1/700 Lou Coatney designed Shiratsuyu destroyer

[LouCoatney]

(The P-.com time limit is WAY too short for composing substantive replies.)

I have seen the Do It Yourself (DIY) plans issued by the U.S. Navy for members of the public to make their own ID models for the Navy, FM, but there were problems with them.

When people build wooden models even according to a plan there are often great differences in the size and shape of things supposed to be identical, like gun turrets.

By contrast - thanks to cut-and-paste during doing the plans - my paper model gun turrets are dead solid perfect(ly) identical right down to the last pixel (which you can often see).
The heavy paper models would have been cheaper to produce and would have saved having to pain them.
Being so light, they travel extremely well and are surprisingly tough and repairable.
And the preservation/water-proffing paper varnishes back then were adequate.

In 1968, GI Lou bought a beautiful assembled and painted Delphin 1:1250 Richelieu in my base town Hanau am Main and I later picked up another on eBay during my 20 years back in Illinois after Alaska. When I shipped them over here to Norway, I packed them in a box with some other metal models - all 2-sided taped and tied-string-bound to the floor of the strong cardboard box.
They and a couple of their shipmates somehow got loose and destroyed each other.

Plastic are lighter and safer - and at one time Wiking had an extensive line of WW2 1:1250 plastic ships (omitting the Japanese entirely, though) - and paper models even moreso.
One day, to my SHOCK AND MORAL TERROR, I was holding my newly designed and built (and painted) USS Macomb DD-458 (with Val kamikaze which significantly damaged it off Okinawa, designed by my now-aerospace-engineer son Robert) and DROPPED IT all the way to the floor.
It sort of floated down, with no injury whatsoever upon landing.

For designing, I do find the DIY Navy model ship plans useful for understanding superstructure and and the like shapes, though.

[georgerutherford1861]

Here is the second Shiratsuyu class destroyer, built up.

Nothing too exciting here, but a picture of it on its own and providing a slightly more fitting escort to Hiei.

Now it is time to round out the fleet a bit more before moving on to some of their US counterparts.

Doug

[LouCoatney]

Looking forward to seeing your IJN fleet being rounded out.

How long did this one take you?

[georgerutherford1861]

Lou,

It is hard to say how long this build took, I did it off and on while also working on my A6M2 model. Most of my time is spent waiting for glue to dry. This one went together faster than the first one, as I had my technique for building certain parts already worked out. Work has started on the next ship!

Doug

[wireandpaper]

Very nice, how did I missed this?