by Imre Somogyi
1/350 IJN Yamato (Tamiya)
Many people in many ways have already replicated the shipmodeler’s biggest dream, the world’s largest and most powerful battleship, the IJN Yamato.
I also tried to answer this challange between 2000 and 2002. I did my best then and built Tamiya’s 1/350 kit with only Eduard’s PE set. All the raillings, hand-rails, most of the doors/hatches, the radar on top the fire-control tower, the catapults, the locking beams of the 5” guns (to prevent the guns from firing into the superstructure), the flags and many more smaller parts are all scratch-built.
The after terrace on the tower needed enlargement as well as the 25 mm triple mounting’s tubs badly needed some more detail.
From the Eduard PE set I only used the ventilator opening’s covers and the anti-skid deck parts and the crane.
Since then (2002) three years have passed. Nevertheless, for the upcoming International Model Show in Mosonmagyaróvár and for the 60th anniversary of the ship’s tragedy, I took the cover off of my model and determined to improve it where I can.
Unfortunately I had to put aside the improvement of the stern’s rails for the aircraft trolleys even though I could make it much better nowadays.
The story was the same with the main radar sets on the fire control tops and with the wind deflectors of the bridge. Finally it would have been nice to improve on the 6.1” turrets as well; if only I wouldn’t have fixed them with glue when building the ship…
I choose the "Before last Operation” as the basic concept of the "refit”. So it’s showing the final preparations for the final and fatal battle: the ship’s boats are making their last trips and the float-planes are prepared for the last catapult actions.
In light of this I made 3 cutters and a motor-launch. Their inner structures are made from brass-rods. As a reference I used the photos made on board Musashi. I tried to upgrade the 4 planes included in the kit as much as possible: I built approx. 50 separate pieces on all of them. The cockpit roofs were changed for translucent plexi. The ailerons are in the turned-out position (unfortunately this isn’t showing very well after painting). The engine-exhausts are made from injection needle, the stiffenings are from various brass-rods. I built one of the Aichi’s with an open engine-cover, like it’s naughty 14 cilinder radial-engine would just waiting for repair. This plane's wing are in the folded position. Only the propellers and the catapult-trolleys are from PE. The Mitsubishi F1M2s are glued onto the catapults, their trolleys are covered with awnings. Unfortunately the squadron markings on the tail are missing, for now at least. I would be happy if someone can help me out here.
The rigging went under a complete recreaton. Here I tried to replicate the spanners and the antenna-system’s coatings according to photos.
To my knowledge the 18” guns had to be calibrated from time to time, therefore I assume that this was done before the final mission as well. To this end I made calibrating platforms at the base of the guns – which is shown very well in the pictures about Musashi.
I found great use of the following references in my work:
