Grandpa PJs!

Mark,

Thanks for the heads up. I will keep that in mind as I move forward.

Dave

Warren

No making fun of the PJs...lol!!!

Nice work on the gussets, David. They are a massive number of tedious details to apply, but they add great depth of detail for those of us who care to notice them!

Tim,

Thank you, the gussets have been a major challenge and never ending. Its enough to drive you insane.

Oh and there are a ton more to go for the flight deck!!

Dave

Hey everyone,

Time for another update.

The Shokaku is moving forward at slow speed but it is moving.

After finishing the lifeboats I moved on to finishing the boat deck.



The boat davits went on with no problem.

Next I added the catwalk that sits right above the foredeck. A little bit of a fit issue and alignment with the supports but they were easily fixed with some finger pressure.



I had wanted to add the railing but of course this is the one catwalk that Fujimi left out the railing for. Ill resource from a secondary source.

After that I threw some color on the boat deck with all intention of attaching the lower level lifeboats followed by the boat deck. Yea that didn't work out as planned. Story to follow

Heres the boat deck with the boats dry fitted.



The lower boat deck with the utility boats dry fitted



So here is the start of the story. After checking out the dry fitted boats on the boat deck I dry fitted the boats to the lower deck and tried to add the boat deck just to see the fit. Well the boat deck did not fit because the utility boats are too high.

So as I contemplated this issue I decided to move on the final funnel.

As a side note, I didn't like the Fujimi 9m cutters that are mounted on the sides of the ship so I ordered a set of the Tamiya Utility Boats. Take note, this comes into play shortly.

Anyway, I moved on the funnel

Here is the part getting ready for destruction.



After the molded detail is removed



The beginning of the PE attachments



The second part



the final part



and the two funnels together



At this point I decided to try and fix the issue with the utility boats and the boat deck. I mounted the boat deck to see what the clearance was so that I had some reference.

While doing that I noticed that Fujimi got the gusset length wrong for the catwalk.



I would say I got some of the gussets in the wrong place but they are rabbited so there was only one spot for them to go, again Fujimi strikes!!

Anyway, I got my reference for clearance of the boat deck and continued to scratch my head to try and figure this out.

So I decided to move on to the 12.7cm Type 89 AA Guns. For this I replaced the kit parts with Alliance Model Works version.



I did not take a comparison photo but will for a future update.

Here is what come in the sets






I broke one of the mounting brackets so I had to order another set. For now I only had five of the required 6. Anyway here are the 5 that were completed.











They go together pretty easy but one thing I did notice is that the resin does not like super glue. Had to reattached several parts. Might have been the releasing agent but not sure

Ok, so back to the story of the Utility Boats. About the time I finished the Type 89's the Tamiya Utility boat set arrived. Since I don't read Japanese I took the box and compared the writing to the Shokaku's plans.

I noticed that the Japanese writing for one of the unusual boats seemed to match the writing on the plans.



So I opened the box and took out the instructions. The information on the instructions for the kit was very eye opening. One the instructions for each utility boat identifies the types of IJN ships that these utility boats were mounted on.

Be still my heart when I identified that the 12m Motor Boats were not loaded on IJN Aircraft Carriers.

So I took some pictures and asked someone on Facebook if they could translate the writing.

Sure enough the plans call for the IJN 13m Special Landing craft.

Luckily enough the Tamiya Utility set comes with two 13m Special Landing craft.

So more work on utility boats occurs along with removing the boat davits off the lower boat deck.

Here is the 13m Special Landing Craft



With the Tamiya PE (Tamiya PE is thick and hard to cut)



Unfortunately that is all the PE that Tamiya provides so tonight I ordered Big Boy Blue Utility Boat Upgrade set.

The next step was removing the boat davits and applying the right ones from Tamiya.

Tamiya gives you this nice taped on measuring guide.







Need to paint the boat deck again and try to hide the damage done while removing the molded davits!!

13m craft dry fitted



The davits provided by Tamiya fit perfectly on the hull of the boat. Very impressed.

Anyway, the rest of the utility boats dry fitted.



I think they look good. Will look better once I get the upgrades added and some paint to cover them up.

So obviously the next step was to try the upper boat deck again.

No surprise, it still didn't fit. The PE rails on the two middle utility boats is too high, that's after removing the flag pole and the steering wheel.


So the struggle continues. I have some Flyhawk perforated gussets due in so Ill use those to fix the catwalk issue and to upgrade the Island along with the Utility Boat PE coming in. I think ill just cut down the railing on the middle boats so that I can move on, they will be hidden so the slight modification will not be seen.

Anyway, that's it for now, thanks for stopping by.

As always comments, suggestions and criticism are always welcome


Dave

That is some really nice work especially the 25mm A/A Mounts.....Cheers Mark

Dave,

That boat deck is looking good, even with the struggles. I don't knw about you, but some of the best modeling fun I have is when I have to wrestle kits into submission... keep up the good fight!

Mark / Tim,

thank you for the kind comments.

Yes the struggles are fun once the solution is revealed. I learn the most from the struggles

Dave

Hi David

a fair few challenges with this kit, mate, but keep chipping away at her, the results are definitely worth it!

Good to see some progress Dave,

The Alliance replacement AA looks good, very nice work on the boats too.

Cheers

Si

Russell, thanks for the kind comments. Just a few struggles but that is what makes the watery side of the hobby so great. I like a challenge and the Shokaku is living up to that!!

Si - Thank you for the kind comments, I definitely like the Alliance Model Works Type 89's.

At some point I do want to give the Voyager Models version a try since they are Made completely from PE.

Dave

Dave,

Never thought a aircraft carrier would have landing craft stored aboard.

Enjoying your build, those launches and AA guns really came out wonderful. Looking forward to your next post.

Mark

For transporting supplies to the ship from islands with no docking for such a huge ship.

Dave, awesome build! You got skills, man, and more importantly, patience! Keep up the great work!