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I found this kit on the HobbyLink Japan website. The kit is by Bandai a company well known for their quality and anime kits. Shipping was fast, price was good… on to the kit! What You Get. Two kits! No really, there is a small kit of IQ-9 a robot character from the series, but let’s start… The Yamato: The 1/500 scale kit comes in 4 trees, 2 hull halves, a deck section and pre-printed stand, for a total of 174 pieces in all, and this is a nice big kit over 20.86 inches long all told. The ship parts are molded entirely in battleship grey (how appropriate) and the 3 stand parts are molded in flat black. There are no defects or flash whatsoever, there are small mold lines but these are easily removed. All the major and some minor details are represented very nicely except for the raised panel lines in the hull (I would have preferred engraved panel lines). A couple of nice details that stand out are the massive amounts of “anti-aircraft” guns that flank the sides of the main conning tower (on the small scale kits many of these guns are often omitted), and the inclusion of three in-scale CosmoTiger II fighters, giving you the option the model them on the “catapults” or just display them alongside the kit for scale reference. There is only one small sheet of decals for the kit and these are for the stripe details on the barrels of the main turret guns. The instructions are very clear despite their being wholly in Japanese. The drawings and symbols are very clear for construction, however for painting the instructions are only useful to show you what to paint (by coloring the area to be painted in grey), those who cannot read Japanese will have to use the box art or other references for the correct paint scheme.
Assembly & Finish: Assembling this kit should be pretty straightforward: just like building a WW2 warship. The most difficult part will be the closing the hull halves cleanly and removing any seam mark, also the Yamato has retractable ‘wings’ on the hull for atmospheric flight, there will be left off so I’ll need to fill the slots for those as well. Most likely I will sand down the raised panel lines and inscribe them into the hull. The interior of the hull leaves plenty of open space if for lighting the kit, the base however has no way to hide the battery box so some extensive redesign on the base may be required. There may be painting instructions included in the directions, however I cannot read Japanese. That will not pose any difficulties as there are many web-based sources available, and the Series is available for purchase or rental on DVD.
Well there we go the next project all set to go onto the bench!
I’m off to watch some old Star Blazers episodes. Until next time, Keep Building!
1 Comment
Chito Reynoso
9/15/2020 06:21:31 pm
Hello, I have this kit 2 years ago and start building it. However, I lost the instructions when I stop building it due to my nursing studies. That was when my wife packed it up and cleared the place where I was building it. Now, I want to continue it but can't locate the instructions manual. Since you have built one, I am wondering if you could share me a copy of the instruction manual so I can continue and finish the model. I am thinking of buying another kit just to have the instructions but this kit is costly and want to avoid it. So if you could share a copy in snap shot, pdf or whatever format I would appreciate it ery much. my email is [email protected]. Thank you.
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AuthorHi there, I'm Chris and welcome to my workbench. I've been building models since i was 6 or 7 years old. I thought it would be fun to share some of my projects! Archives
May 2017
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