by Bill Kluge
1/350 IJN Yahagi (Hasegawa)
The Hasegawa offering builds up into a beautiful representation of this famous cruiser. The diorama presents Yahagi on the day of her sinking, about to come under air attack while escorting battleship Yamato, but extra parts are included to model the ship as she appeared prior to the Last Sortie. These include additional ship’s boats, extra deck fittings and a second Jake, as well as torpedo trolleys and individual torpedoes. The level of fine detail on some of these parts is simply extraordinary, and some of the detail compares favorably with what you see in the corresponding photo etch parts. The hull parts are for a full hull model only, so the hull was cut for waterline presentation. Four PE details sets are available from Hasegawa, and the “essential” detail elements (rails, radar, boat, aircraft, crane, catapult & mast parts, etc.) are divided among them, which would cost more in total than the price of the kit. The Gold Medal Models Takao set PE was primarily used instead.
The base was constructed by spreading a custom color mix of Liquitex Super Heavy Body acrylic paint in the form of small waves on the baseboard. A series of larger swells was built up with hardware store brand spackling compound. It’s easy to spread and form and dries fairly quickly. Any cracks that occur during the drying process can be easily filled. The the grey and white paint acrylic paint was then spread with a pallet knife in a pattern to represent the ship plowing through heavy seas on a cloudy day.
