1/350 Tamiya IJN Battleship YAMATO

by Louis Carabott

I have now built 3 carriers in a row, so I decided that it's now time for a change and I opted to go for a battleship and what else but the mighty Yamato.

It's been lying on the shelf for a while and I have always kept the project on hold because of the challenging changes I had in mind. This first part is going to be very boring but I have to explain the process so one can see the work entailed to finish with the end result.

As soon as I opened the box I decided there and then ,that the wooden part of the deck has to be made of real wood. You can buy them ready made...but they are so damm expensive and I have already spent a fortune on pohoto etch and other miscellaneous fittings, but above all I wanted to make the deck scratchbuilt, it's more challenging.. It took a long time to take the intricate measuring to make an exact deck fit with the other two parts of the deck which had to be sawn off from the provided parts of the kit, which were now totally destroyed and then discarded. The whole wooden deck was made out of plastic card and strengthened with thick plastic strips from underneath. When I made sure it fitted perfectly I covered and glued on the prepared plastic deck, a thin wood laminate to simulate the teak deck. When dry the whole deck was timmed and sanded vigourously then lined with a very fine thin tip pencil to simulate the planking on the deck. A jig was made with a simple steel rule to keep the spacing even and accurate. The planking is very fine and can be barely seen in the pictures. It was a very tedious job and demanded a lot of patience. The deck was then given various coatings of varnish with a satin finish as it is in its present state which is not that attractive. This will be later sanded down and given a coat of matt varnish which will make it lood totally different to its present state.

Now for the tricky bit, I had to carve out the parts of the superstructure from the moulded part of the suppose to be wooden deck provided by the kit. This wasn't easy and have various cuts in my fingers to prove it. These parts were glued on a very thin layer of plastic card as a base and trimmed later when dry. O course a lot of filler had to be used to fix the damaged parts whilst cutting them out. New gun columns which were destroyed in the procvess of cutting had to be scratchbuilt.Of course all the small fittings, raised detail and gun positions on the discarded decks have to be scratchbuilt.

Next step is to work on the bow of the ship and later I will start works on the hull of the ship which will definetely need a lot of detail and alterations.

I have now finished works on the hull. After sawing off the lower part which was quite boring I strengthened the structure with thick evergreen plastic strips so that when I come to attach the deck, I wouldn’t have any problems. Not a lot of extra work needed on the sides of the hull as the ship was quite plain with no complicated pipin

I then started on the 15.5 barbettes, which I detailed accordingly. Again it was no big deal.

The bow part of the deck was detailed the embossed chains were taken off and bases for the anchor chains were scratchuilt as those on the kit were not that accurate. Minor additions were also included which were on the ship during The Ichigo operation, that’s when the ship is going to be represented.

The stern part of the deck was now tackled using photo etch from whiteensign and further additions also added especially in the hangar area…Of course more detail will have to be added once the decks are both painted and treated for weathering.

Next I started to tackle the superstructure which comes in 4 parts. The forward tower, the aft tower, the base and the funnel arrangement. I am doing bits here and there so that the job doesn’t get boring, but it’s already taking shape. More detail had to be added apart from the photoetch offerings, but I am sure the end result will be very rewarding

Now that I have taken out all the superstructure components out of the deck I started works and detail on the individual parts . I first started on the funnel and the support structure. Most of the piping available from the kit was left on , however this was further detailed as usual with different gauges of fuse wire, plastic sprue and plastic strips. Photoetch was used. I then decided to further detail the main forward tower with the upper part mostly scratchbuilt in order to make out the wooden deck on top similar to the main deck. More portholes and doors added to take on the complicated ladder system to the top. These will be included later on after painting and weathering to avoid damage.

I then decided to have a go at the the business end of the yamato. The 15.7 and 18.1 calibre guns. As een on ics plastic barrels were removed and replaced with more accurate brass parts.

One can also see the further detail done on the barbettes and the turrets themselves. Scratch built blast bags were made out of putty for the 15.7 guns
Then came the mountings of the 12.7 AA guns in mid deck. A wooden deck and round plastic mounting had to be scratchbuilt to make the model more accurate. One can see from the pics the different stages to finiosh the mounting. The AA gun is a resin offering from Veteran which is very detailed.

Next will try to finish all the main and AA guns and belive you me there’s a lot of the.

Until Next time

I have now started to airbrush the beast I started by spraying the hull and all the major components of the superstructure in enamels. I used the White ensign colourcoats…they are very good and the colours are very accurate in my opinion

Once this was done I have decided to finish off all the big guns….three 18 in monsters plus another two 15.7 guns., Once dry I shadowed the original colour in a lighter acrylic colour. These were then given a good covering of gloss varnish and left to dry for a couple of days. 

Next came the different washes in lamp black and burnt umber using oils of course…..once certain that they were completely dry I started highlighting the guns and barbettes with lighter colours again using both enamels and acrylics.

Then with lots and I mean lots of patience I started to add the fiddly little bits to the turrets…railings..ladders…ammo boxes, barrel supports… etc etc….

That done they were all given a coat of matt varnish to seal the lot….

Next items to tackle will be the funnel and front and back towers….looking forward to that.

Please excuse the quality of the pics….camera is not working that properly…/

A coat of matt varnish was applied and then I started attaching the real tiny bits to the structures and some rigging as well. Works also started on the main superstructure and funnel also completed.

The hull was also airbrushed and weatherin started but yet has to be refined. Once tghese are completed will attach the decks to the hull and I am not looking forward to that.

I air brushed the wooden deck part with a very much diluted mixture of gray paint to simulate the grayish tint that was on the wooden deck. It is very important that the wood of the deck has to be seen… I am sorry to say that the camera did not capture the desired effect, but could be easily seen with the naked eye”! It is very important to note that many people believe that the wooden deck was painted gray during operation Ichigo, just before the ship sank. It wasn’t ….the deck was definitely unpainted but with a grayish tint….  I then  attached the wooden deck on the hull of the ship and it wasn’t easy mating the front end of the deck and the stern an get them all aligned but after  many tries I got the perfect fit and sealed everything with expoxy glue.

 

The various components to house the big guns and the barbettes for the smaller guns were fixed in place. I had to be very careful to keep everything aligned, after several dry runs. The base of the centre superstructure of the ship was attached. Then work started on the anti aircraft gun emplacements support piping . This was achieved by using the good old telephone wire.This do0ne I started attaching the hatches and other small detail. The round emplacements for the triple AA guns which were added specifically in the ship’s arsenal for that particular raid were added on these were fabricated from thin cuts of plastic tubing.

Work will now start on detailing the centre superstructure with the already prepared towers.

I have now completed the middle section of the superstructure of the ship after attaching the three parts of the deck on the hull of the ship and the funnel section.

As one can see the tripple AA’s and there are 30 of them and the 40 calibre guns ….6 in all are very tiny and come in many bits and pieces and believe you me it was a very fiddly job and my eyes are really tired now after all that JJJ

Some figures were also placed on the ship so that they will be ready in place when I start the rigging of the ship

Now I will start adding on the other parts of the superstructure….the main tower and place the guns in place…

Well I am posting a few pics of the little things that will make the vessel look nicer….I have finally finished the. I had an accident with the riggin g and the main superstructure whilst fixing the rear turret…..Bothing that can be fixed…it nearly ready ….Maybe in two weeks time…in the meantime I hope you like these pics...

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-LOUIS CARABOTT-