Japanese Heavy Cruiser Ibuki 1945 [1:400]

[Lex]

Hi all, in this post I would like to present a testbuild of the Ibuki in heavy cruiser configuration in 1:400 scale.

The Ibuki is the last of Japan's heavy cruiser to be built. As their battleships were generally kept at bay for a variety of reasons, the Japanese found their heavy cruisers to be very useful in the second world war. It's fair to say that they did have some of the best, if unbalanced, cruisers in the war when it's about surface combat. There were a number of plans to expand or replenish Japan's cruiser force both before and during the war, the only such plan that came close to fruit was the Ibuki-class, which Ibuki was the first ship of.

The navy was satisfied with the Mogami-class, and had no incentive to make huge modifications to the design. Superficially the Ibuki would have been extremely similar to the Mogami class cruisers, or Suzuya to be more precise. However the Ibuki did not see completion as a cruiser. Rather, halfway into construction, the navy saw a need to convert the ship into an aircraft carrier, and she was half complete as CV Ibuki when the war ended.



The designer of this model, LuckyCV12 (he goes by this alias), is an aspiring and diligent modeller. He had trouble developing the ship's hull, and I offered to help design it, so this is a combined effort between us. Being responsible, I asked to testbuild the hull which of course later escalated into building the entire ship... I advised him to keep the 400 scale, as any larger scale would require much more research and good project management, not to mention 400 scale naval subjects, offered only by JSC and a number of independent designers, is a relative niche compared to the competitive 200 scale。

The plan is to offer the model both as free digital download, and as printed versions by Galaxy Paper Art along with laser accessories and PE. Galaxy Paper Art is a small publisher established by the Chinese language community ourselves but I won't elaborate on this until we figure out a way to accept international orders... it will take a while.

As this is a testbuild, I'll be keeping to the original design as much as possible, only making modifications for significant inaccuracies. However I will be liberally using 1:350 series generic photo-etch accessories from plastic models. Sorry that life has had me at crossroads and I will update this post irregularly. Stay tuned.

[CMDRTED]

Looking good. I toast and applause designers of lesser known or not done at all in paper vessels and aircraft. We have enough Yamatos and Bismarcks, and not enough vessels such as this.

[Positive_Rate]

Brilliant - I look forward to seeing the progress. Doubtless designing these things takes time and patience..

(Isn't it a strange chimney though?!)

Regards,
Alan

[Foute Man]

Originally Posted by Positive_Rate

Brilliant - I look forward to seeing the progress. Doubtless designing these things takes time and patience..
(Isn't it a strange chimney though?!)
Regards,
Alan

It might look strange, but it's actually a design feature seen on more Japanese warships, like the Takao class, Myoko class and Mogami class cruisers, and various destroyer classes:

IJN Ibuki:


IJN Takao:


Myoko class:


Mogami class


Combining exhaustpipes in a trunked funnel was also done by the US & Royal navy (take a closer look at the US destroyer designs from the 1930's)

[Don Boose]

Great project, Lex. And, as always, much useful information, Foute Man.

I love the looks of those Japanese treaty cruisers. I have a number of them in 1:1200 and 1:1250 metal collected over the years, and build a few in those scales from wood back in the 50s.

This coming Friday (26 March) will be the anniversary of the 1943 Battle of the Komandorski Islands. One of the few times when U.S. and Japanese treaty cruisers (USS Salt Lake City vs Japanese Nachi and Maya) went head-to-head.

Don

[Lex]

I'm back~~~

I share Don's feeling, I actually like cruisers of most navies, their general focus on speed makes them very sleek ships to look at.

Foute_Man's description is very accurate indeed. The curved funnel is featured on all Japanese cruisers and even destroyers (probably on battleships as well had Japanese built any), starting from the Yubari. It's done to save deck space over the centerline, so that the bridge and main mast can be placed directly over the forward boiler space. (I am not clear how this do or do not affect the functionality of the funnel as a whole though)

The start point of the build is the very standard hull construction. Nothing much to describe at this point. Japanese cruisers had an extreme focus on speed so the hulls are very slim. Their cross-section also had an angled bottom (and wouldn't sit upright on a flat surface). Although Ibuki was built with torpedo bulge from the start, it kept the strap-on bulge type of design from the Mogami class, which received them during service. I think this was to save drafting time. For this model, I designed the bulge also as an additional piece on top of the underlying hull, which I will describe later.

[Lex]

Then comes the double bottom. I printed another copy of the hull on sticky note paper, so that it can be pasted onto a layer of 0.5mm card, which forms the inner hull. I mostly eye-balled these parts, so there will be slight fitting issues. This won't be an issue as will be seen next.

Building on previous experience (the Akizuki to be precise), I tried not to sand the double bottom directly into a perfect curved surface. Instead I added another layer made with low-weight balsa sheets, essentially used as a filler. I then sanded this balsa layer to a relatively smooth finish. Balsa is easy to sand, the force applied during sanding will not deform the underlying double bottom (which will happen if one is to sand the double bottom directly).

Well, so much for paper purists, I think I can argue that balsa is unprocessed paper... right? Between the Chinese modellers we have a small ship model competition going on. I originally entered with the GPM Yahagi, but seeing I would not have physical access to the model for the foreseeable future, I entered this build instead. I will get marked down for using non-paper parts, but I will not be bound by such archaic competition rules :P

[Lex]

The outer hull is then be attached without issue. UHU Por is used for this step to prevent tension from warping the parts. The bulge is finally attached as an entire piece, completing the hull.

[Lex]

The bilge keel, propellers and rudders complete the underwater parts of the model. The shafts are made from ABS rods painted in gold. The rudders has a copper rod running through the centre to prevent them from breaking off when handled.

Most Japanese ships below battleships has a linoleum deck, the linoleum sheet is held down by bolt-on metal strips. I will use 350 scale photo-etch to simulate this effect. It is quite a repetitive effort, and will be completed gradually. The portholes will also be covered with PE parts.

For now, the raised upper deck in the centre section will need to be completed. Japan is very fond of their torpedoe technology, all of their heavy cruisers have them, in preparation for the planned night engagements. Although these are a double-edged sword as at least one ship (Suzuya) was heavily damaged by (and later, lost from) sympathetic detonation of her onboard torpedos. The navy is aware of this danger, and as a result the late-war standard procedure is to push all torpedoes overboard in case of impending air strikes. Ibuki, like a number of cruisers before it, has two quad torpedo launchers, with a quick-reload rack, on either side of the hull. The launchers and the torpedo handling facilities are covered by the upper deck and will need to be built before that. I only build what will be seen, so the launchers receive minimal treatment and none of the torpedo handling rails and racks will be present. (You will see why in the last photo - none of that will be even remotely visible.) The torpedoes are again, ABS rods, sanded to a round head. The launcher tubes are then wrapped around them.

[PAPER FAN]

I use balsa filler all the time now, posted many times. I don't believe in "purist". It's about building models to your liking, and to me this is an easy way to minimize skeletal looks. Many here are better than me and are able to achieve this without substructures.

Adhesive paper, how long does it last? I'm afraid it will peal over time like wall paper.