Try www.combinedfleet.com. You should be able to find the answer there.

HTH

Thomas,

Nice work on those AA guns.

Mark

Looking good, you're etch skills are superb, love the AA guns and I don't blame you for not using the microscopic parts, I flung some off into the ether last night on a tamiya kagero build, keep it up.

Moin Thomas!

I'm not joining late...I'm just late with my first comment here sorry mate, busy times. But I have been watching and of course I'm in! Fantastic work so far, it's really fun to follow your progress! You are really doing a great job with your attention to details and your really crisp work, especially your paint job (torpedo tubes) and PE work is excellent!

Cheers, Jan

@ Grant: Thank you for the hint to combinedfleet.com - actually I didn´t knew this site bevor. Will be very helpful and interesting to read.

@ Mark: Thank you, actually I did finished just one of three of these big AA-guns and this one already let me lost some hairs. Some parts are just too small to hold and/or to glue. Sometimes the tweezers also kept sticked together with the part...

@ Norman: Flunged away parts I do know well, too! It is sometimes strange when your wife come into the room and you´re crawling around at the Floor with magnifier lenses and a flashlight on

@ Jan: Herzlich Willkommen wieder an Bord! Thanks for your great compliments. Nice to see that so much people here like what I am doing - good feeling

This weekend was not much modelling time for me so the update is very small:
As I am still waiting for the wooden base and some new vents and bollards from Alliance Models (yes I decided to spend even more money on this project...) I decided to start with the funnel 1. This was a very tedious and difficult work for me as the tiny parts are just impossible to glue. Flyhawk also has a mistake about the Installation here: they show the funnel flaps (correct Designation?) on top of the funnel - but actually they have to be below the top part 4. If someone want to know what I mean I can show it in a later post to you all:


After Installation I immediately spraypainted this part with Gunze IJN Maizuru color to give the small parts more stability. But still: DON´T TOUCH IT WITH BARE FINGERS!!!


After I started to spraypaint I also primed the lonely AA-gun


and all AA-barbettes


I did found out that two venthousings at midship are within Flyhawks pe set included to replace the kit´s plastic ones. I did thinked about if I replace them as I already cleaned up the plastic ones but decided to use the PE ones as they are open and look better. I just need to clean them up a bit later


Midship barbette primed and some small PE-platfom installed


I sprayed she hull bottom with GUNZE original IJN hull red Color. AOSHIMA calls it cocoa brown and indeed the red is very dark, almost brown.


I do hope the ordered parts will come early this upcoming week so I can continue with the ship itself

Cheers

Very nice progress Thomas.

The funnel looks superb with all that etch really adds depth.

The etched midships vents do look the business too.

Following along with interest,

cheers

Si

Wow! You are a brave man adding grab rail PE to the funnel Thomas! Looks great though, especially under paint!

Very crisp PE otherwise!

And, no, there is no limit to the amount of money we could spend on these things If only our "better halves" understood why

Ahoy Thomas

Superb update - dont sneeze near that funnel!

Cheers


Sean

I agree with all those PE comments but you're doing a great job with Thomas. The progress to date is looking very sharp.

cheers
Michael

Thomas,

as the others already pointed out, that's really impressive PE work, but overall very nice and crisp work and progress, too!

Cheers,
Jan

Hello mates, thanks for following and commenting my blog - very encouraging for me

Today it´s time again for an update: First I have to say that Flyhawks instructions are very rudimentary and many parts are just not listed at their pictures. This way you are forced to think carefully which parts can be replaced on the model with parts from the PE-fret.

First I decided to replace the molded on ammunition boxes with etched ones as they just look much better defined:


Then I worked on the upper rear deck:


Later, after prepainting there will be a huge gap between the reardeck and the main hull deck - I will fix that later with an Evergreen Strip


I did received the bollards and ventilation domes from Alliance Models and they really look very nicely on the ship - a huge improvement over the molded plastic parts




Maximum zoom:


Some ellipsoid ventilation domes I opened up with a very fine drill for a more realistic look


Then it was time for my very first of many more to come single 25 mm Type 95 AA-gun in 1:350. I had to make one just out of curiosity. For me it was at the edge of my abilities because of the tiny size and all the small parts but it look very nice though. A huge improvement over the kits and even Flyhawk´s set (as their barrels are not turned and just look too flat).


Then the wooden baseplate (made out of african afzelia wood) and the ship´s identification plate did arrived; I can fix the ship now firmly at the baseplate for better handling after painting the hull.



Next steps will be painting the hull and the linoleum Floor and fix everything onto the baseplate.

To be continued

Great stuff Thomas,

Really enjoying your work, the brass is look really good.


Cheers

Si

Looks great, that funnel must have been a pain. I wish my pe would come out that neat. Looking foreword to more.

Hi Thomas,

that's quite an extensive update, and your brass work is top quality, hands down!! Nice job on the 25mm, I think I have an idea what you are talking about, after quite a few Mater 20mm Oerlikons...

She's coming along really nice!!

Cheers,
Jan

Ahoy Thomas

Superb update.

I love all the upgrades both small and large that you are doing.

Cheers


Sean

Thomas!

This is 'nano' engineering for sure!

Great work, especially on the 25mm!

The brass nameplate will make for a nice effect!

Thank you guys

After recovering from my "nano-Engineering" with that single 25 mm gun I sprayed the brown color for the linoleum deck and finished the baseplate for the vessel. I did used Gunze´s Mr. Metal Color 219 brass - this color can be polished after it is thoroughly dried and look like the real deal

I did fix the sockets at the designated spots at the ship´s bottom and it look a bit off-balanced at the moment but it is actually very closely in the mid. Maybe the it will look more balanced if the superstructures are all placed later.

Looks good on the base Thomas

Cheers

Si

The nano stuff always gets me too, the eyes are fine, it’s the cow like movements of me being not that coordinated that gets me, either way the pe looks fantastic. The base looks good too. I find that when mounting the ship to the base it will never look straight to me. Even with perfect measuring it still looks off when I mount them. I usually have to ignore it until it looks right. Eventually after awhile it grows on me. To me it looks great and right on. This build is coming along nicely. Looking foreword to more. This ship has been on my list for awhile.

Ahoy Thomas

This is just looking better and better.

Cheers


Sean

Looks good on its base Thomas and the brass name plate is a nice touch!

I had birthday yesterday and there wasn´t much time for modelling. Therefore just a small update today:

I wanted to continue with the ships deck. I tried to replicate the brass Linoleum fixture strips as easily as possible. Masking and painting with brush or airbrush is a PITA as there are too much obstructions there to finish this in a reasonable scale of time. I had the idea just to paint These stripes with an brass colored EDDING pen. This is still not really easy and I have a lot mistakes to correct but this is the result of about just one careful hour of work.




What do you think? Can I continue that way with a pen?

Always tricky to do the brass strips Thomas!

I say continue and see how it goes when you touch up the paint!

Indeed tricky Russel Here is a lot patience needed. But the other choice would have been to do completelely new etched strips but I wanted to avoid that...

Ok I call these linoleum fixture strips finished! Painting was fast, correction not so fast. Now it Looks like this


in detail:


I can live with that result. Now it is time to paint all the grey upper structures at the deck