IJNfan

That is one unique looking dazzle! very nice.

you could look for an Artwox Wooden deck, Infini winches and north star reels (https://northstarmodels.com/product/1350-cable-reels-english-royal-navy-wwii/) if the dreadnaught has them, and metal barrels for the 12pdr's. White Ensign has a kit indeed, would look out though whether you don;t get only duplicates of the eduard stuff. In that way you make your own encompassing set. Its what I am currently doing with the Tamiya mikuma in preparation for my upcoming build, takes some time and effort to find everything you want/need but the result is very worthwhile!

Very nice. Especially the weathering. It is subtle and still quite visible in a way that makes the model look quite nice!

As far as I know the dimensions of the Zvezda and Trumpeter kit a off by 0.6cm or so. That would mean you'd have a hard time fitting the deck and stuff. However nothing stops you of course from buying a wooden deck, brass barrels, reels, winches, secondary- and machineguns. Your question was also put on the shipmodels.info forum, but Pontos itself indicated that it wouldn't be the best idea to fit these 2 together. But all major sets I could find from Flyhawk and Pontos and such were for the Zvezda version.

Exercising patience is the most difficult part of building a ship, and sometimes it can result in quite some unfriendly words. But ships also provide much longer / deeper challenge, in my view as they take much longer than planes of tanks (if you don't do a diorama), with massive part-counts and daring photo-etch. And you learn when you go, if you'd try it yourself and start with an appropriate model to start with You'd learn it as well. When I was 9 I took a Lindberg Missouri as my first ever kit, and now 11 years later I build these ships like the Hood...

The problem with Gunze is that there is not much difference with Tamiya, and as you say their "acrylic" range has only one IJN color etc. As for the Lacquers, too smelly and and fumy, though I don't know how they compare. How do you mean perfomance is better than with Tamiya's? do they have a better finish or ...? As for Enamels, my first painted model was painted with Revell enamels, I never sprayed enamels through my airbrush, but the revell enamels do not have the finish that the tamiya's have as the Tamiya's just blend with the plastic while the enamels from revell visibly are put on the plastic, I hope the distinction is clear enough. I am afraid if I would use colorcoats that I would be limited because of the "enamel" finish which on the revell's I really disliked and most of all the drying time is long. If colourcoats would use the Tamiya formula with Alcohol I'd throw all my paint away and buy theirs without a second of doubt as they seem to be the holy grail of paint accuracy! They do seem difficult to acquire tough (in the Netherlands)

Morning everybody, I have a questions more or less in line with the original question on this thread. Currently I have a stack of Tamiya paints. And I must say they spray like a dream, brushpaint meh but workable for the small parts and with good x-22 coat they look nice. I thin them roughly to milk consistency, no ratio, retarder or anything and they usually go fine. Without the use of primer, masking is no problem etc etc. However there is one thing that annoys me, two actually, - their colors are inaccurate - their range is limited. so I looked into the alternatives finally concluding lifecolor would do the trick, seems to have a very nice finish. On the other hand they seems less durable, more finicky, increasingly difficult the use etc. so I am in limbo. I might go and just buy a bottle, but I’d like to get some information on it. I know that for lifecolor primer is a must, so here are my questions - is the lifecolor primer itself good enough? Or is there something else I can spray which is better and wont obscure any detail? - can I still mask over lifecolor with tamiya masking tape without reservation? - are there paint producers equally accurate to lifecolor that are closer to tamiya’s in handling? - how durable is lifecolor when compared to tamiya? - how accurate are their IJN colors really since they differ massively from the tamiyas’s! Hopefully this isn’t too much asked in once. thanks already in advance IJNfan

How recognizable... what might help though is laying your sprues in alphabetical order. Since I started doing that I rarely look over anything and its a small effort!

