IJN Hiei 1:300 Maly 7-8-9/2006

I havent posted here for several months but I didnt forget about paper modeling. I am building this Japanese battle ship Hiei. You can find explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Hiei The ships name Hiei was taken after Mount Hiei on which sacred old temple built about 1,200 years ago is still resting.
The kit is designed 1/300 scale but it has as enough details as 1/200 scale.

When I built 1/430 Fuso I tried to have underwater hull plating that runs longitudinal direction. At that time I glued 4mm-wide regular copy paper over the hull skin that is supplied in the kit but it caused rather lumpy surface as is shown in the first picture. So, in building this ship I decided to add longitudinal formers in between formers supplied in the kit as experimentation. Assuming plate width as 3.5mm at 1/300 scale I glued 2mm thick cardboard every 7mm interval so that 7mm wide paper can be glued on formers smoothly less causing divots and dents.
Japanese ships plate during the WWII was installed by means of riveting as shown in many pictures in these sites: http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/?p=14 http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/?p=21

After glued formers, I cut 7mm-wide non-printed paper strips and glued them on formers then glued printed same width paper on it and finally glued 3.5mm wide regular copy paper over the seams of 7mm wide paper so that we can hide seams between 7mm wide paper strips.

Replaced lower deck with downloaded one from this site: http://konradus.net/download/kemot/hiei_pdf.zip) Downloaded deck color is superb but since the color of edges do not match with side hull plating supplied in the kit, cut out edges from kits parts and glued it onto the downloaded deck

Next step was reinforcement plating on the side. First glued parts supplied in the kit onto paper and added red colored pre-printed 7mm-wide paper strips onto it.

Having seen finished hull, tone difference between paper and copy paper bugged me so much that I decided to remove them all by sanding them down and replaced with 4.5mm-wide regular copy paper and just glued them side by side.
After having under water hull plating done, I installed deck plate that is also downloaded from konradus.net. As is shown in the second picture with arrow mark length of the deck didnt fit with the basement so I have to modify it after come back home this weekend

Quote

Original von Jörg Schulze
Hi Yu-san,

good to hear and read from you again. Please, could you post the edition number from this MM kit ? It looks pretty new and well designed. Some more pictures from the kit itself would be nice, too.

regards,
Jörg

Hi Jörg-san,

Since I am on the road this week, I will post the edition number of this kit and some more pictures from the kit itself one week later. In my opinion, this kit looks very nice as you said.

regards,
Yu

@OHI-san and Olli-san,
Thank you for your kind words
This kit looks very nice so I want Maly Modelarz to publish more of ship kits at this scale. For me 1:300 seems to be ideal size because it doesn't take up keep space but has enough detail

frettchen,
Thanks. I added edition number to the title

John,
Thank you for your nice words. Lately I cannot take much time off to build paper models. I will concentrate on this model for the time being but when I have time I want to build a building model using techniques I learned in your threads.

Thanks Helmut, hearing your compliment on hull plating is rewarding.

I forgot to mention in previous post that this kit consists of 14 pages of parts and 6 pages of formers. The paper size is almost same as A4 size. As you will see in the attached photos fineness of parts is remarkable considering this kit is 1:300 scale. I was a little bit concerned about paper quality whether I can roll it and fold it but it looks pliable for detail work.

Lately business trip, gardening and honey-do list deprives me of time for more important matter. During two-week long business trip I was very concerned about mismatched deck plate so after coming back home I scrambled to check the deck and corresponding basement thoroughly and found only mismatched section is bow. Since this deck consists of three sections, I reprinted only bow section and cut it about 2mm longer than previous one then replaced it as is shown in the first picture. After cut out turret base I found next mismatch in the second picture so cut off yellow hatched part of formers in the third picture.

To match the color of edge parts with hull plate, cut out the parts from original kit. Also I cut out tracks from original kit and glued it on the downloaded deck.

Have base of deck done.
Next update will be side walls

Thanks hagen-san, Mainpirat-san for your kind words.
frettchen, I like longitudinal hull plate as real ship has so I tried it and result. May be I can find better way next time.

Taking time I built upper hull plates.
In the first place, I made rims for the porthole. What I came up as material was electric wire. Its diameter is 0.1mm and I though it is an ideal size but drawback is I have to paint it dipping them in the pool of gold paint. I glued them to the both sides of bow section.

After I had glued rims to the bow section I knew metallic brush has brass wire. At nearby hardware store I bought one metallic brush and found brass wire looks almost same diameter as electric wire. I made rims for stern section using brass wire

first picture : cut out portholes
second picture : smoothen the portholes edge using brass rod
third picture: slice projected paper by smoothing
fourth picture: glued rims for porthole
last picture: glued thin film back of hull plates

I used gold painted electric wire for bow section and brass wire for stern section.
As diameter of electric wire looks a bit smaller than brass wire, for 1:300 ship model size of electric wire looks ideal but painting it is nightmare One more drawback of brass wire is its elasticity. Although wrapping electric wire and brass wire around same diameter brass rod, because of elasticity diameter of rim made of brass wire get bigger. Advantage of brass wire is, of course, we dont need to paint it.

First glued horizontal plate to the bottom edge of upper hull plate then glued the other side to the top edge of lower hull plate. In the middle I found length of horizontal plates are short. I might have overlooked corresponding parts but I decided to make it from original deck that I didnt use and kept it for in case. Cut out grey part to make parts for connecting two horizontal plates.

Before gluing hull plate I glued right and left side bow tips together then glued entire hull to the formers.