My next build for your amusement is the Aoshima 1/350 scale IJN Kongo as it appeared in 1944. Ever been surprised how three big hobby companies all seem to have started in the Japanese city of Shizuoka? Yep, Aoshima, Hasegawa and of course Tamiya are all located there. There may be others but these are the three I can remember. This is the first Aoshima kit I will be attempting, the first Flyhawk detail set I will have used, and the first Wood Hunter wooden deck I will have used. This is the First Edition of this kit and came with some special parts including a small sheet of PE and some pre-war carrier planes, all labelled as Type 96 Carrier Planes in the instructions but all entirely different.

The top of the sturdy cardboard box has a nice painting of the Kongo cruising along minding its own business, probably just before their cruise was interrupted by the ship being sunk..

Inside of said box are many sprues with most of them in seperate plastic bags. There is also another cardboard box within the box to help protect the smaller sprues from getting damaged in transit.

The instructions are in black and white on glossy paper with 28 pages and 61 construction steps. They appear to be nice and clear.

Sorry about the quality of that photo (slaps wrist). Here we have the wooden deck from Wood Hunter. It comes with a sheet of PE and an anchor chain.

Close-up of the deck..

Sheets of nicely etched PE.

And a nice fine anchor chain.

Next up is the Fkyhawk detail set. This has at least 14 sheets of PE and two different types of turned brass barrels. There could be more sheets of PE but I have not opened one of the plastic bags as yet. Etch of the frets is in its own zip-lock bag. Barrels look as though they have been polished.

PE instructions look to be pretty clear but even though they supply lots of different types of railings in the set they forgot to tell you were to install them.
Too cover this stupid ommission I got this set..

.. which is the Aoshima set of railings for the Kongo. The shadow of destruction in the background is called Gordon. But fear not as he hasn't destroyed anything model wise for a few years now.
So there you have it. My next project after I have applied a lick of paint to the U-Boat I built in a few hours yesterday for the Dive 3 campaign. I have heard some things about Aoshima fit being bit average, but I am sure it will be much better than the New Jersey I just finished (shudder).
Cheers
Warren

Nice choice Warren, beautiful ship and great selection of after market add-ons.
cheers,
Julian

Will watch this with real Interest Warren. I have the Fujimi one in the Cupboard.....Cheers Mark

I will try and do it justice Sir.
Cheers
Warren

What haven't you got in that gigantic cupboard Mark?
My ultimate goal is to have all mine out on shelving so I can perv at them when ever I want. At the moment most of them are in 5 large cupboards, seven tea chests and book shelves in the hobby room.
The only problem with having them on shelves would be the chance of ants deciding to make nests in them, and that wouldn't be good.
Best they stay where they are I think.
Cheers Mark
Warren

Bad idea Warren putting my stash on shelves in full view of the Mrs. There are easier ways of committing suicide I think I will leave the lot up in the attic, only problem is that it keeps getting harder to get into the attic .............................................................
Julian

Another interesting looking build Warren, with lots of great looking aftermarket.

Wood Hunter, not familiar with them, will be interested to see hwo tha deck looks when fitted.

Si

Just have to be careful when the roof rafters start to bend under the load, mate.

I got 3 tonne rated shelving which I think is a little over the top, but it looks good in the man cave..

You can always hire one of those little self-storage units and hide them there. Hope I am being helpful..

Thanks Si.

I will be finally starting her sometime today. Got interrupted by a build of a 1/700 HMS Antelope Type 21 Frigate for a review. 1/700 ships seem to take about a day to build and a day to paint.

While I finish of a build of a 1/700 HMS Antelope I thought I would gather some figures for you relating to the build;
There are 590 plastic parts in the kit.
There are 38 PE parts in the kit.
The Flyhawk detail set has 1243 individual PE parts and 16 brass barrels in it.
The railings set has 54 pieces in it.
So all up there are about 1929 parts for me to assemble for this version of the Kongo, not that huge a number but enough I think.

A few more preliminaries while the hull dries..

