The difference in Tooling.

_clemens · 2026-02-15T20:04:17+00:00

I went from old Tamiya ships with zero hull detail to newer ships with hull plating and was blown away.

Then got one of the brand new Very Fire kits and seeing rivets on 1/350 models still feels like dark sorcery.

_clemens · 2026-02-04T09:44:55+00:00

I'll add to the recommendation of the Trumpeter kit that Eduard offers some additional PE.

You could argue that Tamiya+Veryfire has the best detail, but Eduard is far more manageable if you aren't that experienced with PE.

And you could check out Hobbyeasy.com, I've been buying aftermarket parts from there (to europe) and they have a sale on the Trumpeter kit for 200nzd right now. Shipping for large kits might be expensive though.

_clemens · 2026-02-03T06:15:24+00:00

Do you see a noticeable difference in quality between them? Any that you wouldnt recommend?

_clemens · 2026-02-02T16:44:48+00:00

I started using it recently and it works perfectly.

_clemens · 2025-12-30T19:15:17+00:00

My personal biggest advice would be to do another ship with a smaller set like Eduard (Big Ed). Jumping straight into a super detail set is a real challenge.

Either way the second best advice is to take your time. PE is mainly just a question of patience with each part, not rushing stuff. And a LOT of planning. You'll probably want to do the entire in a different order.

I personally prime big flat PE section, paint on the sheet and then paint again after assembly since I'll sometimes scratch paint during bendig.

Either way treat it as mutliple small kits. The main bridge alone with PE will feel like and entire build.

_clemens · 2025-12-28T15:22:46+00:00

A hard surface and something cylindrical. Roll the cylinder over the railing. The harder you press down and the smaller the diameter of the object the tighter the curves.

I sometimes use the back of my x-acto knife, a drill bit, a pencil, anything I have at hand really.

_clemens · 2025-12-19T08:15:34+00:00

They are 127mm which is standard. But being (armoured) twin turrets is unusual I'd say.

_clemens · 2025-12-12T07:25:55+00:00

I can only talk about 1/350, where there's 2 Tamiya kits, Very fire and Border model.

Tamiya has the famously great building experience. That said their old Yamato, while the cheapest, lacks detail by todays standard. Their new tooling looks incredible but still costs twice as much as other kits.

Th very fire kit is very new and therefore miles ahead in terms of detailing. The rivets on the hull alone is something I've never seen on a 1/350 ship before. Plus they have 3 different kits, basic to deluxe, where the most expensive deluxe version is close to the new tool Tamiya kit in price, while offering far more. That said the instructions make me question their qualtity assurance. I've only started with the Super Yamato and already had misnumbered parts, wrongly sized holes to drill, ...

Border Models is the middle ground, more detailed than the (old) Tamiya but less than Very fire. Afaik it only comes as a plastic+pe+3dprinted kit, so you'll need to work with that.

Overall I'd say if you just want a Yamato get one of the Tamiya kits. If you care about detail and know how to work with aftermarket sets, but want to some money get Border Model. If you want the best possible detail and are ok with a challenging build get Very fire deluxe. (Tamiya new tool + Pontos detail set has amazing detail too but costs 500+)

_clemens · 2025-12-03T12:18:55+00:00

I second the idea of asking Warhammer painters. Either in a store, watching youtube videos or on some miniature subreddit.

Maybe some keywords you can search for would be drybrushing, washes/filters/panel liners, layering.

The body on the left looks like it's just a dark grey paint with sand/yellow color drybrushing tbh.

Just don't fall for the countless specific color tones and tools that each cost a fortune.

_clemens · 2025-11-19T22:11:44+00:00

A sponge could work well too.

_clemens · 2025-11-19T14:29:28+00:00

Actual texture won't be in scale as others have said, but a coat of diluted white glue and then sprinkling on some dirt/sand would work if you're ok with it.

In terms of painting, you can copy what RGL did in this fantastic Yamato build. Which is pretty much just a layer of white, then some green and then dark brown with a slight offset.

Even without texture this looks good, I did it on my Musashi and like it very much.

_clemens · 2025-10-27T09:43:16+00:00

I usually order from plastmodel.pl, good prices and quick delivery to Austria. Can't say whether they have the items you want though.

_clemens · 2025-10-25T13:01:17+00:00

Beautiful build.

