1/200 Scale answer Models IJN Akizuki

[Don Boose]

Yes. I guess if you have been working in 1/700, then 1/200 must seem like giant scale. It's still a very small boat with incredible detail to any mortal human being's eye.

Don

[Royaloakmin]

Jay, for the small boats think about using a small spoon or round end of a pen to work the paper. It looks like you cut triangles out where maybe you just needed slits. But it is quite nice for a first effort, do be incouraged. Dont hesitate to use your pens to color the insides...you do have Pitt pens?

[treadhead1952]

Thanks for the tip Fred. I think that I will try a nice fat Sharpie marker pen next time around. No, I have never heard of Pitt Pens before, something special?

Actually I get a second shot at this one. I scored the "Red" ink jet cartridge and now that my printer decided that it will work again, I found the interior hull part for the small boat. It also means that I get to get back to work on the hulls' plates and get them on so I can continue on with the main part of the build.

Actually there is a pair of rather small narrow triangles to be cut out on both sides in addition to the slots for the oar locks. Seems sort of strange that they didn't include any sort of ledge for the top of the hull all the way around, my small boat building experience being limitied to a couple of 1/1 versions for my own use has shown these as a necessary part of the framing. I will have to see what I can do with the next generation of these little craft.

Jay Massey
treadhead1952
Las Vegas, NV

[Royaloakmin]

Using a Sharpie to shape is ok, but not for color. Get yourself some Faber-Castell Pitt pens, they are inexpensive, available online (try Dick Blick or a good Art Supply store). They do not bleed and you can get by with just the basic colors. Almost all other pens bleed. They are absolutely the best for edge coloring and can color wood dowels also.

I think that missing ledge is odd too, but it is common in eastern European kits.

[treadhead1952]

Hi Fred,

Cool deal, I went by Michaels and checked out the stuff that they had when I went shopping for my Bristol paper. I did pick up a 130 piece art set that they had on sale for like $2.99 mostly because it actually had a couple different gray colored marker pens in it as well as a few other things like watercolor set and colored pencils thinking that this might be of some help. We do have a Dick Blick store here so I will go check it out, it is my source for parts for my air brush and celluclay so I know right where it is.

Now that I am off from the salt mines I will see just what I can do with some serious modeling time that I have available, it sure is h**l to have to work all day just so you can come home to the important stuff. :D

Jay Massey
treadhead1952
Las Vegas, NV

[redhorse]

Originally Posted by treadhead1952

We do have a Dick Blick store here so I will go check it out, it is my source for parts for my air brush and celluclay so I know right where it is.

Lucky - I loved that store when I used to live near one.

Originally Posted by treadhead1952

it sure is h**l to have to work all day just so you can come home to the important stuff. :D

I wholeheartedly agree!

[treadhead1952]

Ahoy Shipmates,

Yeah Jim, one of the reasons that I chose Las Vegas as the place to hang my hat some twenty odd years ago, 24 hour town, tons of shopping and a definitely long heat spell that encourages all the lasses to wear as little as possible when venturing out of doors from about March until October. lol

Well, back to business, with the printer up and running again now that it has its' little inkwell filled again, I was able to get happy and print out all the pages needed to build the rest of the Akizuki plus a little. Since I have been itching to get busy with the rest of the hull I clipped out the bow and its' adjoining plate and parts to make up the anchor well.



The little brow that went around the inside of the pocket was a trip to deal with. I finally worked out that if I softened the piece up after removal and just glued it to the inside of the pocket at the edge I would have a surface to glue the back piece to and be done with it. When I checked the fit of the hull plates themselves, it occured to me that they also reguired some more strips across the bulkhead formers to offer gluing surface. I located the dark gray field of material on the page that held it and clipped them out, measured them so that they fit the required locations and got happy with Aleene's concotion again.



After the glue had dried a bit it was time to try my hand at the first set of plates. I did have to trim the tab that was the second in the row for the new anchor pocket to fit and allow things to go in correctly but that was a minor problem. Checking everything for fit I put on some glue and laid the plate in place and tucked it into the strips and against the bulkheads, surprisingly the way it was shaped allowed the nose to roll right around and follow the contours of the deck and come out looking straight. The next plate in line went on and I let it go at that point for the night. The salt mine requires my attention for two early shifts that means I get to get my happy self out of bed at 3:15 AM so that is as far as I get to go tonight. I will neaten up the edges a bit and touch them up so that they match the rest of the hull later on before adding the anchors.



