David,
Awesome PE work, but that is one weird bridge superstructure.
Mark 
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Jan - thank you sir - the dry fitting and getting perspective is definitely a must at times!!
Mark - thank you - it is a weird looking bridge but there is quite a bit missing at the moment. More to come soon I hope!!
David
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Oh, great work Dave! 
The deck now looks to be seated down nicely and all the other dry fit components look good!
Where did you end up removing the material from to get the deck to fit?
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Russell
Thanks - I ended up removing the placement tab and additional material from the section you recommended. This assisted in lining up the aft end near the structure and ensured the deck did not overhang.
David
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Hey all
So I left off a major structure with the dry fitting yesterday so I thought I would take a couple shots
Still a lot to go but…
David
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Oh yeah! Looking good David 
This keeps getting better and better!
Cheers,
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As Russ says - looking really good!!
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Gentlemen - thank you for the kind words!!
So over the past couple of days I have been able to grab some time on the bench. Small updates but with large implications when it is all said and done.
Here I added the bridge support beams
After that I started by upgrading and adding the two observations posts to the bridge.
Here is the kit part
Now with the PE window frames added
And now added to the bridge level. I need to sand down the overlapping PE but wanted to let the Tamiya Extra thin dry before I attempted that.
The next was working the girders on the roof of the bridge
Here is the kit part after the molded detail was removed
And here it is with the first three PE girders added. Will let the glue dry before adding the cross girders.
The next part is the aft bridge - here are the kit parts dry fitted together -
This will be my next task to tackle once i find sufficient time - just wait for the upgrade on this part!!!
Thanks for stopping in and as always, comments, suggestions and criticism are always welcome!!
David
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David,
very nice work and all those small steps really bring it to life! And in fact they are not as small as they possibly seem to be, they quickly add up to some major progress!
Cheers
Jan
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very nice work and all those small steps really bring it to life! And in fact they are not as small as they possibly seem to be, they quickly add up to some major progress!
Cheers
Jan
Ditto!
Gentlemen,
Thank you for the kind words and the encouragement to grab time where I can. Now if I could just convince “House Hold 6” to let me grab bits of time throughout the week than I would progress faster.
In either case, I was able to get a day off yesterday and spent some quality time in the dockyard. The workers finished off adding to overhead girders to the bridge.
Keeping with the bridge work they moved aft and began working on the aft bridge. After much destruction of the existing detail they added the water tight doors, ladder and support beams for the overhanging deck.
After that they decided to finish off the minor details on the aircraft catapult and mounted it to the turn table. The minor details included a couple triangle gussets and the standing platforms near the rear of the catapult.
Here is the aircraft deck with the rear bridge and catapult dry-fitted
Following that successful mission it was time to break the linoleum deck and add it to the main bridge aft deck.
That was about all the time that was available so we are back in a holding pattern until who knows when.
Thanks for stopping in and as always, comments, suggestions and criticism are always welcome.
David
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Silly question David: does the linoleum deck require painting? If not, wouldn’t it be better to paint the superstructure before glueing the deck down? 
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Wow David, I’ve been following along in the background but this build is mind blowing for me. When you started this build I started following and did say I have the same kit and pe sets but watching the work you are doing is making me scared to even go near my Tama.
I do have one of the other IJN light cruisers Kuma, so may start with her with just a small pe set and a few weapon updates.
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Russell - the linoleum deck does not require any additional painting but it is only dry fitted, it will be removed prior to painting the superstructure.
Littorio - it’s good to see you, have missed you on here - it really is not that daunting once you get into it - the instructions are pretty clear (for the most part) but there is a lot of PE. Thank you for your kind words - would love to see what your going to do with your Kuma, I have that in the stash as well with the Kinu in bound. What PE set are you going to use for the Kuma?
David
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David, I don’t as yet have a pe set for the Kuma I need to search and see what is available. However all that said it will be sometime before a ship gets laid down, to many other things to get finished first.
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David,
The decking looks wonderful. You must have the patience of a saint to get that PE to lay so nicely.
Mark
Littorio - Since the Tama is a Kuma class cruiser I would recommend the Rainbow Upgrade kit for Tama along with the deck set. no not all the parts will be compatible but it is the only upgrade set I know for a Kuma classlight cruiser other than the skimpy Aoshima set.
mark - thank you for the kind words! Unfortunately I have not had patience all the time which has led to having to replace some PE parts, but due to an error on my part I have three sets of the Tama Upgrade set from Rainbow… 
David
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Hey everyone,
So yesterday I got a couple hours in the dockyard, but due to minor complications very little was completed, but in the end it is still another step towards completion.
Anyway, continuing with the bridge I worked on the signal platforms. The original part had them molded on. I had originally removed them early but it wasn’t until i finally folded the PE replacements that I realized that that it required a little more attention to get them to sit flush. To make a long story short I glued, removed, glued and removed a gain a few times before they were correct.
I also worked a small PE piece for the aft bridge, not 100% sure what the purpose of this cage like item was but due to the aft bridge deck having a channel for this to fit into there was little room for error.
I’ll provide a picture of the aft bridge decking to highlight what I am referring to a bit later.
Here are some pics with the compass bridge dry fitted.
That is about it, as I mentioned not a whole lot accomplished but it is one step closer.
A couple of months ago I stumbles across an Ebay posting for a set of IJN plans. Since I primarily build IJN i thought it was a great opportunity to maybe gather some plans that I have been unable to finds, low and behold it contained a set of plans for the Tama.
Luckily for me cause the Aoshima kit has some errors (shocker). One of the errors is that the instructions call for adding two binoculars to the compass bridge but according to the plans they are supposed to be 1.5m range finders. Luckily I have the Veteran IJN Observation set that will provide the correct parts.
The plans also highlight that Aoshima left some structures off the aircraft handling deck that I will have to scratch build, something I am honestly not looking forward to… 
The plans are written in Japanese but I have found that using the Google Translate AP allows me to get the English translations. It’s not perfect but it’s better than trying to guess!!
I apologize for rambling on regarding the plans but I got excited when i finally took a closer look at what I was able to acquire!!
Thanks for stopping in, as always, comments, suggestions and criticism are always welcome.
David
6 Likes
David,
Fine work you are doing.
It is always nice to have detail drawings of the ship you are modeling. Goggle translate would have been nice to have when I used to install Fujitsu telecommunications equipment and their manuals written in Japanese.
Mark
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