Carl's Takao Build

I thought I would start a thread on building my Takao. I thought I would be more likely to make regular progress on it this way, and I could share tidbits with Tugboat, who is also building a Takao in 1/96.
I am using one of Mark's excellent kits for this hull. This is my 2nd 1/96 scale hull kit from Mark. My other is a Baltimore hull. The Baltimore build is on hold until I can get Takao battle ready.
I picked up the Takao kit from Mark at Eric's build session in March. I didn't have much time to spend at the build session due to a crisis at work, so I was trying to hurry thru the assembling of the hull. In doing so, I made a few stupid mistakes. The first was mistaking the stern for the bow on the sub-deck when making cuts to make the sub-deck bend easier. The other was in gluing the sub-deck together before trimming the bow angle on the edge of the sub-deck. Neither mistake hurt anything, but it certainly was embarrassing. :blush: But with Mark's generous help, I was able to get the Takao frame (keel, ribs, and sub-deck) glued together while there at Eric's house. The kit went together wonderfully!
I didn't have any 3/16x3/8 basswood for stringers, so I went to the local hobby store, which had none, then to Hobby Lobby, which had some but not enough. So more bassword is on order from National Balsa, along with 1/32" aircraft ply for the hull bottom and 1/16" x 6" balsa for sheeting. Should be here in a couple of days.
While waiting for bassword, I've been working on new turret designs for Takao's 8" and 4.7" guns (yep, I'm arming them all). I did some preliminary sketches in Visio, and now need to start drawing up more serious drawings in TurboCad. That may take a while, as I am still learning TurboCad, but I think I have a workable idea that won't be too hard to make and much cheaper than buying them. I'll probably laser-cut the first set of magazines (like Kotori), as I still have all my serious tools in storage.
I also started to plan out internals. I have two sets of plans I scaled to 1/96 (or so I thought). I had the 1/200 set of Miyukikai plans, and I had a 1/104 set of plans from the now defunct NAVYPLAN that I had a blueprint shop in Austin, TX scale to 1/96. The NAVYPLAN drawings are based on the Anatomy of the Ship book on the Takao and show wonderful detail. I asked for the original NAVYPLAN drawings to be scaled by the owner to 1/96, but he shrunk them by 4% instead of enlarging them by 4%, so they ended up at 1/104. I started comparing the two plan sets today to see which one I wanted to make a copy of the deck plan from. I had decided to tack a copy of the actual deck plan on top of the 1/8" thick deck to make it easier to locate stuff later. It was then I discovered that my blueprint shop in Austin, TX screwed me big time. I had both sets of plans scaled to 1/96 several years ago, but didn't catch that the blueprint shop scaled them both incorrectly. Today I found out that my scaled Miyukikai plans are 1% too small, and my scaled NAVYPLAN set is 2.5% too large! Now I need to find a place in Ft Wayne that will scan the plans in, correct them on the computer, and print them out at the correct size. Grrrrrr....
Well, the Miyukikai plans are only 1% off, so I started doing measurements from them and adjusting for the 1%. The 1st task was to locate the turrets, the 2nd to locate the torpedo launchers (yep, I'm doing torps, too). More bad luck. The Takao kit sub-deck has horizontal braces for forming hatches, and the 2nd one from the bow is right where C-turret should be. Rats! Took some more measurements to locate the torp launchers and discovered that the center sub-deck brace is sitting where one pair of torp launchers needs to go. Double rats! Guess I have to make some adjustments to the sub-deck. Glad I found this now and not after I had put the deck on and cut my hatches. You'll want to watch for this, Tug, as you make your build!
Well, that's enough for tonight. I'll try to post some pictures on here soon.
Carl

 

Carl, any progress updates?
We are looking at scheduling a Battlestations event in July or August. Mikey should have the Strasbourg and Mogador ready, Matt has all those hulls and cannons, Mark has the Tashkent (which may have had sea trials knowing him), and there are still two C3 hulls around somewhere. I will be double-timing my Gustav V after I finish the Alsace for Treaty.

 

Here's an update.

National Balsa delayed shipment - took almost two weeks to get my wood. Very unusual for them. But this has delayed my work on the hull substantially.
While waiting on the basswood, I used left over 3/8" ply from the hull kits to fashion two new sub-deck cross-braces. I installed these new braces and removed the original ones mentioned in my initial post so now I have nice hatch areas around all my weapons.