These shiny brass frets are not easy to take photos of. This is one of the two large ones in the Flyhawk set. Notice brass propellers.

Here is one of the main armament barrels, a 14 inch gun.

Then one of the casement guns.

I've started!!

Excuse the mess in the background but here is the hull precariously perched on the top of my compresser.. I did remember to take it off before recharging the tank..
It measures about 660mm long and seems to be wide for its length. Fit of the hull was great. Hopefully the rest of the bits will fit as well. I don't think there will be any, but gaps between decks can be disguised by the wooden deck. Yet another advantage of these wonderful accessories!
Cheers for now
Warren

G'Day from Downunder.
The hull is together and I opened up the open portholes and hawsepipes.

Next step was the anchors. The kit ones, while cleanly moulded and well detailed for plastic just look mighty plain and a bit small to my eye..

The Flyhawk set comes with replacement anchors. The main anchors look like this before bending etc

Then after assembly it looks a little better than the kit anchors don't you think? Sorry it is a bit blurry..

And then after the two are done.

Ready for paint and installation on the model.
After I painted the Surcouf I had a bit of Hull Red left over so I shot it on the Kongo. Didn't want to waste the paint or put it back in the jar as I don't want to thin the paint too much. This bottle I have had since about 1995 so this year it is 18 years old and still going strong. Tamiya paints in the old, larger jars seem to last forever.
Anyhow, more piccies tomorrow hopefully.
Cheers
Warren

Off to a really nice start Warren and I have less in my Cupboard then you might think.....Cheers mark

I will believe you Sir.

Quick update, the rumours regarding the bad fit of this kit seem to be totally unfounded so far, All three of the deck pieces have almost acted like snap-fit pieces with only tiny gaps between the forecastle and the main deck. This will disappear with the installation of the wooden deck as it is a one piece item that covers those two decks.

I have decided to use Kure Arsenal Grey, Tamiya XF-75, as that was where the Kongo had her last refit and mods done before she was sunk. Why can't all paint be as easy to apply as Tamiya's XF series?

As it happens I also have one of the Kongo's sister ships, the Fujimi Haruna in the stash and it will be interesting to see how different the detailing is between the two models.

I am surprised at how good the detail is on this ship, even the guns have holes in the muzzles, and I am thinking of using only a very small amount of PE and brass on it just to see how it comes out. But I will probably crack and slather PE everywhere.

Photos tomorrow.
Warren

I am at a turning point in the build, a fork in the road of the build.
Down one road I use every scrap of PE I can fling at the ship and take quite a few months to do it and try and nut out some fairly rubbishy instructions.
Here is the plastic mainmast

And here is part of the PE replacement parts.

As you can see the PE part is a bit more detailed and has that extra platform I have not seen in the kit, but how do I mate it to the plastic bits that must remain? There isn't even a hint in the instructions on how to do it and it could be very easy to stuff up if you cut something in the wrong place.
But if I go with a basic OOB build the detail already present in this kit is outstanding..


And that is just two areas. The PE set would have me cut off the perfectly good ammo boxes and replace them with foldrd PR parts, tons of them..
Here is where the hull and deck is up to so far,


And I have started the mainmast as you can see from above.
I think I will put the Kongo aside for a little while and ponder which way to go. Don't want to rush in and regret it later.
Can anyone point me to a sight that shows differences between the Kongo and Heie or Kirishima? The Haruna was a lot different by 1944.
Cheers
Warren

Kongo 1936:



Hiei 1926:



Kirishima 1932:



Haruna 1934:



Have you glue down the main deck yet Mr. Inman?
cheers,
Julian

Yes Sir it is glued down. Nothing much gets done PE wise there anyway. I know the torpedo buldges are not 100% correct but that doesn't worry me as much as the trapezoidal casements would.
Am retiring to the hobby room to decide the kits fate.
Cheers
Warren

The casements on the Fujimi Haruna were rather c*** too. The instruction sheet for the Fujimi PE set is the worse I have ever seen. Think they have the same designer?
Be a shame to pack in this soon. Your PE foremast looks impeccable sir
Have a quick Fosters and a Wombat sandwich and decide which fork in the long and windy road you choose
Julian

You are quick to reply Mr Sallows.

