International Scale Modeller

Second entry , now on the sea subject , the IJN I-400 in 1/350 scale from Tamiya !

This is an amazing subject , and it shows the WW2 evolution and ideas on the weapons and vehicles , a Sub created to take the war to US Mainland ...Too late in War to make any difference to Japan...but a great conception !



With this will use two Detail up kits from Tamiya , a PE for enhancing some of the submarine parts , and a kit with some crew in plastic in scale 1/350 , must buy some microscope to paint this small guys ....



A very awaited build , and still boxed waiting for this GB , a very fine excuse to build this great kit !

An Excellent kit !!!

A nice change from planes, I look forward to seeing how you weather this one Antonio

A sub, nice!

looking forward to this build

Sweet..

I am subscribing to this! Good luck.

Looks very intresting. Good luck and happy modelling

Told you I would drop by...... And did I also spot a bust and a 3rd kit in the thread somewhere??
Off for a look now....
Keeping your modelling time busy I see with all these kits... And a Tiger 1??
All the best mate..

wappynutter wrote:Told you I would drop by...... And did I also spot a bust and a 3rd kit in the thread somewhere??
Off for a look now....
Keeping your modelling time busy I see with all these kits... And a Tiger 1??
All the best mate..

Thank you Andy for dropping by ...well this one is a little bit stop , and you need to see the Merkava in the Modern armour SiG

, yes been very busy since the beginning of the year , but all builds till now were very enjoyable . This one will be started after finishing the Tiger ...

About the time to start on this one ...now free from all the initial builds of the year , will take this IJN I-400 build , still look simple , but could be a pleasent build to do ...

Ok looking inside the box :



PE , this one comes in the kit box



The instructions , very nice presented !



The sprues , not that many ...



the bottom of the box , very nice , could be used for some presentation ...



The Hull , bottom and bellow



Aichi Seiran in 1/350 ..some little planes



The two remaining sprues for the build :



The add -ons for this build , two detail sets from Tamiya ,

first , tiny crew in 1/350 :



And detail PE for the handrails for the sub and some metal torpedoes :





Some detail on the instructions , a Photo of the Aichi Seiran , that was the plane on board this very particularly Submarine , a sort of Aircraft Carrier under sea





Some very nice history on the I-400 Submarine , its development , short career in WWII and end serving as targets for US NAvy , or sort off , it is said that US sunk this subs in order to the Russians not get them as they were a very advanced weapon for the era , it is said that they have autonomy for strike anywhere globally , not a destructive strike , more a morale blow as was think by its developer Admiral Yamamoto from Japan IJN .

Colors to be used , Tamiya references ..



Step 1

Some work on the bottom hull :



Step 2 to follow adding the weights to bottom



The hull is very nicely detailed and is packed properly with some tape joining both hull parts



Detail of the launching catapult



Rear :



Some of the parts needed for step 1 are on the sprue to exibit the 1/350 Seiran



Some screws and other stuff toghether with sprue A



Must drill two holes in the bottom hull so that we can fix it to the stand , this I'm going to build in the stand , not special base with water , want to keep this simple and to show all Hull detail which is very nice with the propellers and the diving rudders and so ...



Weights ready to place :



Sprue A , one of the two sprues of the kit



The periscope and masts , we have two options I think , raised periscopes and athenas or in submerged position , will be nice to see it 'up the periscope ' position



Propelers and some of the MAin guns



Step 3 is to make the display base :



Time to make a decision about the Diving Rudders ,stored (surfaced) or Extended ( Dive!Dive ! ) , nice to have the extended ones ...will go for that option also ...even that I decided to display the aircraft on the catapult also and the crew ...



Spme nice stickers to go with the base ( will show you after ...) you have the JApanese and English denominations , we can use one each for each side , think ot is nice to have the JApanese Language ...so then people will ask ...what is the translation and we can get to act like that we understand Japanese !

Step 4 , masts for the crane support , and a Athena I think in the back hull



This can be raised and lowered after the built ...so far a very nice kit with a lot of detail and small little 'gadgets' , love this kit !

STep 5 ....first PE to do ...the crane ...seems easy except for the very tiny hook that I missed to loose two times , after that and rescuing him from the dreadfull carpet monster , I stored and will place it in the end of the build , if not was a 'missing in action' part !

PE and my tools for it , blessed Tamiya Diamond file , the best thing I buy for soem time , real handy in this , and the Mini pliers , great piece of tools ! (And no , I do not receive anything from Tamiya ...)



Well , after placing the crane in PE , time to Prime the Hull , REd Prime for bottom , Grey Prime to Upper Hull



At this point , first (maybe mistake...) completly forgot about this ...should have already placed some rail before priming ...now will see how it will go as Now I painted with TS 33 Red Hull the bottom part and TS 66 Grey ( IJN Grey Kure Arsenal ), and now could happen the following :

To palce the PE rail I should place soem removable stickers to make some small drills so that I can glue the rails ...I'm affraid that when removing the stickers , the paint will follow ... get it ?

