1/350 Hasegawa Akagi Complete.

Man, Steve, I am super excited to see you get started on this beaut. This is going to be an epic ride. That girder PE is really amazing and is going to look all that and a bag of chips when done. I believe you will be pegging the "oohs" and "aahs" meter with this. I'm fully on board for this cruise. Give 'er hell!

Steve,

Mind If I pull in alongside to watch this build? As others have said, I have it in the stash but I haven’t had a chance to purloin any after market... yet!

I’ll be paying very close attention to all that girder work. My hat is off to you sir.

Steve

Joe and Steve, glad to have you.

I am in the process of securing some laser cut card stock gussets and various other items (splinter drapes and gussets around and under the gun tubs) from a young fellow in South Korea. he makes them himself and the finished product, as well as his own skills, are amazing.

I ordered and received a prop blur PE set yesterday. There should be enough for the Zeeks and Kates on the flight deck. The scene will be the piolts around the island for the briefing as the crews are readying the planes. Nice shot of island and the signal flags and they way they stand proud in the wind.

I kept saying, "holy crap" theres more, as i did multiple scrolls through your post of the girder instructions! Definitely subscribing to my 1st FSM thread.

ohh and btw if you finish on time as expected I will go to Nationals in 2021 just to see it 

TheMongoose

ohh and btw if you finish on time as expected I will go to Nationals in 2021 just to see it

You got a deal Chris!! You know it's in Vegas right? A little trip form Ohio.

modelcrazy

 

 

TheMongoose

ohh and btw if you finish on time as expected I will go to Nationals in 2021 just to see it

 

 

You got a deal Chris!! You know it's in Vegas right? A little trip form Ohio.

 

yeah I'll have to do something in carry-on scale! Maybe >1/700 or maybe 1/72 for planes otherwise it'll just be a sightseeing trip haha

I dug out the Graf Z and it doesn't look as bad as I remembered.  About 5 frets and a couple of those are railings.

I seem to remember the Merit"E" has some girder work under the bow end of the flight deck too.

So Steve, we all know you can crank out some impressive work in short order, so how many days will it take to finish her?

Just kidding, thanks for pointing me to your build thread; I will be watching this for sure.

Ben

This......

is just plain crazy...

GH, how is that Merit E?

Ben, Oh about 2 weeks . I'm not sure, it can take up to 10 minutes to find a part with the 20 or so sprue trees. I have to scan through all 4 PE instructions to see if something should be added to any assembly I'm working on. I have a guy in South Korea printing me up a laser cut card stock set for additional girders. This may take all the way up to next June. This time, I'm logging my hours, that way when someone asks "how long did it take?" I can give them an accurate answer.

Mustang, Im just nuts, that's all. I've found some 3D twin 25mm AA guns that I may order from France as well. After this build, everything else will be a walk in the park. 

Except that wood Victory.  I can supply you with a practice build for that one....Heller's 1/100.

I'll pull her out next week and refresh my memory.

I have the Corel 1/98 Victory. All I have done so far is just the hull skeleton. It's a MONSTER when completed as well as incredibly complex. That is my penical kit, I can't die until I finish it.

My wife also bought me the Airfix Victory. I've heard it's the first kit Airfix produced.

One thing that surprised me with the Akagi were the aircraft, you actually had to put on theis landing gear.They are small and very delicate, watch out.  The aircraft decals went on well but the basic kit couldhave used more aircraft than the kit provided.

I thought the idea of search lights on the flight deck was one of the strange ideas they came up with.  also the deck marking decals were a challenge for me.  They come in sections so you will hav e to come up with a way to aligh them all the way down the deck and near the elevators.

Thank you ikar. I've bought 3 more aircraft sets. The PE also has landing gear doors for the Zeeks. I didn't see any for the Kates though, maybe they are already on the gear, I haven't looked.
The problem I'm going to run into is each aircraft set has the same markings, I suppose as long as I separate the 4 same marked aircraft, one probably won't notice. I believe there's only one leader in a flight of Kates so I'll have to be mindful of the tail striping.
Maybe Stikpusher or someone with more knowlage of Japanese Squardons could fill me in. I need to cut the canopys to show them open with the ground crew preping them.

As for the deck striping, since I'm installig a wood deck I'm going to paint the lines. The Akagi didn't have the Hinomaru during Operation K, but I don't know about the rest of the kido butai.

I thought the retractable deck search light was good idea, assuming they thought a serface battle was possable. That's the reason they kept the 155mm casemate guns. I'm sure the guns would have been removed if she has lasted past mid 43. We'll never know.

Massive amount of work on the Akagi this weekend, well not so much yesterday. I've been loging hours since I started and I'm up to 21. I'm afraid to find out just how many hours of my life will be spent building this thing.

