Final plastic works continues with the top 15,5 mtr. Rangefinder with the Type 21 Go Dentan Kai 3 Air search mattress type antenna and top Type 94 Hoiban low angle director. Here I stumbled into some small problems: The railings around the top of the rangefinders had the top half bended 45° outwards to create more space for the turning rangefinders below the fixed Hoiban turret.
KA-Models provides you nice crisp railings but they are just even. Tamiya´s Premium kit includes railing stanchions which have this bending but they are looking way too thick in my eyes and all the efforts which installed these and fiddled thinnest lead wire through them didn´t look too convincing in my eyes. So I had three options at hand:
Leave everything even - the rear extension arm of the Hoiban turret will interfere with the even railing…
Use Tamiyas thick stanchions and try my skills with making railings out of thin wire
Partly bend and alter the rear railings so that the Hoiban extension do not interfere
Bend and alter all the railings around the Rangefinder
I finally decided for Option 3 as Option 4 will be very difficult. It was difficult enough to correctly bend this railing around the Rangefinder platform as KA-Models does give you just vague informations (just two small photos which show the installed railing…) how to bend this irregular railing. I did my best but had to add one small piece of railing later…
Time to finally finish the Hoiban turret. The missing diagonal top radar device near the top lamp of the Hoiban turret was installed from the KA-Models update parts. It was not mentioned in the instructions but the parts were there and it was mentioned in my reference book. The top periscope was the last spare one from my YX Model update set.
These last segments resembled the very last plain plastic parts of the original kit and now there are finally just rigging wires, flags and PE-railings awaiting their placement
Ah the Hoiban, I did that assembly recently as well, fun stuff
Regarding the angled railing, I was thinking about that as well but in the end I kept them straight because I was too afraid to mess things up. I like your solution.
The top radar thingy is something I’m missing and I’m not sure whether I will add it (I think one of the AM companies produces a 3D printed part.
Anyway, looking forward to see them painted and added to the bridge tower.
Yours is a nice solution to a difficult problem! I like the bent rails in back, and I agree with John - each of your updates makes me want to see more. Great work!
Finished painting this afternoon (have one day holiday hehe ) and I am satisfied about the outcome. exchanged the molded on lanterns with streched clear sprue again
Next and final step is to glue the bridge complex into the finished ship´s superstructure without wreaking havoc upon it and installing the last ladder from the funnel stairway to the bridge´s first upper platform. But the finished bridge complex looks mighty good to me
Stunning, mesmerising progress – a sling’s needed for my jaw every update. Those clamps make me nervous, I hope you don’t have a cat or live anywhere prone to earth-tremors
@Dioramartin: Tim don´t worry about these clamps. For security reasons I chose to use two if one would fail. But now the turret is already safely glued onto the ship.
I found time and motivation to start some small rigging and I already raised the flags. The flags were made out of paper and both sides had to be glued together and shaped with in white glue diluted water. After drying the flags retained their preformed shapes The inner, finer rigging wires were made out of INFINI Fine Black lycra rigging 70 denier, the thicker main rigging wires and the flag ropes were done with fine EZ Line rigging wire. The red and green speed cones were taken out of RAINBOW´s etched Feeder and Speedcone set
absolutely amazing work. The flags look great, and the rigging as well - both no strength of mine… You are almost getting ready for commissioning! Awesome, one absolutely fantastic build!
Gentlemen I did finished the rigging of the late Yamato. The work was going straightforward and with no problems at all. I just had to look and to match my reference book with fotos and other builds. My small cruiser Emden some years ago was way more difficult to rig as this Yamato. Here are the pictures
So now there´s not much more to do until this build is finished; just the outer railings are missing, then Yamato can launch her last cruise into my cabinet
Thank you so much Jan! Doing the rigging is not so much difficult as it seems. It depends which kind of material you do use for this job and how you do it. I started with EZ line rigging wire which I still use until today. They are just a bit thick for me now, I just use them if I need thicker wires. Mostly I use now INFINI lycra rigging in different thicknesses. They are very flexible and one can cut the superfluous wires over the end comfortably with a fresh sharp modelling knife blade. If the wire tension is accidently too low you can heat a metal rod with the lighter and carefully get near the loose wire. Because of the heat the wire will tighten.
I also have superfine metal rigging wire from MODELKASTEN but I didn´t used them so I can not say anything about them.
One important lection which I learned here is to start rigging from the middle to outside just because it will be much more difficult to make a proper rigging if the outer wires are already installed. Just try it, it can be fun!
So this is actually already the last chapter of my ultimate Yamato build which I did started around my christmas holidays last year.
Despite not a “small” kit it took me just a bit over four month to finally complete it with installing the outer railings today. All work is done now and the ship with all its beauty is standing at my table.
The build itself was not less work but I discovered no big difficulties here, I dare to say it was a calm and joyful build; I never had to struggle with misfitting or poor quality parts. Sure, all these 3d printed aftermarket goodies had a huge impact into my wallet but it saved me a lot of blood and tears and also did of course speed up the build (only think about all these tiny 25 mm guns which would usually have to be build together out of many small etched parts and turned barrels…). The quality of all these new 3d printed parts lifted the already good quality new moulds Yamato up to another level. This kit was not only the biggest compared to size of the model but also of the tonnage of the real ship until now of my shipbuilding career.
But now I don´t want to bother you with further words. Here are the last pictures of the ship with every BlingBling and the last outer hull railings fully installed. The first pictures of the complete ship are taken at my dining room desk just because of the sheer size of the ship (photographing this monster is not always easy. Enjoy…
This just leave me only to say thank you very much for all you spectators and all your constructive and encouraging comments. This is always an invaluable morale booster to me. It was a great pleasure again and as always to have had you folks all aboard with me at this journey.
Remember there were a lot of very young men unnecessarily dying at this ship. My thoughts were with them during this build. “Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.” Herbert Hoover, 31th president of the USA. Lets hope we will not see another world war again ever.
See you again next time at another ship build (according to my stash odds it will have to be a british ship next time…)
) and I am satisfied about the outcome. exchanged the molded on lanterns with streched clear sprue again
The inner, finer rigging wires were made out of INFINI Fine Black lycra rigging 70 denier, the thicker main rigging wires and the flag ropes were done with fine EZ Line rigging wire. The red and green speed cones were taken out of RAINBOW´s etched Feeder and Speedcone set
