bianfuxia Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 Japan had four ASW destroyers of this type - Hiei and Haruna of the Haruna class and Shirane and Kurama of the similar but improved Shirane class - in active service during the 1980s. Hiei, which is pronounced "hee-eh" as far as I can tell, was built in 72-73 and served from 74 to 2011. It carried three Sea Kings as its core ASW armament, as well as an ASROC launcher and torpedo tubes. For self defence it had - in the second half of the 80s - the Sea Sparrow missile system and the Phalanx point defence gun system. During that 83-84 upgrade it also got new sensors. My kit is by Pit Road and I picked it up at a store in Hokkaido on a trip there last year. This picture is free-to-use from wikipedia. Soon I will post pictures of the kit, and get started. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 She really is a great looking ship and I'm looking forward to seeing her in progress. I know that Pit Road kits are usually nicely detailed as my son builds ship models and has had a couple of their kits so she should look very nice even if built OOTB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lifeline Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 I usually build 1/72 flying things But it seems that lately I'm smitten by the sea gods... luckily I've set my limit to 1/700, and must have helipad/flight deck on it. So I definitely will follow this! Any aftermarket involve? Cheers, Mario 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted July 14, 2019 Author Share Posted July 14, 2019 I'm sure there is some available but I will build it OOB because that's the only way I have any hope of getting it done! 1/700 is awesome because even the biggest ships are no longer than the average forearm and there is now a really wide range of modern ships available - British, US, Russian, Japanese, Chinese. Between Hasegawa, Pit Road, Tamiya and Skywave you can get a model of just about every post WW2 Japanese warship if you look hard enough; Trumpeter Dragon and Hobby Boss for starters have lots of the British, US and Chinese ones too. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted August 11, 2019 Author Share Posted August 11, 2019 Some nice work underway in the group - now I'm finally able to start this one I can join in! I didn't keep the box for this kit but I cut out the back of it so I could see the painting guide: I'll do mine waterline though it does also come with a full hull on another sprue. I love these Skywave/Pit Road kits. They always come with tons of spare parts and sometimes pretty random inclusions. In one small kit of a small ASW ship, there was a Startfighter and a Grumman Tracker; this one has a Chinook as well as the Seahawk helicopter. For this GB I might use a Sea King though, which is maybe more 80s. One quirk of this ship that you can notice on the painting diagram is that the main mast is offset to the left of the centreline. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 Great to see your Hiei underway, looks like a nicely detailed kit and very interesting that it comes with extras like the Chinooks. I think a Sea King is the right choice for the era, with maybe a visiting Chinook . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeR Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 Word of warning - Pit Road have recently started upgrading their JMSDF ship kits with lower hulls and the current, post-2005 helicopter deck markings which your model has. So an out of the box build using the kit decals isn't going to be correct for the 1980's. The correct period markings are like this: Pit-Road did do a set of aftermarket generic JMSDF/JMSA decals that included the old-style helideck markings, but I'm not 100% sure if it's still readily available. Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted August 12, 2019 Author Share Posted August 12, 2019 Good to know. I'm not going to get aftermarket decals for this, so I guess I will continue the build perhaps without the decals unless anyone's going to object. I'll be lucky to find enough time to build it at all. Up to the GB runner I guess! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 12, 2019 Share Posted August 12, 2019 4 hours ago, bianfuxia said: Up to the GB runner I guess! Not a problem as far as I'm concerned, if you wanted to (and this really is an if) you could always mask and paint the yellow lines on the heli-deck as far as I can see they are the main difference, but to be honest I would be happy with you just finishing her to a standard that you are happy with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted August 20, 2019 Author Share Posted August 20, 2019 On 8/12/2019 at 3:40 AM, modelling minion said: Not a problem as far as I'm concerned, if you wanted to (and this really is an if) you could always mask and paint the yellow lines on the heli-deck as far as I can see they are the main difference, but to be honest I would be happy with you just finishing her to a standard that you are happy with. thanks - let's cross that bridge (or flight deck) when we come to it. Meanwhile I finally made a start on my Hiei. So far I have painted the decks and the vertical surfaces (the parts that make up the cabin area or superstructure, if you can forgive my apparent lack of nautical vocabulary). For the decks I - somewhat hilariously to my mind - used Dream Models PLAN Deck Grey for my JMSDF decks. It's what I have handy and it seems to match what's on the box. For the sides I used a Vallejo light grey but I might change that (not to PLAN side grey though, which I also have, haha). Also I built up the smaller components - two large main guns, the ASROC launcher, the torpedo tubes, and of course the three helicopters that come with this kit. Seahawk, Chinook and Cobra (which has its TOW missiles as separate parts. If you're wondering why the Seahawk looks weird, as I am now that I post the photo, the answer is "yes, he installed the landing gear back to front". I'll fix it. The gun turret needs a bit of cleaning up too. Here are the two pics I have taken so far, plus a bonus pic of my 1/72 JGSDF Cobra, a fun HobbyBoss kit I made about five years ago. Tomorrow night when the paint is dry I will do as much assembly as I can. