IJN Kirishima
by Keith Bender

1/350 IJN Kirishima Kongo Class (Classic Warships)

This is the Classic Warships resin kit I purchased used but unbuilt in 2001. Upon looking it over I knew there was a lot of work ahead so I put it in the closet with the other 200 or so kits. Then the people from the Battleship New Jersey called and wanted a Kongo class BB so I said I had one. Now that I had a commission I had to break this beast out of mothballs and have at it.

The upper half of the hull was in great shape. The bottom half was another story. It was about 1/16" per side narrow and about 1/4" too short. So my plan of attack was to cut the torpedo bulges off with a band saw by laying the hull bottom side up and following along the seam where the budges were added to the hull. I then had three pieces. So next I cut of the bow where the bulges blend in and the same at the stern. Now there was five pieces. I used "Quick Grab" cement to glue them to the upper hull.

After these dried for about three days I used aluminum foil to dam off the big open seams where the hull sections did not meet. There were four per side. I taped the foil to the hull and poured new resin in to the seams until they filled. Since resin cures to itself it was a pretty good fix instead of using tons of bondo.

Next job was sanding away the over flow resin and start shaping the hull as one unit. I had to remove the molded in shaft outlets because they were in the wrong place now. Besides the torpedo bulges there was an armor belt forward and aft and these had to be completely built up from Bondo and blended in. The entire hull project took me about one month of 30 min. lunch breaks at work to complete.

I would have to say the rest of the model went together like clock work. The only other difficult area was the pagoda tower which on the real vessel was built up around and existing tripod mast. Each of the resin tower pieces was molded with the legs for the tripod where the real ones were visible. This was a little tricky to line up and make the photo etch braces fit as well.

I made the masts and yards from brass and did not use the kit provided white metal ones. I bored open the funnel uptakes and then put the grill over the top. I used Model Master gunship gray for the overall main color. The bottom is 50% Model Master burnt seiana and 50% Floguil ATSF red with a splash of black to keep the other two colors honest.

The decks are an old recipe I made good on by mistake, trial & error. I was using the same mix for years now. I paint the deck with poly scale "old concrete" twice. Then with a larger brush throw on some thinned brown. When that has semi dried I brush on some very dirty brush thinner, you know the kind that most of us has in a jar with about a half an inch of goo in the bottom. That's right stir it up and go for it. If it gets too muddy clean it up with new thinner.

This was basically it for building the beast. It is now on permanent duty displayed aboard the USS New Jersey BB 62.