NEW 1/350 ships from Hasegawa!!

I would love to see the older U.S. battleships as well. I would also like to see the Queen Elizabeth class and the Revenge class British ships.

As for those CAD lines on the Nagato; I saw no problem with them. They are a very prominent feature on the USS Texas in San Jacinto and I assumed that they would be as prominent on the hull of any other ship built during that general time frame.  I remember being with my uncle, a volunteer  onboard Texas, in the souvenir shop with a built resin model of the ship in 1/350 scale. A group of us were discussing detail problems on the model. Nobody mentioned the lack of CAD lines on the hull until I pointed them out on the real ship. I liked the Nagato kit because of this.

Bill Morrison

I think you may be confused, or perhaps I explained myself poorly..... I am referring to CAD lines, which are the lines a computer program uses to designate the 3D curvature of a hull (these are a computer development of the old lines plans used to build ships).  I think you may be thinking of plate lines, which are the joins of the individual steel plates used to make the hull (either welded, or in older ships, rivetted).  These plates in reality are generally quite large, and the joins quite fine by scale, so that at a scale of 1/350, you should hardly be able to see them at all (and are often left out by model manufacturers for that reason).  Usually in photographs, the only reason you might note plate joins (unless in very close range) is that often this is where rust begins to flake away the paint (and the plate line often gets a rusty streak as well, and you will see good modellers imitate this with 'weathering' paint).  If you get ahold of just about any other model ship in this scale, you will see what I am talking about....

In any case, on the Hasegawa 1/350 Nagato, the hull shows the complete CAD program that was used to create the mold for the model, and at a scale size and depth of about a foot wide and 8"-10" deep!  Only thing to do is somehow figure out a way to smoothly fill in all of these CAD lines, but as they pass right through a lot of tricky bits with a lot of angles and/or curvatures, I think this may be an almost impossible task.   Anybody out there figure out an easy way to deal with this problem?

searat12,

I misunderstood what you meant. I thought you were referring to the plate lines. Sorry for the misunderstanding!

Bill Morrison

Maybe that is what Hasegawa was thinking in leving the CAD lines in??

Im in the "waiting for someone to figure out a good/clean way of getting rid of CAD lines" group.

I seriously thought that they were modeling the plate lines. They are very reminiscent of those on the battleship TEXAS. So, that is how I am viewing mine.

Bill Morrison

 I for one applaud a 1/350th Sea Plane Tender from Hasegawa and since they included such a plane (the Emily) in the "initial" release of the Yukikaze, early version, I guess they have the planes ready to go? I'm all for the unique or obscure, often overlooked subjects- and this is arguably a perfect example of such!

 I'd love to see a USN counterpart to show off my favorite plane- PBY Catalinas!

Great to see the expansion within offerings for this scale! Leaves the quandry though- "boycott" those models with the 'Cad error' to say we want better and maybe they take that as a sign that it was a bad decision for more offerings or buy it in "support" of their efforts and send a message that we'll "accept" such glaring problems? I dunno?

I am really glad to see the expansion too, and expect I will pick up the Hasegawa seaplance tender when it hits the shelves.   It's a strange thing, as the 1/350 scale ship range really started with Tamiya way back in the early '80's, but then stagnated for so long... Even stranger, it seems a combination of the sales successes of the hugely expensive YSM resin models, and the demonstration that much the same success could happen with styrene, but at lower costs (several Russian companies like Zvezda, the take-off of the Trumpeter company) finally stirred the model producers as a whole to do something serious with this scale....

I think Hasegawa will recoup its investment in Nagato, and they have plenty of their own evidence to show how this scale can succeed fabulously, IF the models are well done (Mikasa, Yukikze, etc).  BUT..... I think they should learn a lesson from the Nagato fiasco that quality control right down to the end of the production schedule is very important!  I really am so surprised that this one got by the folks at Hasegawa, as they have always been so careful in the past... It is also important to do as much as they can to keep the productio costs down, which is why the use of CAD programs to assist in the making of molds is a real breakthrough (in the past, some artisan had to literally carve the initial example, which not only would take a very long time, but was quite expensive as well!).  No problem with the use of the CAD program, but somebody needs to check to make sure the process is followed through to the end!

Searat12,

As I've said before, I have been building ship models for over 50 years. I have also sailed in them over a 24 year career in the Navy. I have always remarked that the lack hull plate lines detracted from the overall effect of the model, especially in 1/350 scale, since they can be a very prominent feature of real ships. Never having heard of CAD lines, I made the assumption that Hasegawa was simply attempting to finally do something with this feature.

