Ray S Posted June 21, 2018 Share Posted June 21, 2018 (edited) 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: 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. 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 June 21, 2018 by Ray S Add extra info 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitestar12chris Posted June 24, 2018 Share Posted June 24, 2018 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 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted June 24, 2018 Author Share Posted June 24, 2018 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 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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