1/350 Hasegawa Akagi Complete.

Every time I build I get better with PE, but the work on the funnel that you've done;

modelcrazy

Nope, no way no how would I ever be able to do that with that degree of mastery.  Wow.

Steve,

What are the photoetched bits that run the length of the hull above and below the portholes?  Are they a catwalk of some kind?  Outstanding work my friend.

lewbud

Steve,

What are the photoetched bits that run the length of the hull above and below the portholes?  Are they a catwalk of some kind?  Outstanding work my friend.

 

Are they degaussing cables?  Used to de-magnetize the hull to reduce effectiveness of mines?  Or something like that?

And Steve, that funnel PE is nuts!

Hasegawa call then "Jackstays". Of course to us Jackstays have to do with masts, to the Japanese they are handholds and footholds. The Degausing cable is the thick plastic line just above the PE. They didn't give me PE to replace it although I found some on eBay. I'm not going to go back and replace that thing 

Thanks Silly. It's really not that hard, just time consuming. I have upwards of 250 hours in it now.

wow , wow , wow , that's gorgeous steve , can't wait for more .

Steve, that stack is really something special.  Makes me want to climb on it.  You look like you are really enjoying yourself and all the while doing a spectacular job. 

Thanks Scott. I am enjoying myself, even though some of the process is slow and tends to be tedious. I keep the final vision in my mind to keep things going. I am a little peved about the lack of crew and planes avaliable. It seems Covid has slowed the manufacture of several things. I can find the plane sets but at outragous prices. I need at least one more, two preferably. I could use another 3 sets of IJN pilots but Northstar is the only ones who carries them and they're out of stock as well. Their shipping when they do have something in stock is in months not weeks, even before Covid. I'm waiting for a Hasegawa set of IJN crew from HLJ but again, out of stock, no idea when they will be in. Had I any idea that this pandimic would have cause such a depleted inventory I would have stocked up instead of spreading it out. Then again, I wasn't going to start her until next year so there was no reason to hurry.

You know, having served aboard ships, everytime I see those style stacks on the Japanese carriers, I wonder how they survived the stack gas that must have permeated the side of the ship and hanger bay. It must have been awful, especially if they were doing a full power run with all boilers on line.

Nice work on the kit, it's looking great. Well beyond my abilities.

Our CVE's had a similar set up.

From the accounts I've seen, was done to have less disturbed air over the deck, along with the small island.  

Wasn't as sucessful as thought and they went back to a more conventional arrangement

Steve,

Just found this on HLJ's website.  Don't know if these are the ones you are waiting for.

https://www.hlj.com/1-350-scale-ijn-japan-navy-aircraft-carrier-crews-pilots-142pcs-zplfs-05

Steve looking incredible! 
are you using a needle to apply CA to each of those mounting points on the PE? I'm just amazed at how clean it looks mounted to the plastic.

Hoo Yah, I believe it was bad smokey and probably why they injected water into the smoke screen to try to cut down on it. It doesn't look like it worked though.

It looks like shs's under full boiler here, probably on trials??

Here's another after the rebuild, probably at cruse I presume. Still looks pretty smokey.

That's why the 12cm guns on the starboard side aft the funnel were enclosed, so the crew wouldn't choke.

Buddy,

Hey man those are new! They are being reliesed in Sep. I have them in the wishlist now but they wouldn't let me pre order. Some of those guys look like they are modeling the latest in IJN uniforms LOL.

These are what I have on backorder

Certainly not as nice but will give some life the her.

These are what I have coming....some day from Northstar. I already have one set but I figure I'll need at least 150 guys min on the deck.

Lets see here.....9 Zeeks, 27 Kates on the first wave..... That's at least 1 pilot per plane....the Kates had 2 extra crew....carry the two....yep, I'd say 90 aircraft crew. Probably at least 63 standing at the briefing at the island....27 at their Kates....at least 2 to 3 maintance personal at each plane, one sitting in the cockpit....hmmm...lets call it 80 maintance personal..grand total 170 crew on the deck, cut that down out of sheer work to 150 deck, not to mention the crew around the guns along the sides and on the bridge. So probably 200 wee little guys, some white, some dark blue (gun crews), and some tan. Yeah I'll need to order at least one of those sets. With that set I can tell Northstar to take a hike.

