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Japanese Military Transport ships


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Hello all!

 

I have recently been getting interested in the older range of Tamiya 1/700 waterline ships. Over the years I have built plenty of them, but never Japanese subjects.  When I was in my local model shop I noticed a couple of boxes which were cheap but had multiple kits in them, and I chose the Japanese Military Transport set. It had two kits in it, and was only £7.50. Of course, the costs did not stop there, as I feel ships are incomplete if unadorned by etch, so I ordered some Eduard stuff: IJN railings, watertight doors and inclined ladders, just to give the kits a bit more detail.

 

First up I did the Tank transporter. I rigged it with Uni Caenis fly-tying thread, and added two lots of the etch, but found that the ladders were too big for the ship, which was a shame. I don't know if Eduard over-scaled them or something. The railings were very awkward - they had individual stanchions for fitting to the deck, and despite using CA gel and/or PVA they fell off if you just looked at them. I tried to weather the ship a bit with Tamiya weathering powders but may have overdone it a bit:

 

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One obvious thing missing to my eyes was the row of scuttles along the side. On the next kit I did, the Submarine launcher, I remedied that and drilled out scuttles following the box artwork. This time I trimmed off the stanchions and made the ship have two-bar railings. It was tricky trying to deal with the sheer on the bows and the angle down aft, and I did not quite get the rails to line up properly. Again I used UniCaenis thread for rigging, but I also used some speaker-wire cable core for the derrick cables. The masts are too thick I think, and could have done with being replaced (if I have not mangled the language) and that is the plan for my next ship from Tamiya. Once again the inclined ladders were too large. 

 

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Each one of these gives me practice, I have another set with three vessels in it and they seem to be a newer mould, from in the 1990's rather than 1970's for this set.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

 

PS I think I may have posted the Tank Landing Craft before, but I thought it was a good idea to show both together as they are from the same box.

Edited by Ray S
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6 hours ago, whitestar12chris said:

Hi interesting builds Ray, lovely job, just a footnote, on the last ship the type A submarine would have been black all over,

 

All the best Chris

 

Thanks for that Chris. The sub is not secured solidly so should pop off easily so I can correct it.

 

All the best,

 

Ray

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