1/700 Lou Coatney designed Mogami

[georgerutherford1861]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Some in progress shots of Lou Coatney's Mogami, rescaled to 1/700. The hull is complete, the bridge is complete, and I am now working on the funnel structure.

The turrets are mostly complete but not in place yet, still working on what I believe are rangefinders on two of the turrets.

More progress in the weeks to come, but this is where we are at right now.

Doug

[Don Boose]

Good work, Doug!

Those interwar Japanese cruisers are beautiful (to my eye) and fascinating ships.

Don

[LouCoatney]

Beautiful work as always, Doug!

Those stacks - happily and fortuitously, they are the same for the Chikuma & Tone class - took A LOT of trial and error to design.

I've GOT to get this war OVER, so I can get back to finishing my IJN task force set!

[georgerutherford1861]

Here's the latest progress on the Mogami. Almost complete except for adding the floatplanes and getting the foremast assembled.

Lou, do you have a picture of what the completed foremast looks like? The two longer pieces I have I would assume are the supports to the left-rear and right-rear of the mast, but one of the shorter pieces has a few fold lines printed on it and I am not entirely sure how it fits in.

This model has been fun to build, the initial appearance of the hull, with it widening from bow to far back to the stern, is unique. It looked a bit odd at first, but with it near completion it ends up looking sleek. As you can see, the upgraded 8" guns (upgraded from 6" guns when first built) on turret 2 have to actually stay elevated in order for them to clear turret 1 when all turrets are in central position.

I ended up rescaling this to 1:700 and I goofed a bit on my calculations. I do not think it is too horrible, but the eventual fleet photos will be taken at angles that minimize anything too glaring to the eye I hope.

Doug

Doug

[Don Boose]

Nice clean work on this cruiser, Doug.

Well done!

Don

[LouCoatney]

You're going to have built/finished yours before I finish mine - my prototype! - Doug!

[georgerutherford1861]

Hello everyone,

Here is the latest addition to the Japanese fleet, along with the previously launched ships. The foremast was a mixture of pieces from the kit and some scratchbuilding, I hope that the foremast at least resembles the one on the actual ship.

I rescaled this one to 1:700 from its original scale of 1:1200, I may have made it a bit bigger than it should be, but it works pretty well for my purposes.

My thanks to Lou for another great ship, any mistakes are mine as the builder.

Anyway, on to the next project, whatever it might be...

Doug

[Don Boose]

Great work, Doug! You can now put on quite an impressive IJN naval review (image below is Lil and me aboard JSDS Shirayuki at a naval review in Sagami Bay in the spring of 1990).

By concidence, in my re-read of Black Shoe Carrier Admiral last night, I happened to read about the post-Midway misadventures of Mogami and Mikuma.

I look forward to seeing your Chicago build.

Ganbatte!

Don

PS: You are doing great work with Nobi on Asia-Pacific War aircraft.

[LouCoatney]

WOW. Your workmanship FAR exceeds mine, Doug.
I did a double-take on the Shiratsuyu's turned gun turret and then remembered you're working at 1:700 scale.
And your float planes!

Any problem at all with the pieces? Gaps/overlaps would be magnified at the larger scale.

Do you have the Chikuma/Tone plan?
You need Kirishima too, another cruiser and ...

I've got the full 3x2 Asashio done, I think, although I've got to finish the prototype.

Hiei and Kirishima
Mogami and Tone
2 Shiratsuyus
2 Asashios
and a fast Shoho.

Think about it.

May I share some of your photos elsewhere on the Net? Under my Naval Wargaming group on LinkedIn I've got a post about these designs of mine.

[georgerutherford1861]

Lou,

No real problem with part fit, what problems I had were most likely my own goofs. One thing that making the kit larger did was make the black edge lines thicker, so if I varied there on any cuts it had carryover effects, but even those were not bad.

Yes, I have Tone as well. I do intend to circle back once I get a few American ships built, so there will be more. I look forward to the Asashio, variety is always welcome.

Please feel free to use the pictures as you need to. If you end up needing any from other angles just let me know.

Doug