Having been aboard the USS New Jersey in Subic Bay in the Philippines back in 1988, whilst I was serving in HMS Ark Royal, I saw Tamiya’s kit (78017) in a local model shop in 2007 and bought it for £39.99. It sat on top of the wardrobe for many years.
Having completed the Jagdpanther, and despite having several other simpler kits to build, I decided to work on the battleship next. And it is taking a while, what with the interruptions of life and everything. I had considered trying the PE kits (photo etch), but decided they were rather expensive, probably beyond my current skill set and patience, and probably more than I wanted to do anyhow. Hence I built it out of the box.
One of my biggest issues was trying to get the right colour red for the hull. I bought the Tamiya Hull Red (XF-9), but felt it was just too dark. Browsing many photos of the ship, I decided it needed to be redder, so created my own mix by adding quite a lot of ordinary red (XF-7) to the hull red until I got the colour I wanted. Purists might say it is the wrong colour, but I feel it looks better… and it’s my model!
- TODO: Add photos of the build to date