Thank you for the praise on the PE. Coming from one of my peers that means a lot.

I agree about packing it in so early. I will have a closer look today and make the decision. I don't like to vacillate too long as it tends to p__s me off!!

Is a bit early for a beer (6am) but I will go and have another coffee and ponder the situation.

Have a great evening Sir
Warren

Greetings
I have made the decision to only use brass bits for the gun barrels this time, and that is only because the Aoshima ones are supposed to be too big. But I will be investigating this for myself before I make the final decision.
Here is the state of play,

Two funnels are awaiting the caps. There are just sitting there dry at the moment for the photo, same as the mainmast/bridge,

Don't worry, I didn't paint over the windows, they are masked up beneath the layer of paint.

No binoculars have been put in place as yet either.

I think the detail is fantastic for plastic. Most of the braces and struts are represented as well.
I studied the planes of the PE for a while this morning and realised that I should not have glued the mainmast together before removing all the bits I needed to to install the brass. Lack of planning on my part. My solution will be to get another Kongo and use the PE set on it and sit the PEed and UnPEed models together just to show the difference.
I have already got a source for a new Kongo at a reasonable price, but am too poor to buy it at the moment due to be slightly out of work. Oh well, lucky there is a sh&t-load of kits in the stash to keep me going.
Cheers Everyone and thanks for looking.
Warren

Hmmm.. I have come up against another problem.. Not insurmountable but a blunder by Hunter. The wooden part that goes on the first level of the superstructure is missing cutouts for all the ammo boxes surrounding the guns. They are present for all the other but not this one. Sigh.

I was going to cut the boxes off and use PE ones but the piece that covers the main deck goes under a lot of parts that are already glued in place. Sigh again.

So I will keep this deck for my full-Monty Kongo of the future and buy an Artwox set for this one, that has the necessary cut-outs and doesn't run under decking already in place...

More photos later...

Warren it's great to watch your progress on this as somewhere deep in my stash I also have this kit, so your endeavours to over come are of interest to me. Well done so far.

Can you tell me more about the wooden decks in general as although I have seen them around I've not picked up a set, do you need to remove every thing from the kit deck first etc?
Are there any reviews on wooden decks?

Hi Luciano.

The wooden decks I use are thin pieces of wood with an adhesive backing which you stick down on painted plastic. Normally pretty easy to do but I have found errors in a few lately.

There are reviews of wooden decks on steelnavy.com and modelwarchip.com.

If you are after one for this kit and don't want to scrape away any deck detail get the Artwox one as it has the correct holes in it for deck details. They are all moulded on the deck in the Aoshima kit and are pretty good! No need to go and remove them all. The Hunter one I have here has a mistake and holes are not provided for ammo boxes on the first level of the superstructure at the front.

Another thing you need to watch for is that these Japanese ships have wooden decks on some levels of their pogoda masts and you need to install these decks as you go or it makes it much more difficult to do as I am finding out,

I made a mistake with the main deck also as the Humter deck goes under an area that is completely hidden from view when you install one part of the deck. I didn't do enough planning for this accessory so now I have to bite the bullet and get the Artwox one as well that has the cutouts and doesn't dive under any roofs.. I hope!

Anyway, these wooden decks are a vast improvement on the painted plastic ones in my opinion and I try to use them whenever I can. Again, my opinion, you can't make anything look more like wood than real wood.

Any more questions feek free to ask mate
Cheers
Warren

The new Artwox wooden deck turned up today so expect some progress on the mighty Kongo again
Cheers
Warren

A quick update..

The erroneous one is on the left, the correct Artwox one on the right.


Looks like the planking marking is a little off in the second shot, but you would have to know where to look for the problem if you were looking with the naked eye.

Freshly sprayed lino on the aft section of the upper deck.
And that is it for now.
Cheers
Warren