I have a friend with a VERY large stash of un-built models (1/48 aircraft, 1/350 and 1/700 ships, and 54mm figures) possibly numbering 300 kits, who has decided he will never get to build them all. He is about 70 years old. He sold me his I-400 for $20.00. He wants to liquidate as much as he can, and my wife and I are going to offer our services in cataloging his kits and setting up an EBAY account for him. He dont know what to do with them all. By the way, has anyone built the I-400?
emo07
Well, he’s certainly not alone. That’s a lot of kits.
It’s not the Aurora model is it? Or did they make one?
Sorry, tigerman, that was the new Tamiya 1/350 I-400. It retails for around $70-$80.00
emo07
Well done. That was the only one I could recall off hand. I thought Tamiya might have a new one, but some of those old Aurora kits fetch a pretty penny.
good deal i have the cheaper version without the railings but was able to get the tamiya railing kit through freetime hobbies (along with 2 kits i really didn’t need). building it in parallel with afv’s late war I-58. waterline or full hull, nice fit of the 2 hulls. the I-400 airplanes are about 8 pieces plus 6 decals, wings extended and folded. i screwed up the deck painting on the I-58 so had to strip it and will repaint the hull, mask it off and airbrush the wood deck. i think the fllat brown is too dark and too close to tamiya IJN hull red so i am going to use deck tan and wash it with darker colors.
Well, at least he still has his wits about him enough to realize that he may hit the wall before he makes a dent in the stash … I find myself going through phases of acquisition, but then realizing that at the rate I actually build the things, you know where will freeze over before I could get to as many as I want to buy. Nice of you to help the gentleman out.
I built the Tamiya I-400 about three years ago and it is Tamiya at their best. With careful clean up of sprue stubs and a bit of care the entire model pretty much snaps together. [:D] The photo etch for it fits well and adds the necessary detail you expect to see. The finished model is pretty stunning for something so small. I posed mine with one plane on the cat and the hanger open with a second plane being moved forward. Painting it takes longer than assembling it, that’s for sure. I’d suggest adding at least a few sailors to it so there is a better idea of scale because this thing was HUGE for a sub.
Oh, and despite the painting instructions the planes were silver dope and hand painted US markings when she sailed on her final voyage. They were all launched into the sea before she surrendered to US ships, but the crew clearly stated that the planes carried US markings.
As for stashes, I can’t comment. I have about 400 in the stash and about 200 built. At this rate I’ll have to live to 178 to finish what I have but I keep finding new models I just have to have! Yeah, it’s a sickness. But fun!!!
nice catch.
Ron
$20 is a very good price for the Tamiya’s I-400. I got my first one for around $50, plus $20-30 for Eduard Upgrade set. It was built and shown a year ago:
More image in this page:
http://www.falconbbs.com/model52b.htm
Later last year I saw one selling for only $26 on a HK site, plus $4-5 for shipping it’s still very cheap. So I ordered it along with Voyager’s upgrade set for it from another site. To get better details, you need one of these upgrade sets for your I-400.