It is not as if no other manufacturer has tried. Revell did so with their ESSEX and FORRESTAL class aircraft carriers, their destroyer models also featured them. Lindberg did so on their early ship model kits. These lines were always featured as raised panel lines much like in airplane kits. Then, the trend in airplane kits shifted to engraved panel lines; it seemed logical to assume that Hasegawa was trying to do the same with plate lines on NAGATO. Although overdone, I find the effect pleasing. It looks better than a smooth hull since no hull on any ship that I have ever served on or seen has had the smooth hulls of the standard 1/350 scale ships.

It would be a tedious but not impossible task to fill them with either finely stretched sprue or finely rolled putty, then sand them smooth if that is an appearance that you prefer. Good luck!

Bill Morrison

There is another peculiarity with Hasegawa, and this has also been picked up on by a few other model producers, and that is the inclusion of numerous internal bulkheads.  These had a purpose in the 'Mikasa' model, as they were used to form the bases for the secondary armament, and they are partly used in the same way in 'Nagato,' and also in the Fujimi 'Kongo.'  While I understand this use, it seems to me that a simple beam with an appropriate molding going across the width of the hull could serve the same purpose, thus saving a lot of plastic (this technique is used in the large scale Heller sailing ships, like 'Victory,' Soleil Royal,' etc).  Further, a lot of these bulkheads don't seem to serve any purpose, but somebody thought they should be in there, for some reason.  I don't think they add any 'stiffness' to the hull (at least none that is necessary), since the hull is already formed of quite thick plastic (certainly in comparison with similar-sized Trumpeter models, they are at least twice as thick!), and once the deck is glued on should have all the stiffness anyone might want.  I have a problem with these bulkheads for two reasons, the first being that they will mostly have to be cut away in the event someone might want to make one of these as an RC version, and second, they tend to distort the hull a bit, making it very difficult to get a good hull-deck join (it can't be clamped!).  This has caused problems with my Aoshima 'Atago,' and if I was to build this model again (and I might get her sistership 'Maya'), I think I would leave out the bulkheads altogether, just to avoid this issue in the future!

As a conjecture, I have a suspicion that these bulkheads may actually represent where significant structural bulkheads in the real ship were located, and were included because the guys with the CAD program saw them in the original plans, and just threw them in because their supervisors told them to put in 'everything!'

warshipguy wrote:

Searat12, As I've said before, I have been building ship models for over 50 years. I have also sailed in them over a 24 year career in the Navy. I have always remarked that the lack hull plate lines detracted from the overall effect of the model, especially in 1/350 scale, since they can be a very prominent feature of real ships. Never having heard of CAD lines, I made the assumption that Hasegawa was simply attempting to finally do something with this feature. It is not as if no other manufacturer has tried. Revell did so with their ESSEX and FORRESTAL class aircraft carriers, their destroyer models also featured them. Lindberg did so on their early ship model kits. These lines were always featured as raised panel lines much like in airplane kits. Then, the trend in airplane kits shifted to engraved panel lines; it seemed logical to assume that Hasegawa was trying to do the same with plate lines on NAGATO. Although overdone, I find the effect pleasing. It looks better than a smooth hull since no hull on any ship that I have ever served on or seen has had the smooth hulls of the standard 1/350 scale ships. It would be a tedious but not impossible task to fill them with either finely stretched sprue or finely rolled putty, then sand them smooth if that is an appearance that you prefer. Good luck! Bill Morrison

Bill,

 I agree that hull plates are a 'real' and noticeable feature missing on steel warship models. Until the time that manufacturers include them I guess it's up to the determined few to attempt to replicate them with such techniques as masking and spraying on a 'fast fill' primer such as Mr. Surfacer. It's been done with sucess but is of course labor intensive. An overall coat and then sanding was also mentioned as a possible fix to the existing Cad lines but you could go ahead and have the hull plating as your goal as long as you're willing to shoot the stuff anyway? It is a shame that in this day and age of 'high tech modeling processes' striving to bring us better quality we are actually seeing a downside to some of the same technology?

 Now as long as we're talking about Hasegawa specifically I also find it a shame that their own PE add on sets aren't as "nice" as say Gold Medal Models yet cost more? I understand they might be trying to engineer them a little "robust" so modelers (perhaps newcomers to PE) won't find the parts "folding up, wrinkling and becoming unuseable" but since they are optional I don't really understand an inferior product at a higher price. Now for the same reason I prefer GMM over Tom's Modelworks which are a lil on the "fine" side for my hamfisted modeling abilities yet I don't consider GMM to be as relatively overscale and hard to work with as the factory Hasegawa offerings? But then too even these are better than the PE frets that Trumpeter includes in their models like the Sullivans or England. I have no use for those thick and barely bendable pieces? But I'm thinking of both sets of Hasegawa PE I purchased along with both versions of the Yukikaze released appx. two years ago.

Don