Now hear this! Now hear this!

In 26 days, Armorama Warships will weigh anchor and embark upon the creation of the greatest battleship armada the modeling world has ever known. Dreadnoughts will begin August 1st and run to April 1st 2006.

Enlist today and become a part of Armorama history. This Warships campaign promises to be as fun filled and exciting as the Dive Dive Dive campaign and it might even make you a convert.... Like some land-locked Kansan I know.

Never build a warship before? Not a problem...niether have a lot of us! That's ok, because this group will be filled with veteran ship builders who are always willing to impart their naval wisdom!

Don't wait and miss the sailing of the fleet. Enlist and become a shellback with the rest of us pollywogs.

You must supply your own salt spray

That is all

Steve

Hey

I never built a battleship before....

But hey, neither did I built a submarine before the DDD campaign, and look at the results. E-mails and message still arrive, it's really cool that so many people let me know they like my u-boat, makes me kinda proud

I hope I can do the same thing again, maybe even better....

My choise for this campaign:

1:350 Tamiya Japanese Battleship Musashi

General info:

Musashi (Battleship, 1942-1944)
Musashi, "sister" of the 65,000-ton battleship Yamato, was built at Nagasaki, Japan. Commissioned in August 1942, she was stationed at Truk from January 1943 into 1944 as part of a heavy force covering the Central Pacific against the threat of an American offensive. When the latter materialized, with the invasion of the Marshalls and raids by aircraft carrier planes against Japanese positions further west, Musashi's base was moved to the Palaus. She was torpedoed by the submarine USS Tunny (SS-282) on 29 March 1944, necessitating repairs in Japan, during which her anti-aircraft firepower was enhanced.

In June 1944, with the torpedo damage repaired, Musashi took part in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Her next, and last, major operation was the Battle of Leyte Gulf, in which the Japanese surface navy made a final major effort to repulse the U.S. drive into the Western Pacific. On 24 October 1944, while en route to the prospective battle area off the Leyte landing beaches, Musashi and her consorts were attacked by hundreds of U.S. Navy carrier aircraft. In this Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, she was hit by some nineteen torpedoes and seventeen bombs. Though her heavy protection withstood this massive damage to a degree probably unsurpassed by any other contemporary warship, Musashi capsized and sank about four hours after she received her last hit.



(source: http://www.history.navy.mil/)

Images:







Tamiya model:



This should be a fun project

Martin

As well it should!


See ya on deck

Steve

Hey Martinnn


Good choice of battleship.
Looks like my Musashi will have a twin sister by the end of the campaign!!!!

cool!!!

maybe we can try getting the two models together at the end, and take some pictures of them in one frame, should be a cool sight!!

I'm in the stage of ordering the WEM pe set (white ensign models). (WEM PE 3528), have a look at their site.
I've seen pictures of the completed stuff, and it looks awesome!!! for the price of 33.95 pounds sterling, approx 50 euro's extra , you can have a museumshowpiece.

If you want, I can try ordering two sets from white ensign website. (this will probably save some expenses for the banktransfer to the uk? I can then send it to you by mail, this pe stuff doesn't weigh that much anyway, and you can mail or transfer me the money?
Anyway: i'll guess we'll be in touch with eachother during the build. ( I'm thinking about coordinating the paints used, so they'll look equal in the end?)

Man, I'm really looking forward for this build. It will be stimulating to know I'll be up againstyour modelling skills on this one!!

Did you already buy the model?

EDIT: Something is wrong here... I keep getting a shortcut to some kind of pages on the words "pictures" and "save". I did not make any links to these sites. Am I the only having this problem?

Hey

Thanks for the offer, but I don't like working with PE and I don't have much expierence with resin yet....so I'll just stick to OOTB for this built.

Maybe we can meet sometime at the end of this campaign with our models? Should have my driver's license by that time! Taking some pics at the coast line or something like that would be cool

Martin

Ok, no probs, I know she's a beauty purely OOTB too!!
The detail on this kit is incredible..

it's my first time using PE also, I hope it turns out well.

Well' I'm looking forward to this campaign!!

How about the dreadnought banner?
Can you prepare a musashi dreadnought banner of some kind?

Yeah sure, I'll see if I can make something decent

Looking forward to the campaign as well!

Going to buy the boat when I'm back from holiday btw. Also, insurance just dropped another bill so no money for models this month

Martin

Bjorn,

Nothing showing up here on the computer at work.

Martinn:

You might want to just get a set of 350 scale railings for your beauty. They greatly enhance a kit and really are quite easy to use. Just some slight bends and they glue on with super glue. Several of the PE manufacturs like Toms MOdel Works, Gold Medal Models and even Eduard make them. THey are much much cheaper then the WEM set and trust me, those railings make the kit LOOK even more fantastic than it does. I did this with my Yamato about 10 years after I finished the kit. I do have a question for you guys doing this. Is there a backdate to original configuration option. She originally had 4 triple 6" turrets two on the centerline and 1 each on the sides by the supestructure. In later years, the two turrets along the side were removed and replaced with banks of anti-arcraft guns like the Yamato. Does the WEM set give you this option?