I have both my 1/96 Baltimore and my 1/96 Takao framed out. The Balty has all the stringers in place, while the Takao still needs the top bulge stringers added (thanks to the delayed shipment). Both ships have given me the same problem, however - both hulls have twisted slightly in the bow from the tension caused by the basswood stringers along the edge of the bottom windows.
I thought my problem with the Balty was that I had put stringers on the port bow but not the starboard bow because I had run out of basswood. I simply thought that I had failed to notice the twist when I finally got around to putting on my starboard bow stringer. Now I realize that wasn't the problem at all. I was careful to put Takao's bottom window stringers on together, port side, starboard side, port side, starboard side for the entire length of the ship. The bow still twisted. The problem wasn't when I put them on, but that I put them on in long lengths. There's a good bit of angle coming from amidships to bow for the stringers, and the torsion causes the bow to twist because no two pieces of bassword have the exact same strength.
Thankfully, because of the difficult stern angles, I had cut separate lengths of stringers between each rib in the stern on the Takao. I will need to rip out the bow stringers on both cruisers and cut separate lengths between ribs in the bow. Amidships has not been a problem because the stringers run pretty straight there, but the bow and stern need much shorter stringer lengths to avoid twisting the hull.
As far as battling goes, I'm out of luck until I get a house. Too many of my supplies (my CO2 tanks, air hose, my PVC rods for cannon making, regulator, etc) and my large tools (mainly my lathe, milling column, and sanders) are still in storage, and will be until I can get a house and get the 10x20 storage units unpacked. Grrr... It's so frustrating to have what I need, but not be able to get to it...
Carl

 

Now you tell me!
Carl

 

OK, time for some pics. Let's see if this works.

Here's the hull as it was when I left the build session. It's sitting on top of scaled up Miyukikai plans.


Side view:


Here's the new cross-braces for the hatches. I wrote the distances I'm moving the braces on the hull (helped me line them up straight).

 

From the first post:

 

So I can now arm everything...(cue evil laugh)

BTW, the middle brace (near the torp launchers) ended up by a rib, so I built in some extra reinforcement by gluing supports to the rib. You can kind of see it in the last pic above. It's the cross-brace on the left that has the extra supports. The camera angle makes them look crooked, but they are straight.

Carl

 

Oh my. I can't believe you went there!
Actually, there will be a method to my madness. I will be doing the weapons in stages. First will be the five 8" turrets. Then I'll add the 4 torp launchers. Then I'll add the four dual 4.7" mounts. Probably won't all happen this year; we'll just have to see out it goes. My goal is to make each set of weapons bullet-proof reliable before adding the next set of weapons. That will limit the number of variables with each install.
The good news is that the tight areas in the hull are where the 8" turrets sit, and it's not all that tight. There are large open spaces to fit in the torps and 4.7" mounts later. The main challenge will be adding the 4.7" mounts because they sit just above and to the side of the torp launchers. Getting them in the scale position will make it a tight fit, not the amount of space in the hull. That's why they will go in last.
Carl

 

Hey Carl,
She's looking great!
Nikki

 

Thank you, Nikki. How she looks so far is all due to Mark's fine kit. I've just managed not to screw it up too badly.

Picked up an oscillating multi-function tool from Harbor Freight over the weekend. On sale for $18 with a coupon (normally sells for $59.99). Got turned on to this by Mark. Great tool! With it I got the struts in the bow off in a few minutes, easy as pie. If you don't already have one I highly recommend getting one!

Anyway, removing the long stringers in the bow got rid of the twist very quickly. Now I just need to cut and install short pieces of stringer in the bow, then I can work on the bulge stringers. I might just replace the bow stringers in the Baltimore now though, since it went so quickly on the Takao and the Balty suffers from the same problem.

 

Yes, I'm a little warped. That's what my wife and kids tell me all the time...

By all means, start your own build thread. I still have a lot to learn. After all, I've been in this hobby over 10 yrs now and still don't have a battle ready boat!

 

OK, managed to get a few solid hours on the boat yesterday. I finished replacing the bow bottom window stringers. There is still a tiny bit of twisting at the bow, but it is small enough that I'm going to let it go. There's no way I could get it perfect without building a jig, and I just don't have access to the tools I need to do that now. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate having most of my tools in storage?
Got a LOT of sanding/shaping done. I finished blending the sub-deck to the ribs everywhere except the extreme bow and stern, sanded the bottom window stringers and the top of the sub-deck. The oscillating multitool was very handy for this, even though the hook-and-loop sandpaper didn't work worth crap. Also installed the torpedo bulge stringers. I figure another couple of hours of sanding and she'll be ready for waterproofing.
My main concern now is sanding the ribs to get the angles coming from the bow and stern. Any pointers here? Bats had recommended gluing sandpaper to a mailing tube and using that to get the angles on the ribs. But I'm open to any and all suggestions...
Thanks,
Carl

 

I do that final sanding with a much abused Dewalt palm sander and 60 grit paper. I admit that I usually only sand the ribs at the bow about 1/2 way fair, just enough to get rid of the edge and give some glue area.

 

Thanks for the advice, Mark. I used a palm router and I think it went pretty well.

I finished the sanding at the bow and stern, and started waterproofing with West Systems Epoxy. Bad news is nearly all my brushes are still in storage, and all I could find were small acid brushes. It was hot and humid Saturday, which meant the epoxy was curing fast. So I was slapping it on as quickly as I could since I had such a small brush. Definitely not my best work, as this left me with some large drips. But through perserverence, I was able to get a coat on about half the hull before I had to stop.

Next chance I get, I go back to Harbor Freight for some cheap brushes!

Carl