by Bruno Gillet
1/700 IJN Hirashima, Mine Layer Type No. 9 (Tamiya)
This ship is the largest of the three different ships in Tamiya 1/700 WWII Japanese Navy Auxiliary Vessels, ref.31519.
It was built out of the box with exception of Eduard PE railings.
Paints have been all acrylics: Gunze for basic colors, Vallejo/Prince August for weathering. Pastels were also tried for weathering, but I'm not satisfied with them Probably from the real small scale and size, I could not play on transparencies as I wished (too large areas, unrealistic aspect...). I will probably give them another try later.
Rigging was done with glove threads, like on my first model, to give it another try. Despite trying other glues, I realized glove thread was definately not the good material for rigging (Thickness of thread + "spaghetti look"). In addition it's once done I saw the rigging scheme I used was total fantasy... oops.
Base was improved from the first model. I first cut the flat part of the base from an old folder, then bought a 2 Euros wood staff and finished the stuff before building the model. It was the assurance of having a good fit. It is still lowcost (about 50 Euro cents for this base), but somewhat enhanced from my first try.
