Nice...one of my favorite classes of ships..what scale, what kit?

Good old Tamiya in 'divine scale' For ships, there's only ever will be one scale.

Some in-progress shots:

A more up-to-date set of shots with added signal lights, wind direction finder and canopy brackets

Very nice! What is with the transverse lines on the deck? I'm not familiar wth this.

very sweet..!

Nice job of detailing, right down to the access rails around the stack, boy, are they delicate!

Did you paint the deck, or is that a decal?  The Japanese used a linoleum covering, didn't they?  Are the "stripes" seams, or were they painted on as some kind of markings?

Best regards,

Brad

Wow, she looks beautiful! I have a few ship kits in my stash but all that rigging and teeny PE parts always scare me off. Kudos sir!!!  

Hiya subfixer/the baron, those are metal strips used to secure the linoleum covers on the deck. On the kit, the deck has moulded raised line to represent these but it would be very difficult to paint these ultra thin lines gold after the main deck coat, so instead I used brass wire cut to length and glued on afterwards. The wires are a bit too thick, however any thinner and they will be difficult to keep straight. There are also PE replacements of these by fine molds/joe world but they are prohibitively expensive. The linoleum deck is just painted with Tamiya linoluem colour.

The most difficult part of the build was actually the float planes and their rigging between the wings/on floats. This was not intended as a very involved build from the outset but I got carried away mid-way. Otherwise I would've replaced the main masts with thinner brass tubes as the kit part is a bit too thick scale-wise.

very impressive detailing,she captures that very menacing look of an IJN Cruiser,great posting

Superb!!!  It is always difficult to do PE on 1/700 scale. I already quit that scale since it spoil my eye sight.

I love it.I also wish I could do half as well.Maybe some day.

Very well done; superb job on the rigging and deck detailing. The only thing I would add is to bore out the armament (or get metal barrels; I just got some RB metal barrels for the german pocket BBs, very cheap for 700 scale).  While the pin vase is out, maybe bore out the portholes even though is a major pain. What did you use or how did you make the on deck "stuff"?  Again, great job! cheers 

Thanks folks for the kind words. I did bore out the main gun and 12.7inch barrels (though the 12.7 are too thick for scale, typically skywave. Had they been in scale I wouldn't be able to drill them properly). Again the portholes were also slightly 'deepened' to kit stock.

This was originally intended as a quick build but ended up just piling on things. However I made no corrections/pre-planning other than 'pile on' PE so the end result is somewhat in-consistent. It helps that the Tamiya kit is very well engineered and friendly to superdetailing, eg, between the levels of the bridge, a square opening is already opened up to easily put in included ladders, and the bridge space is already hollowed out, all I need to do is cut away the windows etc. Overall it took about 3 weeks to 90% completion then many weeks after as the laziness sets in.

Used the following bits and pieces...many are just scrap pieces lying around.

Lionroar:
generic ladders, inclined ladders, bridge windows
triangular gaussets, solid and perforated
landing light from carrier nets set
thermal baffle for 203mm guns
IJN hand rails, doors & hatches
type 96 twin AA, 13mm twin AA
anchors/fairleads/life rings/chrysthanthemum
degaussing cable, boat davits set III
aircraft set, air direction radar, ammo crates
crew figures, IJN cable reels, IJN perforated bars
aircraft handling rail and turntables, IJN catapaults set

Flyhawk:
Float braces from the USN battleship set for the float planes
Machine guns from the USN airpower set 1 for the float planes

Tom's:
crane/search light platform support from IJN heavy cruiser set
ariel mast on turrets

Pitroad:
boats, type 89 AA (shielded type)

Fujimi:
search light in clear plastic

Other:
extra fine chain
sandbags from putty
wood bundles from 0.2mm sheet plastic
wires of various thickness
bits and pieces of white decal paper for railing canvas covers - deployed or rolled up etc

Hull plating from from masked primer coat (horizontal only, no vertical plates/weld lines)

Superb build. I love IJN cruisers and yours is one of the nicest I've seen.