What do you know? Yet another project underway. This is IJN Kirishima. I wanted to do something with wood. The way we built ships when I first started in the hobby. Kirishima is 4.5 units, 24 seconds over the 100'. Should be a very nice ship when completed. The bow and stern is made of birch aircraft plywood. They will be sanded to their completed shape after the ship is removed from the building board and the cap rail is added. More to come.
Wooden boats are awesome aren't they? I especially like carving the bow and stern out of fine plywood. You can literally see the hull lines as they come in. I will follow this thread with interest.
I started back in the hobby in 1982. No one even thought of the fiberglass hulls as of yet. I have been putting off this project for a number of months. This will be the second ship in this class to be built by me. Years ago, Will Montgomery purchased my first Kongo. He ran it for a year or so and was very happy with the boat. That ship was built to 1/150th scale. This one will be in 1/144th scale. The hull will be bulged but, they will not have the armor belt. This will make sheeting much much easier. Kirishima will run with 3.5 guns and 1 pump. The 75 round gun unit will be in the aft upper turret. I am leaning towards 2 stern guns. Guns will be actuated with gum boards and solenoid valves. Motors will be Johnson 550 motors and will be direct drive. Batteries will be 2 , 6 volt 12 amp hour bricks. They will be wired to give Kirishima 24 amp hours. More than enough. All in all I think this is one of, if not the best class 4 ship that can be put on the water. I hope to have the ship completed by Christmas. I will post pictures as progress is made. I am now waiting for plywood from BalsaUSA. I hope to put a couple more stringers in the bottom of the ship and then start sanding the ribs to shape. I hope to have the hull bottom ready to sheet with 1/32nd ply when the order arrives. If anyone has any questions on how something is done, (wood build) please feel free to ask. More later I'm sure. Thanks for the interest.
There was a Bearn build up a while back that was excellent. The look of the wood is magnificent, it almost makes on want a transparent ship.
The nice thing about building out of wood is that the ribs are already beefed up because that are made of wood and the bow and stern solid area when made from the aircraft plywood are very durable. You don't get the area damaged from BB's because of them hitting gel coat.
I've been making very good progress on the wood build Kirishima. Can't find the directions on posting pictures here on RCN. If your interested in seeing the pictures you can take a look at them on our Treaty Yahoo site. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TreatyCombat/ Thanks,
May be best Axis Class 4, but Mike's Erin I would say is the best Allied class 4 I have seen. Plus with its dual rudders, and short length would give the Erin a run at being the best class 4 overall. Of course that is only my 2 cents worth, others may have a different opinion.
I like Mike's builds, they are all works of art. But I have to cling to the Invincible class as best class 4, although I am 100% certain that this topic is not unlike asking a group of gun nuts what the best autoloading pistol is, or a group of bikers what the best bike is... @Boomerboy - most build threads are build logs. An actual how-to is a lot more involved than that, and takes more time (which could be spent building!). Take someone who builds good ships FAST, like Dave (who can crank out good warships in the time it takes me to plan the build), and ask them how long it would take to make a 'how-to' out of it. I suppose it could be done after the fact if you took lots of pictures during the process (kind of like Brian K's Vanguard how-to). But there aren't many of what you're looking for on model warships. @Bob - what source are you using for the Kirishima plans? They look really nice!
My plans are from an old source from Japan. Oyeesei and Company (spelling) Sorry to say that they are no longer available. I freelanced the bulge for the hull to make sheeting easier. Tug, I hope to make it down south in the future for one of the battles. I would love to battle Kirishima against you Invincible. Should be a hoot.
