by Jean Barby
1/350 IJN Chokai (Aoshima)
This is my first submission to this often visited site by me; I am a plane modeler from France and I currently build models for the French magazines Replic, not anymore, and WingMaster. I just love ships since my childhood in Algeria were I was born when this country was still french. Naval history has fed my desire to represent the ships which fought in the then, far area of the south pacific. Guadalcanal was the magic word for me until it became so obsessional that, some years after, when living in New-caledonia I went there, diving on the wrecks visiting bloody ridge, bathing myself in the tenaru. After that I went to Rabaul for more diving but, to quote Kipling, this is another story!
So I have built the Big "E" in her 1942 configuration, DD O'Bannon, CA San Francisco, IJN Tone and now IJN Chokai. Brothers we are living in the golden age of naval models, and even in my wildest dreams could I ever thought of what we have today!
Back to the model,as I had the 1944 Chokai, I did retrofit her to 1942 settings; my thanks are going to Dan Kaplan as I used his master build in 1/700 to complete mine in some detail too obscure to be figured out even from the pics in Classic Warship. In fact it is really hard to get a complete picture of that famous cruiser as she was on that fateful night of august 42 when she made a name in Savo waters. Nearly all the after-markets sets are dedicated to the "Takao", and as we all know they are two different ships in 42. Turrets from Lion Roar and some items from this set were used but not so much as I do not like at all the imprecision of the instructions and the softness of the photo etch. Gold Medal Takao set was helpful, but that was not enough! Veteran twin 25mm, Voyager ventilation mushrooms, Hasegawa boat set were of very useful help, as was my banjo picking friend john Snyder from WEM who gave me the right shade of grey to use, Yokosuka one for instance. Copper beam of 0,1mm were used to duplicate the linoleum deck plates separations and 0,8 mm fly fishing thread used for the rigging.
All in all it was a very fascinating and pleasant build , and I am glad to share it with you. best regards from France, Jean BARBY.