I did clip out all the parts to make up the small long boats so that I could work on them as a sort of side project. I found a site that had some excellent 3D renderings of them and all the related gear, one of the reasons that I detailed my first effort as I did. Now that I have "all" the pieces figured out as well as Freds' tip on forming them I will be able to do a little better job this time around I hope. As you can see, there are two little narrow "V" shapes that are supposed to be cut out on each side of the hull as well as the oarlock positions. The parts that I used for the outside is actually supposed to be the inside, oops, oh well, I still had fun anyway. You can also see a twin row of life preservers at the top. For some reason the Akizuki kit has none, which I thought was sort of odd. Fortunately, I found this little collection in the pages of the Mutsuki kit that I had purchased as my next foray into paper modeling. I figure to back them up with some Bristol paper as well as do a little decoupage work with some Modge Podge to thicken them up to make them a little more 3 dimensional before adding them to the build.



Jay Massey
treadhead1952
Las Vegas, NV

[eibwarrior]

Jay, another good marker to take a look at, particularly for ships, is the Prismacolor line. They have a cool grey line graduated from 10% to 90% in shades. As Fred pointed out, they do bleed, particularly at the outset, but they can be used with a grazing motion for edge coloring so that you don't get bleed through. Once these pens are broken in, the bleed through concern is completely gone.

You can pick them up at Hobby Lobby for around $3.50 each or I've seen them as cheap as $2 each at one of my local art supply houses. They have other shades of grey other than their cool line as well.

I highly recommend these for all the grey edge coloring you encounter with ships...

[treadhead1952]

Thanks for the tip, I tried to find some gray markers at Michaels Art Store and HTUSA and our little Hobby People stores but no joy as they say. I do have a pretty fair batch of paint, Acryl, Model Master, Tamiya and Testors to select from and custom mixing is also a possibility if I run into any major problems.

My forward deck got injured when I was masking to shoot the red on the hull bottom, the tape peeled up a section of it. After attempting to repair the damage, I just said to heck with it, ran a copy of the deck using some copy paper, clipped it out and applied it with some spray adhesive curing the problem that way. Now that I am discovering all the fun that this method of construction is, I can see that I will have to "tool up" with a few additions to the collection over and above what I already have. Like most other guys, any opportunity to add to the tool collection is welcomed with grand anticipation as a reason to go trolling through various places of interest. :D

Jay Massey
treadhead1952
Las Vegas, NV

[treadhead1952]

Ahoy Shipmates,

After a 10 hour day at work and feeling disgruntled over my first stab at the long boat for the Akizuki, I decided to give it another shot. This time around I carefully trimmed everything out, glued the inner and outer hulls together after creasing their centerlines first to make it easier to fold the two thicknesses of paper card. I used a pair of flatnosed minipliers to crease the after section where the stern would be and after doubling the thickness of it to match the rest of the hull got that part together. Gluing the bow up after using a fat Sharpie to give it some shape I started with the stern section and its' little seating arrangement. That was when I discovered that the parts no longer fit down inside the hull as I was able to do with the first incarnation. As a matter of fact, all the parts had to go on the top of the hull. After getting one keel on to one boat, I decided to call it quits for the evening and show you what I had managed to do.

I am not happy with it. I am not even going to put the keel on the second one, preferring to save it for another try. One of the beauties of paper models, you can keep trying until you get it like you want it. Done like I want it to be, the thwarts will sit down inside the hull below the level of the edge as well as the stern seat and the litlte triangular bit like I had on the original one. There will more of a curvature to the hull itself and the floorboards will sit even deeper to allow for the thwarts to sit down where they need to be. It is pretty obvious that it may take a while to get it right, but the results will be worth the effort.



Fortunately, I am off for the next two and a half days after a partial day at the salt mines tomorrow so I can get all involved in my efforts to do a better job.

Jay Massey
treadhead1952
Las Vegas, NV