MC, I can't wait to see how this progresses.  I don't think I've seen any modeled wrecks other than Arizona as she sits now and Bismarck.  Someone pass the popcorn!

Groot

I hope it's worth the price of admission.

Well ;

   Now that is a daunting task . Did I really fire up this kind of reaction ? It's gonna be a winner I think !    T.B.

There was a nice Edmund Fitzgerald wreck diorama I remember seeing somewhere.  It may have been at a Mariner's Museum exhibition 10+ years ago.  Since that ship wrecked in separate bow and stern sections and if you can find photos of that model, I imagine it would be a reference since you are trying something similar.

Enjoy it Steve.

Google "Edmund Fitzgerald wreck diorama" and you'll find images.

Here is another interesting bit of information I found on http://www.ussflierproject.com/tags/musashi/.

It shows the hits the ship took after 6 waves of Avengers, Hellcats and Helldivers. Each "mark" is numbered in correspondence to the attack wave and the key denotes a bomb, torpedo or a miss. Looking at the bow section of the initial "live feed" video, I didn't see any damage to the deck, although the ROV didn't fly directly over that area, I would have thought I would see something. There is however, a nasty dent just behind the bulbous bow were a near miss bomb hit was. It just tells you the power of a shockwave in the water.

The Bow apparently broke off just aft of the #1 main turret, so there will be quite a bit of damage on the port side forward to the dent. 5 or 6 torpedo strikes on the port and 3 on the starboard. after wave 6 however, there was probably nothing left of the port side mid section, although oddly enough, when survivors came up from the aft bowels of the ship for the first time to abandon ship, they had thought the torpedo hits were their own main guns firing. WOW, just to be in those massive ships while the main guns were firing must have been incredible.
The aft section will be much easier as it is burred upside down and broke off just fore of the flight deck. All that will be needed there will be to scratch the interior decks. There is some damage to some of the props, probably from the initial near miss's form the third wave, or from the impact of hitting the bottom, but that will be easy.

It is very difficult to distinguish the actual photos of the Musashi with either Tamiya's Yamato build (labeled as the Musashi), or artists conception or pictures of other ships, again labeled as the M.
The debris, field, as far as I can tell from the side scan sonar, is a fair distance from the bow/stern resting places, but i'm confident there are some twisted pieces near the bow/stern. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any main, secondary or tertiary guns anywhere near my target area.
So, the first thing I will need to do is some drastic surgery on my Yamato, which was packed and has moved with me at least 5 times in the last 20 years. Maybe this is a fitting tribute to that old model as well. Better in a wreck dio than in landfill.

Thank you for the interest guys. Just like my Indy project, it's all of you watching that makes me want to do my best and keeps me motivated.

Steve

tankerbuilder

Did I really fire up this kind of reaction ?

Yes, yes you did. It's all your fault.

Actually, I've wanted to do a wreck for a while. I just needed a little push. And, at least for now, I won't be in competition with all those museum built models.

Like the others, I'm looking forward to seeing how you handle it. It's the sort of project I've always intended to do, but never quite got around to. Rock on!

Subfixer,

That is funny LOL.

I am slowly coming around to my own suggestion .

       Oh ! Fiddlesticks ! I guess I better Find a ship or boat that can be a candidate ! Hmmmmm.  T.B.

TB-  Franklin after the fires were out might be a good candidate with all the damage and still getting home.

Looking forward to this one.

Here's the start.
After studying the side scan radar, I realize that there's far more of the stern remaining than I originally thought. It looks like the hull, while torn off, extends along the keel to at least under the aft superstructure. Since the stern is buried in the mud, this won't pose any problems. I will need to recreate more torpedo damage though. This out to be interesting, and fun, especially since I've never scratch build damage before.

.

Steve

The folks in the aircraft forums might be able to help you out with hole damage. They use foil and plastic thinning techniques to achieve amazing results.

Hey !

   I got one I messed up too ! Cool ! Thanks !

Ambitious! I've seen wreck models of the Titanic, Arizona, Bismarck, and Yamato. The trouble with ships like Musashi was that they self destructed on sinking, makes modeling such very challenging. Good luck with it ;-)

Subfixer ;

     We use that on model cars and trucks too !

