SPA Modeler

Okay, I had some time so I managed to move a little forward on this model.

I painted all the detail parts that I had added to the Izumo earlier:





Here's a close up shot of the island details:



I found that due to the fine molding of this model, these parts were easiest to paint while on the model. Now I still have a few parts to add, but they are easily breakable and I'm going to add them after tackling the Photo-Etch. That way there's even less chance of breakage.

After that, I clearcoated this for decals. You can't really see it too clearly in this pic, but it is shiny and ready for decals:



Okay, that's all I got for now. I hope you enjoyed the tour. Stay tuned, there's more to come; especially since it's supposed to rain for the next three days! Yay!!!

Thanks for looking in, comments are welcome.

This ship is progressing well. It looks like you’re almost ready to finish this one up.

Thanks Carlos! Yeah, she's coming along fairly quickly. I just hope the photo-etch goes on as smoothly as everything else. I hope to get decals on this soon.

Well, this has been neglected for far too long, I know. I decided it was time to move forward on this one. As you can see from the following pics, I did manage to get the decals on. They were very thin and in register and went down exceptionally well. I rarely had to use any kind of solvent for them. Later I sprayed everything with a semi-dullcoat to blend everything in.

What had stopped me for all this time was that I was at the P/E stage and didn't want to deal with it. Well, I took this to our mini-Hobby Day and buckled down to get this done.

First I did the main mast and added the P/E rails to the island:



That's gonna take some doing painting that mast. I also figure I'll have to semi-drybrush the rails to bring them closer to the grey of the rest of the ship.

I then got started on the surrounding rail of the sponsons and deck edge. I only got one side mostly done before it was time to pack up and leave:



Yeah, they are a bit hard to see in that pic. Trust me, they are there. You'll also notice that I have blue tape underneath the P/E sprue. That is because the attachment points for these parts are so delicate that some of them are falling off the sprue before I can get to them. So, I added the tape to one side and taped them back in place until I need them.

Folding the photo-etch was helped by the diagrams shown at the beginning of this Thread where they had the lines laid out for you to compare and bend perfectly to fit. I used the Gator Grip glue to add these to the ship. That was a good thing since at least one railing kept getting pressed down. All I had to do was lift it back into place and it stayed. Overall, the application of the photo-etch was not as big an issue as I had anticipated it to be, thanks to the extensive diagrams and build aids included in this kit.


I do hope to do more on this ship soon. I want it done. Until then, take care and thanks for looking in. Comments are always welcome.

Excellent stuff Mark, That looks great!

Thank you Stuart! If I can finish that photo-etch, paint the details that need it and then finish the air wing; I can finally call this done.

How much further is there to go on this Mark?

Well, first the one side needs the rest of the photo-etch; I only have about half of the photo-etch on the hull and sponsons. Then the other side of the ship needs it's photo etch. I may have to add hull decals; I think I forgot to put the numbers on the hull. Then I need to detail paint the mast that was not painted, plus semi-drybrush the railings in a darker grey. After that, paint and decal the air wing and it should the be all done. Man, that sounds like a lot but hopefully it goes faster than I took to type it out. LOL!

Well this surely went off the rails for awhile! This is certainly extremely late, but here is the latest progress I did on this ship.

I have been slowly adding more photo-etch to the JMSDF ship Izumo. It's been a tough job, but fortunately I'm so very close to being done:





I've been slowly working my way around the flight deck, here is a closeup showing the bow:





And the stern:




Thanks for looking in. It would be nice to finish this before the year end, but I'm not sure I can. I will still try.

That's looking excellent Mark!