Hey

I'll check if the railings fit in my model-budget...the ship itself is already pretty expensive.

Still it sounds like a nice upgrade! Thanks for the tip!

Martin

Martinnn,

good luck with your project.

Warvos,

all I can say with PE: take your time. It is what I am going to do with my KG V set. And WEM probably does a set of Japanese naval paints as well.

Cheers,

Harm

I checked out Trident (one f our sponsors) and sure enough...they carry the Eduard set of 350 scale Japanese railings for $13.50 (US)

I have never and i mean except for a timber one with my dad at age 11 of KG V _i was wondering if it is ok if I play with the idea as -som of you know I have a tendancy to twist and convert things (Like my Dwarf Gyrocopter) is that all right as I do like to play with ideas and have 1 off pieces
Ian

Dutchbird

thanks for the advice. I'm planning on making only one model as from august till April, or maybe even longer if necessary, and that'll be the Musashi.

Steve: as far as I checked: the extra 2 secondary gun turrets are not in the kit, and I guess the original hull from Tamiya is not configured to carry those. you would have to scratchbuild a whole section of the conning tower.
Maybe some aftermarket compagny sells the lower part of the tower and gunturrets in resin?

I heard a trick from somebody working with Pe: he uses a very fine piece of copperwire (very very fine) which he dips in the superglue can, and then uses it to very softly slide it over the back of the pe piece, so only very little glue sticks to it, and nothing bulbs out after attaching.
Does anybody have any other tips?
(especially for the railings.. the attachment points are like very fine hairs.. and now I'm wondering if you have to attach the whole length in one time, or a few attachment points at once? and painting?
I guess you first assemble the hull and deck, and paint the deck. AFter that, you put on the railings, and then you spray them? But how to do that without overspraying the deck area?

Hi All

Well working with PE tips
Preparation:
Wash the PE with vinigar (acid) so that the metal will be clean of grease and other solutions, that may result in the paint not to stick. Other method is to use sandpaper (1000 or 2000) and gently "polish" the PE - wich may result in the damage of some parts

To glue the PE: if it's raillings (the Musashi for example) work in small areas, say 5 to 10 cm at a time, gluying the bottom part of the rail to the hull. After 5 minutes sand the excess of CA glue with fine sandpaper. Also if you have to work with curves, shape them before attachment

That's all for now
And the Musashi seems a very interesting subject!
And WEM have a IJN paint set

Skipper

Thanks Skipper


I'm planning on making this my ultimate build, so I ordered the Colourcoat IJN paint set also.
I just hope the result will be worth all the costs and efforts made for this battleship...

So next is finding an oak baseplate, a glass cover, and than insurance against robbery, fire, vicious pets and angry girlfriends if she finds the bill for all of this...

Ooh yeah... this'll be a fun campaign!!!!

:-) :-)

Guess these are familiar sounds for all of us

Unless...

(I am about to reveal part of my intentions for this Campaign)

... you built it waterline in a nice 1/700 dio

But one thing is certain: It will be a great built and with your (both Warvos and Martin) skills, a Museum quality model will be the result!

Skipper

If there are no objections I have an OLD dreadnuaght style battlewagon that I want to upgrade and enhance.

Go for it.

You might throw in security officers to drag away the angry girlfriend once she finds out about the bill and before she takes a whack at the boat in question


Lost my sea legs...anyone know where they're at?

Steve

Hi Skipper

Do you mean you'll be building a 1/700 Musashi?

Waterline models in a dio in my opinion always look better than the full hulled ones, but in this case it would be a shame having to throw away half the hull, so I'll just leave her as she is.

I got lucky with this model, buying her for less then the price of a normal 1/700 tamiya kit (35 €), so that's why I decided to go big scale this time.

Skipper, thanks for the tips on using the pe. never thought about the cleaning...
applying the railings 5 to 10 cm each time will mean having to cut them in pieces, and having to glue two tiny pieces together, and making them look like it's one piece...
OMG, I think the size of the job ahead is starting to clear up in my head.....

Can I already ask for an extension of the deadline please????
:-) :-)

Guys I receive an email every time a reply is posted here and this thread looks more like a chatbox the past 10 minutes lol :-) :-)

I want to do some warships dioramas once.....not for this campaign I think, the 3 big warships I have in mind for my shelves (for now) will be whole ships, no waterline or cut-off models.

Also they will be 70cm minimal :-)

1/700 looks like a nice scale for dioramas...I may try that soon

skip, thanks for the compliment, I'll try not to disappoint you

Martin

Hi Björn!
In same cases you don't need to cut the PE! For instance on the port (or starbord) side you can have the full lenght in one piece but, only glue the lenght of PE that you can take - it's better to stop when it still good, instead of making a stop after some stupid action
(been there!!!!) :-) :-)

Regarding the 1/700 Musashi.... perhaps
But it will be 1/700 for sure!!

Skipper

PS: Another e-mail Martin :-)

NO! :-) :-) :-)