Tamiya 1:350 Japanese Battleship Musashi Build Thread

[Guest]

A beautiful item Pogo. Thanks for sharing.

According to my book of words:

Manganeese Bronze: Applies to high strength brass containing up to 4% manganese. Ideal for propeller castings, such alloys are really high tensile brass. A typical propeller alloy would be 50% copper, 36 % zinc, 5% manganese, and a mixture of aluminium, nickel and tin.

Phosphor Bronze: Bronze alloy of copper and tin with added phosphorous to increase its strength. This produces a number of usefull alloys resistant to corrosion in salt water containing quantities of tin ranging from 3% to 12%

I'm surprised that your piece does not appear to be brass in colour so maybe it is plated as well but both these metals would normally be of a brass like appearance.

[Guest]

It is plated but i dont know with what.

[Guest]

As far as im aware the shafts were painted the hull red oxide clour

[Guest]

but the props left bare?

[Guest]

Props were phospher bronze mate

[Guest]

right, i have to wait untill wednesday untill i can finish painting the hull so tomorrow i am going to get on with some other bits if i have time. the first stage envolves me using the p/e just a quick question about it..

how well can p/e be painted with acylics and what are the rough drying times for the paint on it?

[Guest]

Pe can be easily painted with acrylics but only paint after you have completed any bending as the paint will flake off if you dont

[Guest]

Drying time...Minutes about 10

[Guest]

right, lack of paint rectified and hull sprayed. got to mast off waterline and paint maroon tomorrow.

started front deck, done all the little bits of the jn grey on it and the main part at front. it had the anchor chains as part of the mould...personaly i think they looked rubbish so i got rid of them, got an old chain (correct style or linkege) and painted it metallic grey so i will cut it down to the correct lengths and stick it tomorrow (as you can see there is no chain on the front of the deck

just got a little bit of p/e to do for some vents and a hatch. will worry about the winches tomorrow.

will get some pis up of hull with maroon and finished front deck tomorrow...

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[Guest]

Why Tamiya seem to insist on having a transverse joint right across a longitudinally planked deck has always completely escaped me. Even proffessional modellers struggle to hide such a joint.

[Guest]

i know....i was thinking fillin in and sanding? i will mean il have to repaint a bit but i dont mind that.

rather that than having a huge thick line!!!

[Guest]

ok, done the chains.look a bit messy but easy to tidy up.

i think they look a hell of a lot better than it would have if i just painted the moulded chain that was already on the deck.

brings it to life a bit!!

must go to sleep now, il neaten them all up tomorrow and finish off the front deck (guns n all!)

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[Guest]

Richard, the chain looks superb and is a vast improvement on the original moulded offerring from Tamiya.

It would be interesting to try to get hold of a picture of this area though, maybe one of the Yamato books would be usefull, as I would be surprised if the stoppers were made of chain of a similar size to the original cable.

The stoppers are to support the anchor when unser way and allow the windlass brake to be released and, having two per cable, only need to take half the load. I would have expected a wire with a bottle screw to take the tension so I don't know whether it was normal for the Japanese to use chain or whether Tamiya have taken the easy option with the mouling.

Chain of this size is actually very difficult to handle so I am surprised to see it used as a stopper.

All these things continue to make the research interesting and, as before, if there is little known about it, no one can say something is wrong.

[Guest]

well the stopper chains on the mold were slightly smaller (as in thinner) but only have this thickness chain, is it that important?? i can always change it.

[Guest]

If you are thinking of changing it try to find a relevent picture as I suspect they may have been wires rather than chain or a much smaller chain.

Anchor cable is actually a very heavy chain and you would probably not be able to lift one link. Moving a cable of such links is not very practical so it would be either wire or a much smaller chain. I couldn't say which.