I don’t know whether you already started or not, but in my view a wooden Deck is always better. Once you start using them you don’t want the hassle of painting anymore, which looks less anyway. So yes buy it!😉

Thanks Jeff, In the case of the WV I specifically choose the 1941 version because I found the old version much nicer in looks than the revised version could ever be. The Japanese Ships were indeed underestimated. Especially their destroyers, carriers and cruisers, in 1941 their carriers were top notch (including the crew) and their cruiser could do their Job well, they practically shredded their enemies in the pacific early 1942 (Sunda strait for example), but on the other hand they were a little over engineered as well and had their problems, it wasn't said for nothing that: "they must be building their ships out of cardboard or lying [about the displacement]". And their battleships had serious flaws, they were either modernized super dreadnoughts (Ise-, Fuso-, Nagato-class), battlecruisers (Kongo Class) or bulky honky pieces of massive steel waste without proper fire control. Think of how the Washington Killed of the Kirishima while the South Dakota couldn't be damaged underneath the armor. So were they underestimated? Maybe, like every ship they had pro's and cons, but in my view they were indeed more attractive than USN ships were and the IJN dreadnaughts are on the top of my wish-to-build-list. As for your picture requests which modeler would ever providing some pictures of his work🤪 IJN YAHAGI IJN MAYA USS WEST-VIRGINIA

Hello Everybody, Since January this year I have picked up once more the hobby of scale modelling. Until 6 years ago I had already occupied myself with making ships and right now I needed an extra hobby aside of playing games, reading books and playing the pipe organ and stuff so I decided to pick up where I left and add some extra skills to my toolbox, (I never Painted in the past😬), get myself an airbrush an kickstart myself into building ships once more. Since corona gave me a load of free time I went to the hobby shop and bought several kits among which were, the 1/700 USS west virginia, Enterprise and IJN MAYA the 1/144 Revell Uboat XXI with Interior. problem was tough that with these kits, I simply glued them together, painted them their colors and finished. That didn't really work because I'd be finished much too soon. So I decided to go on with the Hasegawa 1/350 Yahagi with all the Hasegawa PE which would be followed by the HMS Hood 1/350 from Trumpeter. Around the first week of July I started working on the Hood and I finished it this week on Monday. This kit is my first kit that I have build with a dedicated PE set from another producer than the producer of the base kit itself and it was really nice, especially the result. So what did I use, 1x the Trumpeter hood 1/350 1x The Flyhawk Resin upgrade set for better turrets 1x The flyhawk Pe upgrade set 1x The eduard Upgrade set 1x Infini Winches. I did these instead of North star because I saw these once and thought them to be absolutely underwhelming. 1x Artwox Wooden deck (I also Bought the Wooden Deck of trumpeter itself but It wouldn't fit, was only several euro's though) Next step before the Build was to figure out which colors i would use for the ship because I use Tamiya's and the scheme was in Gunze. I did some research so as to get at least a somewhat "accurate" semblance to the original in 1941. I decided on using the following colors For the hull Tamiya hull red, which would be coated with AK red streaking grime for some variation in color tone For the 507 grey I used Xf-82, based on some research delving into fora and such I thought this color to better looking and matching than the XF-66. (personal opinion though😇) The boat deck was a different color tone, i decided on XF-24 because it nicely matched the xf-82, but whether it is very accurate to have a much darker boat deck is somewhat questionable I think. For the decks of the Bridge I used XF-79 on the advice of the Hood Association. In the end the Model was coated in X-22 Clear and weathered using AK enamel weathering products. To finish it off I rigged the thing with the help of Trumpy's instructions and some personal touches, using Uschi 0.03mm thin wire. This stuff is great, just don't overstretch or your parts will bent. As for the kit The fit of the trumpeter kit was horrible. I never had to use this much putty in any model until now, which admittedly doesn't say much, but it wasn't very funny at times. You will likely notice that the Quads haven't been placed yet. these are still in Transit from North Star... Here are the pictures My Hood isn't by long as good as the other Hoods I have seen on this forum, but I myself am very much delighted by the outcome, the ship is nice, and as I have a long infatuation with this ship it will get a nice place in my cabinet. I don't yet know what will be next, I have a Botched project waiting on the bench for me to finish and a Nagato (Pontos) in stash but also a 1/350 Mikuma (with Aber, Eduard, infini and veteran goodies) that I got for my 20th Birthday recently. Anyway, in due time more models will surely come this way, Greetings from Holland