I spent about 2 of thoss hours working on the two 13m special landing craft boats, adding PE, weathering, drybrushing, just to find out one will probably never be seen and the other can barrly be seen through the aft port section of the hull. Oh well, at least I know they are there. I also started black basing and spraying the base coat grey to areas that I won't be able to get to with the AB. I know it doesn't look like much work but it is. Most of the work is looking through the three sets of PE instructions to see if I'm suposed to add or replace any parts. I wish the instructions were as clear as Eduard PE, however I'm very impressed with the quallity of the PE itself. You can not see what PE was installed, most of it is so tiny my camera didn't pick it up at this distance. The bow and stern arreas is where most of the detail work will be I suspect.

The area where the landing craft will be installed....on the rail you can't see.

BTW, here are the 3 PE trees for the bow and stern deck girders.

I imagine the time will be in the hundreds of hours!  Those girders are going to look amazing!

I don't know if this will help, but when I was building this kit I took all the sprues and put them on edge and in order in a box nearby.  This made them close enough to get to shen needed and more manageable.  All I had to do was turn a little and flip through the spreus until I got to the ones I needed. I should've seperated them with some kind of lettered dividers   

If I had been building my own kit I think I would have picked up the extras but I was not about to put out that much for someone else's kit.  I did it on the Mogami carfrfier and never got re-imbersed tfor the set.

Mopar Madness

I imagine the time will be in the hundreds of hours!  Those girders are going to look amazing!

 

yes, I suspect that as well. 21 hours just for this, but when someone says "how logn did ot take?" I'll have an answer.

ikar01

I don't know if this will help, but when I was building this kit I took all the sprues and put them on edge and in order in a box nearby.  This made them close enough to get to shen needed and more manageable.  All I had to do was turn a little and flip through the spreus until I got to the ones I needed. I should've seperated them with some kind of lettered dividers   

If I had been building my own kit I think I would have picked up the extras but I was not about to put out that much for someone else's kit.  I did it on the Mogami carfrfier and never got re-imbersed tfor the set.

 

I was thinking the same, I can seperate the sprues with some cardboard.

I organized that box Ikar, the sprues are much easer to find, not so easy to get out of the box though.

Just a small update. I just got 3 hours on the Akagi last night. I black based and sprayed the linoleum at the bow, most of which you won't really see once the hanger overhang is installed, and stern deck. I then proceeded to work on the stern girder system. Wow, what a delicate interlocking puzzle that is. I first had thought that it attached to the deck while one constructed it....nope. There's no reference. So, to be able to place the deck correctly, aligning with the massive posts, the assembly needs to be built on the bench first. Another issue I see is the deck at the stern is curved on the actual ship, not on the kit. I need to add some curvature to the deck to match the curvature of the delicate mass of PE. Others have done it, so can I. It's going to take a while and I'll work on it while other things are drying.

There are areas of the deck that will be masked and sprayed Sasebo Arsenal Grey A, at least that's what Hasegawa says to paint it, even though she was built in Kure. Whatever  It was their ship after all, what do I know.

I think ikar meant to take another box, like a shipping or packing box, and open up one side and glue in enough dividers to have one or two sprues in each slot.

Kind of a vertical file rack.

Nice work so far.  You are going to be a bald alcoholic by the time you get done with all the PE and fixes

Thanks GM, I know what he meant, I'm using a bankers box, open at the top with cardboard dividers. There are just so many sprues I have to have at least two per section. It's much easer to flio through them to find the correct one. I also have a piece of masking tape attached to each tree to quickly identify the sprue name. 

Ahhh, I misunderstood, thought you had just organized them in the kit box and had to dig through the pile.

I'll head back to the crow's nest and watch for Bombing 3 & 6 to arrive

goldhammer

I'll head back to the crow's nest and watch for Bombing 3 & 6 to arrive

Hopefully you'll be a little more on the ball than who was up there, although I'm not sure he was slow or if it would have made any diffrence.

I put in about 4 hours last night. I masked and sprayed the grey and did some fading since this area will be impossible to get to later. I'll add some weathering tonight for the same reason and then continue to add the hanger overhang at the bow. I also worked on the girder system some. something to get my wound up before bed.

This is one of the most fun kits I've done.

I didn't get anything done last night due to other engagements but I did find and order one of these, making each a kit in itself.

If it works out and I don't go insane, I'll order more.

Well if you do start to go off the deep end, not as deep as the Akagi did we hope, my brother is a pshchologist in Reno.

When you get to the underside of the rear flight deck, you will find a sort of track with what appears to be a traveling box attached.  I have no idea what that thing was for, do you?

Never seen anything like that before. This is going to become an heirloom piece.   

Ikar...1/350 PE interiors?????.   Steve has fallen down the rabbit hole too far to get back out.

I would suspect that an overhead track and box would be some kind of hoist/trolly system for heavy items, maybe engines to get them to a test stand after repairs.

Steve... I hope the spinners for the zeros are preformed.

I'd nail the unopened package to the wall over the bench with a railroad spike and a sign..."WHAT WAS I THINKING".