For CBP #4 I’m going to be building Tamiya’s 1:700 waterline Yamato. The biggest problem I see sofar is deciding on the historical color for the main deck. The instructions say to use “buff”, but the box art and few photos I’ve seen indicate a darker color.
Any historians out there have suggestions for making this thing accurate for just before Yamato’s last fight?
According to my Anatomy of the Ship series book “The Battleship Yamato” by Janusz Skulski: The wooden deck was unpainted ‘hinoki’ cypress wood with a gray tint. The metal decks were the same color as the hull, superstructure, gun turrets, topside fittings, and boats- medium grey.
In my conversations with Bob LaPadura (he took first at the 2002 Nats with his IJN Furutaka) who recently finished Yamato as she appeared at the time of her loss, she apparently had her decks swabbed with oil to darken them…I would post your request on the message board at Modelwarships.com and I’m sure he’ll read it.
Regards,
Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com
Thanks for the tips.
Hi, Kugai.
I agree with you; all the pix I’ve seen of the Yamato seem much darker than Buff.
I’ve seen a few done in Buff, and it just doesn’t look right at all! Much too bright.
Good luck with the hunt!
J-Hulk,
Just found out something the other day. In case you didn’t know, they found the Yamato’s wreck back in '99! The artist’s rendering of the site makes Bismarck’s look like the results of a fender-bender[:0].
*The artist’s rendering of the site makes Bismarck’s look like the results of a fender-bender
Probably due to the magazine explosion…
Musashi I’m told is in much better condition, and diveable…
Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com
According to my book this is what she looks like today:
According to minishipyard, posted on the 15th Nov 03, he said :“…the wooden deck was “coated with inflammable gray camouflage paint” (Russell Spurr’s Glorious Way To Die p. 44) to retard burning.” Jeff is there any way to acertain whether she is swab with oil or paint over? If it is painted over with gray, what tone is the gray? I’ll suppose it should be of a lighter tone than the other part of the ship.
Hiya guys! Chris Coulter seems to provide a clue to this which I think is rather feasible. He link me to this website & said the following:-
http://homepage1.nifty.com/watakan/yamato/research/color_general1.html#new_color_reserch
which talks about Yamato’s deck color, through the altavista babelfish translator at http://babelfish.altavista.com/, and it mentioned that natural wooden decks of the same type of wood as Yamato, turn gray after several months from being in the sun and with exposure to the elements. There is a few picture at the bottom of the link of another ship which shows the color variation from the natural color to gray. I can’t say how accurate the site is, but he has a lot of intersting info about ijn colors and Yamato in general and seems very, very passionate about the subject."
It seems quite logical to me. The colour of the deck in the pic sure looks like paintwork(though it is not)after some exposure under elements. If what Bob LaPadura said is true about the oil swab, it should give of some semi-gloss reflection liken to paint work, which give rise to what Russel Spurr said about the grey camo paint. This is the most plausible answer for the moment. Then the next question is, why swab oil on the deck? Isn’t it gonna make the deck more flammable? Or is it the other way round making it inflammable which will coincide with what Spurr said again about inflammable paint. Jeff, Bob, I think I need you guys to enlighten me on this. Much thanks.