Brasil Maru 1939
by Timothy Choi

1/700 Brasil Maru 1939 (Fujimi)

For an inbox review, please click here.

Overall a good kit, with lots of room for detailing and improvement. Fit was ok, but was tricky getting all the decks aligned; if I were to do it again, I would have all the decks cut out first and dry-fit them between the hull halves before gluing said hull halves.

Approximately 30% of the model was completed over a 5-month period, with the remaining 70% completed within one week in order to get it finished for the Alberta Military Modellers Show, in which she received a score of 18/20, and thus a Gold ranking.

Modifications/additions made:

• Drilled out all round portholes
• Opened up bow bulkhead for fairleads and holes
• Added 100+ individual styrene supports in all the gallery spaces
• Replaced main bridge windows with trimmed and modified PE ladder
• Drilled open cowl vents
• Added styrene supports in "yardarm" supports on the masts
• PE railings and stairs from GMM's Merchant Ship set
• Figures from Eduard's IJN figures set
• Rigging using UNI Caenis as recommended by David Griffith, but used combination of tying knots and thinned white glue in absence of mucilage

Paints used

• Ship's hull/verticals: PollyScale NATO Tricolour Black and 5-L Light Grey
• Funnel deck, boat tarps, deck winches: PollyScale Gunship Grey
• Wooden Decks: PollyScale Deck Tan with slight black wash
• Masts and cowl vents: Tamiya Desert Yellow.

Water
Roughly following Jim Baumann's method of watercolour paper, but using M. Graham & Co.'s acrylic artists colour. Colours were phthalocyanine blue and olive green, though I'm not sure how much of the olive green was used by the end of it all. The white is their Titanium White.
Acrylic gloss get medium was used for wake pattern texture.

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