Steve ;

   Bear in mind , There wasn't any main or tertiary guns around much of the Bismark either  .Gun Mounts are NOT fastened down like so many folks think they are  .Mostly besides drive rings and seals it's their own weight that keeps them in place .

 Turn the ship upside down and yes they will fall  out  ,sometimes a mile or so in a line following the debris field . Stacks and Masts usually do to because the pressure of the water pushing on the stuff in the downward spiral some take .

     I do know of a ship that sank and hit the bottom stern first ! The stern  half stayed upright ( pointing up that is ) and the bow and the rest collapsed around it !

Guys, Thank you for the help. I will accept any ideas on how to make damage look real.

The advantage I have is the wreck is covered in silt and sealife, so my detail will not have to be a precise as it would if I were building a damaged tank or aircraft. Learning how to though will be an advantage for future projects, so thank you for the suggestion to look for advice in the airplane and car forums

This will be a new experience to me and allow me to stretch my comfort zone. There are several areas of the bow and stern which still remain a mystery to me, and I will refer to to Yamato and Bismark which had similar torpedo damage.

TB,

I used to think turrets were attached, until the Bismark was found, then my paradigm was changed.

I think the first place to start, will be to research the deck layout and scratch the interior decks to insert into the bow and stern.

Steve

Suggestion- build a scale model or two of your scale model. Work out the general arrangement of the pieces and the major assemblies you need.

As you know, this thing left the surface relatively intact (full of holes) but blew up underwater and fell 3,800 feet onto a hard surface, no doubt twisting and turning all the way. Probably bounced some and flopped around.

KT,

You are certainly not too late. I read your response to my inquiry.

Groot,

Now that I'm on the right thread, I'll continue my thought.

This is what I accomplished last night (the "deck" is not glued in at this time) I still have quite a bit to do here. You can see the torpedo belt area and the inner hull. I will need to remove this inner hull piece temporally to motor tool the side to open a hole, then install the twisted metal for the damage. There seems to be only one torpedo hit from wave 6 on the port side that i will need to simulate. There also looks like there are 3 near bomb misses on the starboard side the may have caused some dents.

Looking at the "hit: chart, the majority of the torpedo damage was on the port side, just about where I looks like the stern broke off, or blew off.

This is a cutaway of the mid-section I found which is the basis on my work so far.

Here is what I built last night. Most of this will be cut away and bent. Like I said, I still have a lot to do here and add more decks and bulkheads.

Thanks for following.

Steve

MC,

Looking awesome, I can't wait to see more.

This is what I accomplished today.

I ground the starboard side of the stern to help simulate the possible dents from the near misses (I'm assuming that there are dents after seeing the dent in the bow from a near miss). I thinned the side in squares to try to show the bulkheads. I don't have any idea if this is correct or it will work, but I'm giving it a try.
 

Next I thinned a section on the port and made a hole for a torpedo strike. I will overlay this with alumium for the outward damage. I will also make some inward damage on the inner wall of the buldge.

Now I know this looks bad, but this is the seafloor and the dio base. I took a piece of styrofoam and heated it up with my plumbers torch (that's why it's blackened and yes, there's a hole in it). Not to worry though, as this will be covered in paper strips and acrylic medium, similar to what I did for the Indy. Once the pieces are laid in their spots, I will add some more medium and something for the silt. I'm not sure just yet what I'm going to use, but I'm sure the model railroading community has something that will work just fine. The base is quite large, but to keep this somewhat to scale, it needs to be.

Very cool Steve, good luck!

MC,

 This is looking cool already.  I like the bulkhead idea with the thinning, if you are trying to simulate dents from a near miss, are you going to push the thinned sections inward?  If the miss was external it should buckle the metal plates between the support beams for the hull.  The work you've done for the decks and bulkheads already looks great.  I'm gonna need more popcorn!  

Groot

Thanks Groot,

I was messing around with a piece of soda can last night, cutting, bending, poking, trying to make it look real, then I thought, the 4th is coming up (fireworks are still legal here in Boise) why don't I put a firecracker next to a piece, or inserted into a hole of  a piece of soda can to see what the damage would look like. I may do that, depending on weather I could get away with it safely. Fireworks will go on sell here very soon.   

After you light the fuse ,make sure you back away.Shrapnel can be damaging!