Will see the next steps of the build , and let it dry for some time before I do this , meanwhile I go to next step :

Step 8

Placong the Proppeler Shaft , rudders and propellers , some painting in TS-33 REd Hull in this small pieces , so also I must prepare them to paint ,



MEanwhile and final for today , I glued the two Hull parts after were painted , with some Tamiya Extra Thin Glue ....very careful , very , very carefull so not to attack the paint work , it is a delicate step of the build , and not easy to do , as you are always thinking that the build can be ruined at this point ...until today only build a small 1/700 Destroyer and I build it in a day , this is more challenging

Hope that You liked s far , again a long thread from my person

Be free to comment, suggest and ask for something that I didn't focus on the build !

Thank you for watching , see ya in a few days with some more boat work !

WOW! This sub is going to be awesome with all that P.E. on it,you are off to a great start!

Lots of great details. Look forward to the rest!

one more update :

Glued the two Hull pieces with Tamiya Extra Thin , very carefull as already was painted :



Meanwhile painted some little pieces for the diving rudders and propellers supports , they should be placed in the bottom hull at the rear :



Step 8 and 9 to follow :

Placed the Sub in his support/Base



Placed all the pieces behind and painted the propellers and the propellers shafts XF-12 Tamiya Gold



miss painting the main rudder , will decant some TS-33 to paint it with a brush

Time to do the Achi SEirans , the planes that this Submarine carried :



First will do the PE of the rail :

WE have some guiding stickers to know where to drill to glue the PE rail :





I cut it ( it isn't cut ...) using a new Blade with my Modelling knife :



Place it in the hull



The drills where done , Tamiya suggested a 0,4 mm drill bit , well I do not have such a small diameter ...



Time to place some rails



Take a look of the size of it ...



So back to the planes :

The sprues ...



Some nice recessed lines





So first one done , this will be to the stand , where I can place one of the Seirans , will do another to place in the sub and ready for launch ...

They are really small :



In the other Paint tray are the small propellers for them , they are PE , also already painted is the support to use in the stand , it is a small representation of the supports used for Float planes by the Japanese, already make one for 'Rufe' , but that was in 1/48 ...

Already painted the small AA guns and small gun



I placed one on a 1 Euro coin so that you may see the size of it :



So Decals as I must do the 'packed' Seirans so I can progress with the Hull ...



No I noticed that I must paint the Planes Japanese Navy Grey XF-12 on the bottom ...don't know why I thought that they were all green ...

All painted and ready for decals ...still do not know how I will do the weathering



Here you have one almost done ...it is nice ...small stuff and the decals are hard to place , but looks nice with the decals





Now I weathered the small support with Tamiya accent collor Brown ...as I painted with XF-78 Wooden Deck Tan , isn't exactly the color that they suggest , but aggain I must do some mixes , and I will go for this color and then wash it , even the deck will be like this , if not I must mix brown with dark grey and them Red Brown ....well will see what color will be but I do not like to mix all those colors ....will see for te hull ...









In the stand , this is built ...







One of the stored Seirans ...





Now I must proceed with the Hull , next step should be done but not so in detail for now as I must override this instructions with the ones of the PE parts ...







So here you can see the two stored planes, will be the last time we see them ....



Now I placed the Tower deck and the Hangar Tube so I can follow with placing the PE rails ...

and next will be more PE to do in the Sub , but then will be almost all done , now I must do some painting again as also the rails should be painted in TS-66 and must paint hte wooden deck after ...

That is all for today , will show you more after , and yes I missed to show you the rails , will show you after all are placed so you to see the result ...

Thank you all for the comments , and thank you for watching ,

Looking good !!

Another update on this build :

Make the holes for placing the rails in PE ...not very good as the drill I used was I thing with a bid diameter ... , they advice to use a 0,4 , but I do not have it ...something to buy in future ...

so , some stickers are given and you have to drill trough them , remove the stickers and then place the PE ...

Already some placed in the hull , now this one is for the bridge



The Detail set also bring 4 torpedoes here they are , in brass/metal



PE 10 and 11 should be the torpedo rudders ...



One more photo of the very nice and detailed instruction manual , a scheme of the sub compartments , very nice , this was a huge Sub , It was for a long time one of the largest submarines ever built



color scheme ...real in color !



some of the torpedoes ready !



All 4 built and in the support ready for some paint .



All the PE done



with more light ...



Painted now the wooden deck , used Tamiya wooden deck tan color XF - 78 and then give it some wash using tamiya panel accent line Dark brown ...



The seiran ready for take off



missing to paint some crew ....



and place it on the deck



After will be the reveal ...sorry but not much to show at this point , and the submarine is ready , only place the crew and some washing to be done using some light rust and grime

Hoppefully will still place the reveal today !

Thank you for watching and comment the build