I haven't gotten to that point yet Cliff.
I have been painting both the base and turret. The turret is done and the oils are drying before I string the wire. I still need to paint the blast bags once I mix up a color that looks right. The deck color was hard to match since the Japanese decks were more yellow than ours or the Germans but I think I have the base coat done. Now I need to add some oils.
I did not heavily weather the turret because the most action the Yamato saw was in port. She was commonly know as the Hotel Yamato.
She traveled around from base to base but the only major action that I'm aware of was Midway, where she never was in battle, the Battle of the Philippine sea where she fired at Japanese planes by mistake, The battle of Layte Gulf while during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, she lost her sister ship Musashi to naval air attack, the battle off Samar where she hit the DD USS Johnston and the CVE USS Gambier Bay with her main guns, both ships were lost to enemy fire. Operation Ten-Go was her last sortie when she left port on a suiside mission to defend Okinawa. The Allies intercepted and decoaded raidio transmissions which allowed the Americans to spot, track and eventually sink the Yamato where she lies 290 Km southwest of Kyushu and under 340 meters of water, her turrets falling out of their barbets long before she settled on the bottom.
First coat on the deck
Turret complete except for a dull coat and the railings.
Anyone who is planning to build this kit, or the Bruno I would assume, could really skip step 2 I believe. I found that the barrel receivers installed in this step are a redundant step and since you will be glueing the balst bags to the turret glacis, are unnecessary. I had a hard time seeting the barrels into the recivers all the way so I removed them.
