me to my question.

Before i order parts i need to know a few things. I plan on doing a wooden deck and know that they are sold, but how are these applied? are they a really thin sticky back type of application or is there going to be some reconstruction to apply the wooden deck?
Also, to prepare myself for buying aftermarket PE kits, is there one that is going to have everything or am i going to be looking for multiple kits. i saw that eduard had a super detail kit, but i am not sure if that is a set that has every single thing imaginable, in PE terms, for this kit or is there still a couple things that can be purchased aside from that?
I am also looking to do aftermarket gun barrels and i know that those will not be included with the eduard PE i will be doing the 46cm barrels, the 15.5cm barrels, and the 25mm barrels.

any extra info on things i can look to get or watch for in the build are appreciated. thanks in advance

This is a good list of options for your kit Jesse:

http://www.freetimehobbies.com/search.aspx?find=1%2f350+musashi

You'll notice that you have more than one option for PE sets, metal barrels, and wooden decks. RB also makes a set of 460mm barrels, but you'll have to source them from another hobby shop or ebay.

Lion Roar is the company that you'd most likely want to be looking at for an "all in one" detail up set. They do make one for the Yamato, but not one that is specifically designed for the Musashi, so I don't know if this would be of use to you.

Hi Jesse

I can recommend the Eduard set for this ship as I used it just recently. Don't buy from Eduard though as they are too expensive. Much cheaper from Lucky Model or similar.

Wooden deck by Artwox is great, and the armament set from Master is excellent.

Go to http://modelshipwrights.kitmaker.net/forums/190902&page=1 to see the questionable results..

Cheers
Warren

with the wooden deck, i found that it is basically a sticker. when applying the wooden deck, is any prep work needed for the deck?

as awesome as the multiple upgrade options are, they also make it hard to figure out what to get. although many things are listed as yamato, they should, in theory, work for the musashi as well since they were the same ship for the most part until the yamato went through upgrades.
There are so many kits, but i am no expert on ships, so i dont know what would work. i found these for the 25mm guns and assume they "should work".www.ebay.com/itm/350580146201?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
there is also the triple AA guns-http://www.ebay.com/itm/110865602154?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
and single AA guns-http://www.ebay.com/itm/250901633334?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

Unfortunately, i dont know of those guns are accurate as to what should be on the ship.

Since this is really the only large ship i will probably build, i want to make this one worth it. so, i definately want to do all of the PE as possible. it seems that some kits have parts that others dont. problem will be weeding through them to see which to get. i would love to do the lion roar ultimate kit, but its 100$ even on ebay

with the eduard PE, did it come with the grate above the exhaust stack? or any of the catwalks around the stack? ive seen some kits offer that, but not all do.

If you take a few minutes on google you'll be able to find most of what you need. The Musashi used a total of 36 25mm AA guns (8x3 and 4x3), which means that she had 8+4 stations with the triple-gun mounts. You will notice that they are in shields, so unless you are displaying your build with any of them removed I think you will probably be happiest with the metal barrel set.







As for the Eduard PE does this help?

Looking online, it seems the best kit is the lion roar set which includes everything, but is listed for the yamato. Knowing how model companies have universal frets for their kits, the LR kit, even though it is for the Yamato, should work. At most, will have extra parts. I hope that there will not be any major altering to get the parts to fit.

Has anyone used the LR kit for the musashi and know of what issues I may run into by using it?

I have used a lion roar kit before on a different ship. I found the fit quit good an once in a while you had to do a bit of work to replace some parts. Very very extensive. The Mushashi kit is almost identical to the early Yamato kit ( they redid that one to get all the things they left off and did wrong right.. now tha is a specail kit but costs close to $400 now ) so the LR will go great with it. The major change is the section of deck where the Yamato had those multiple 3x 25mm turrets..
You have to decide how much work you want to do. You can get the gun tube set railing set and other details from a couple of differnt pe sets and in the long run cheaper than the Lion Roar. Honestly I think you would be happier with the Eduard PE set that Jeremy used and buy the Gun tube set and wood deck.

I use a 3m spray adhesive when i mount my wood decks. I don't think I used any with sticky on the back though, so that mway be simpler and less work/mess

Like i said in my earlier post, i was going to take a risk and use the firehawk PE kit in hopes that the newly tooled yamato kit wasnt extensively changed with sizes of everything and what not. i expected there to be some reworking that i would need to do with parts. so far, so good. i got 2 of the 3 turrets done. here is the 2nd one i have completed.

Yes Jesse, it came with those in the set, but not necessarily referred to.

came with what in the set?

well, i have been plugging away at the flyhawk PE set for the newer yamato kit. there are a couple things that dont fit, but nothing that cannot be fixed manually. So far, i really love the set, but my only problem with it so far is the fact that i either didnt get the full set of instrutions, or it simply doesnt tell you where ALL of the parts go. i will have extra parts simply because there arent instructions or anything that tell you where to put them. i believe that the kit includes anti mine cables, but i cannot tell because the instructions dont even mention those parts (just one example). there are also railing posts that can be used to make your own railings but do not mention anything about using them in the instrutions. i just happen to know that they are for railings because i found a picture that flyhawk posted with example photos of the kit they were doing.

i am hoping i just dont have all of the pages to this