Awesome, thanks for the complements and thanks for watching guys

Oh Chris, sorry, yes I'm using the needel trick. Thanks!

I stumbled upon these guy's 

//northstarmodels.com/product-category/1200/

Those are 1/200, they got plenty of those.

sorry mate

No reason to be Steve, thanks for looking for me my friend. 

This build is crazy crazy craaaaa~zy!  

It makes me scared.  It keeps me up at night thinking “What craziness will Steve be doing tomorrow?”  And that’s exactly why I like it!    

Painting 200 1/350 figures?  Even the “Napoleonic Wars“ gamer dudes have to give you a bow.

Is that color photo of Akagi original, or colorized?  Most Japanese wartime pics are of poor quality and almost all are in b&w.

And no, after seeing all this, I will NOT be getting a 1/350 Hiryu!

LOL, thanks G!

I don't know about the bow. I painted my Warhammer army many years ago, I lived in Waialua at the time, and they were not easy. 

The picture is colorized. U picked that one over the B&W.

I'm back on the Akagi. I received the individual rungs for the side ladders.

First I removed the ladders. then the rung kit supplied a drill guide mask so I added these guides to where the ladders go. Hopefully tonight I'll drill the holes and start installing the rungs. I did notice some of the porthole eyebrows have been removed during the process of removing all the detail being replaced, so I will order some IJN portholes.

Had to scroll up to see what you were planning,.  Got to admit this is a bonkers build.  Have you ever gone this in-depth on a build before?

lewbud

Had to scroll up to see what you were planning,.  Got to admit this is a bonkers build.  Have you ever gone this in-depth on a build before?

 

Short answer. No

I've never spent this much on a build either 

Perhaps it's best not to think about that part and just enjoy the build.  We certainly are.

HooYah Deep Sea

I wonder how they survived the stack gas that must have permeated the side of the ship and hanger bay. It must have been awful, especially if they were doing a full power run with all boilers on line.

Well, at Flight Quarters, they'd be pointed square into the wind and putting out turns for a 33 kts or so, which is about 55 feet per second.

Now, cuising at the IIRC 14 kts economic cruise speed with the wind just ahead of the beam probaly was less than desired.

And, there are few things as nasty and smokey as lighting off boilers., and wind abeam, that's going across the ship.

I have read that IJN really increased the stack uptake blowers to increase the "natural" draw of their lateral-mounted stacks.  All to keep a venturi effect running in the stacks, the better to carry the stack and exhaust gasses away from the flight deck.

The US decided to just get the stacks as high above the waterline as possible, then steam out from under the plume.

However, physics is an uncompromising master, who is not denied.  Those stack gasses expaned readily and rose rapidly in an expanding cone afte of the ship.  Carrier aviators wind up having to interact with stack gasses on every appraoch on a conventionally-fueld carrier.

The Akagi saga.

First off I finished all the handholds, then decided to replace the individual ladder rungs on the hull. So I orders the rungs and waited. While installing the rungs and cleaning off the original plastic blobs, I found some of the porthole eyebrows were removed during the process of removing the rungs and handholds, so I orders some portholes. I received the rungs sometime back and the porthold the other day but thought I should catch up here.

So, here she is with the handholds. Forgive if you've already see this pic.

next is the ladder rungs, They are very small and will be streighted better before paint.

Unfortunatly, I keep breaking off the railings so I had to order new generic IJN railings 

Anyway, on to the portholes. I'll need more of them since there's about 300 per side 

I started to install the portholes and sealed covers. The portholes with just the sealed cover will be getting the porthole PE as well. I think maybe while most portholes were closed during the pre emptive wind up to the attack there may have been a few open. I need to get a few more sheets of PE to finish. I also continued on the 25mm AA guns. With building attrition due to lost or broken pieces, I need to get another pack of these as well. There are still a few pieces to add to the guns as well.

Wow what an insane amount of work! your lines sure look straight. Are you sketchy out center lines with a pencil ahead of time? I can't imagine what it's going to take to paint that area without shadowi it. A lot of fine detail spraying I'm sure :-)