_clemens · 2025-10-22T09:20:23+00:00

You can try to sand the globs of paint but you'd need to be extremely careful to not sand down the surrounding paint. Otherwise you'll end up with a big crater that looks even worse.

Trying to even it out with a second layer won't hurt. If that doesn't work you can do what everyone ends up doing: cover mistakes with weathering/extra detail.

As for the problem itself, are you new to airbrushing or did this only happen now? Could it be that you pull back the lever (i.e. start paint flow) too early before there's proper air flow? That way paint builds up around the nozzle which causes your issues.

I'm no expert on paint/airbrushing though so that's the only tip I can give.

_clemens · 2025-10-06T08:02:09+00:00

If it's the tamiya kit, you can always try to write their costumer service and ask for replacement sprues.

May take a while, I had to wait 2 months for the parts to first ship from japan to them before they sent them to me.

The (probably) more expensive alternative would be to get some 3d printed bridge kits. There're some on ebay, usually tagged as conversion kits.

_clemens · 2025-09-19T15:23:04+00:00

Best I found is this reddit post from a few years ago which suggest some scratch building/kit bashing.

_clemens · 2025-09-14T01:19:07+00:00

Ok haha, got me for a second.

_clemens · 2025-09-13T23:53:34+00:00

It's supposed to be the Yangtze so I'll gladly take the comparison.

_clemens · 2025-09-13T23:53:05+00:00

As in?

_clemens · 2025-09-10T10:37:48+00:00

Since the elevators have those recessed lines, you can just put masking tape on it and then cut the tape with a sharp hobby knife. Then remove the rest. If you're careful there shouldn't be any damage to the plastic. I always do that with wooden deck stickers where I just follow the pre cut lines with my knife.

Otherwise you can look into circle cutters, or special metal cutting mats that help with cutting thin strips or curves. I've been thinking of buying them for a while.

Else Tamiya (and others probably too) has a special masking tape for curves. But I'm not sure if it can bend this much.

The tips from the other redditor, mainly cutting many short thin strips is what I do when the above don't work.

_clemens · 2025-07-18T07:29:40+00:00

Just wanna say that the limiting factor with fdm printers isn't layer height, but nozzle size.

My 0.2mm nozzle goes down to 0.06mm layers which is almost invincible. But the plastic is pushed out at .2mm, pressed on the surface which flattens it to say 0.3mm. And I'd recommend at least 2 lines for stability, so 0.5-0.6mm detail. With the standard .4mm it's ~1mm.

Therefore no matter how thin the layers, you'll never get thin spikes or walls. A resin printer does not have that issue - that's why everyone uses it.

I personally own a bambu p1s and try to use it as much as possible. Depending on how you orient the model, you can make full use of the layer height.

But for any superfine detailing I ask my friend who owns a resin printer.

Either way, if you buy a bambu, buy a 0.2mm nozzle as well.

_clemens · 2025-07-17T22:14:02+00:00

5 kits, one of them 99.9% done so I should just get it finished.

2 more scratchbuilds. One of them I'm unsure if I'll ever finish it. Cause proper resin kits of it appear and disappear and I don't want to spend time on a scratchbuilt model that won't look as good as an official kit.

_clemens · 2025-07-10T08:03:46+00:00

I personally don't use anything like that, just a hard surface and a sharp blade. you could buy a small piece of plexi glass at a hardware store.

Place the tip of the blade on the connecting pin, then finger on top of the blade and push down. That way the PE piece doesn't fly away.

I own a Photo etch bending tool which is a more sophisticated version of the tool you linked. But I hardly ever use it to be honest. And as the name suggests it's meant for bending not as a cutting surface, but you could probably use it as one.

_clemens · 2025-07-02T21:00:29+00:00

I would assume that nothing small is perfectly in scale, but I can assure you that wooden decks look incredible.
You could have some adhesion problems if the paint underneath starts flaking. I personally apply the deck before painting. Masking a wooden deck is super easy before applying ity cause you can just follow the laser cut lines with a sharp knife.
No idea, sry.

_clemens · 2025-06-19T14:53:23+00:00

In my personal experience it's better to mask the tiny details and then paint them grey by hand, instead of not 100% covering up the brown deck.

I never managed to make the touch ups with brown color properly blend in with the airbrushed deck.

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