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 20, 2019 Share Posted August 20, 2019 Nice to see some progress and paint going on, funny how the PLAN grey is a good match for the JMSDF colour, can't see them having placed a joint order . Can't believe that the TOW missiles are separate in that scale! Nice job on your AH-1, I like the camo on JGSDF helicopters and built a Monogram 1/48 AH-1 in a similar but winterised scheme a few years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lifeline Posted August 20, 2019 Share Posted August 20, 2019 Great start... I never know the PLAN color would be good for JMSDF. For what it's worth, Mr.Color got a special set of modern JMSDF Color, which now they sell it separately. I use it, and looks just like the one I saw on the real ones. Cheers, Mario Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted August 20, 2019 Author Share Posted August 20, 2019 14 hours ago, Lifeline said: Great start... I never know the PLAN color would be good for JMSDF. For what it's worth, Mr.Color got a special set of modern JMSDF Color, which now they sell it separately. I use it, and looks just like the one I saw on the real ones. Cheers, Mario Thanks Mario! I didn't know about the Mr Color, I'll check it out. I kind of prefer acrylics because of the smell of enamels (both wife & kid are incredibly sensitive to smell!) Actually in looking at some pictures online today I think my deck colour is too dark. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted August 23, 2019 Author Share Posted August 23, 2019 Just a cellphone shot but here's where I"m up to after tonight. The weapons are just sitting there but the rest is assembled. Plenty of touch-up painting to do later. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 23, 2019 Share Posted August 23, 2019 Very nice! She really is taking shape now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted August 24, 2019 Author Share Posted August 24, 2019 Thanks! In my fairly limited experience with ships, they seem pretty slow at first then they move really quickly to about 90 per cent done, and getting that last mile over the line seems to take ages again. This one actually doesn't have that many parts, so I hope next week to move it along nicely. I'm taking my kid camping this weekend though. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted August 26, 2019 Author Share Posted August 26, 2019 Back from my camping trip, but too late to do any work on the Hiei. Out of interest, last year I was in a Group Build here (Carriers, I think). I made this just by coincidence - the Izumo - one of the new "Helicopter Destroyers" the JMSDF used to replace Hiei and the three similar ships. When I get a change I will take this out of storage and photograph it together with the finished Hiei. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 26, 2019 Share Posted August 26, 2019 Your Izumo looks great and I'm sure your Hiei will too, they will look very good next to each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted August 27, 2019 Author Share Posted August 27, 2019 The main structure is basically finished now - construction at least. Plenty of touch up painting to do. It's not as dark as it looks in these photos. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 27, 2019 Share Posted August 27, 2019 Looking very good. I do like the design of the ship with the two large turrets up front and a relatively large area for helicopters at the rear. The camera can certainly play tricks and make things seem a lot darker than they actually are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted September 1, 2019 Author Share Posted September 1, 2019 Built the mast tonight - very fiddly. Of course, when I finally got it finished I suddenly thought, hmm, I probably should have pre-painted that thing. Oh well. Slowly getting there now. Next steps are mainly going to be touching up all the messy paint errors. I can't readily locate my 1/700 Seakings (I have the Trumpeter set) as most of my stuff is still in storage from our move. JMSDF didn't get Seahawks til 91 as far as I can tell, so I guess the Chinook will be paying a visit... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted September 1, 2019 Author Share Posted September 1, 2019 Sorry about the poor quality photos. When (if) I finish it, I'll make a better effort for the gallery shot. I mainly built late at night and don't have much energy left for elaborate photo setups. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted September 1, 2019 Share Posted September 1, 2019 Steadily getting there and I'm sure that you will make the deadline as there are nearly 8 weeks to go. A Chinook paying a visit sounds perfectly good to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spejic Posted September 11, 2019 Share Posted September 11, 2019 I just stumbled across this build thread. I have the Pit Road decal sets mentioned above and I can spare a decal of the old-style landing markings, if you wish. Send me a PM and I can mail it to you. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bianfuxia Posted September 12, 2019 Author Share Posted September 12, 2019 On 9/10/2019 at 11:14 PM, spejic said: I just stumbled across this build thread. I have the Pit Road decal sets mentioned above and I can spare a decal of the old-style landing markings, if you wish. Send me a PM and I can mail it to you. That's super nice of you! Thanks! But I just logged on to post these shots of what I just finished tonight...😂 But thank you again, I do appreciate it. I'm getting fairly close to wrapping this up. I also touched up the paintwork and painted up a lot of the remaining small components - a bunch of radomes, the guns and launchers, and there are some small radars and other bits and pieces too. Next thing is to put all those on, and try to find the box where I kept my 1/700 spare parts - in there I have several Sea Kings. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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