I should have taken more pics at the beginning but didn’t. Sorry guys. I will explain as best I can…
Start with one extra Soryu. I heated up the tower with a heat gun and, while still hot, sliced it off with a sharp Xacto knife. Cuts much easier and cleaner when soft. Shave down the tower mounting area until reasonably smooth for blending into the deck.
I then reattached the tower in the new location with some hobby glue. Some decking in the aft quarter needed to be filled so it could be converted to armor, as well as the blending area where the cut tower meets it new attachment point. These were filled with black silicone caulking. I wanted something slow drying and soft that could be easily painted. I spread it into the cracks in the boards where I needed it and the gap between the tower and the deck. This is what you see below.
I then used the heat gun again to straighten the tower out. It was leaned forward a bit from an uneven cut. I painted the entire grey portion of the deck being mindful of the white lines. Did not want to redo those! Painted grey over the old tower area, around the Japanese roundel on the bow, and the aft symbol where needed. I was careful to retain the portion of the symbol that could be used to make the new one for reference.
I then extended the striping area to the “winglets” and painted the new “Hiryu” symbol in place.
Voila!
Wow! She is a beauty, well done.
Sweet. Rough estimate as to how much time that took you Variable? Just curious…
It wasn’t too bad at all. Cutting the tower and gluing was only about 15 mins. Filling the deck another 10, but had to wait 24 hours or so for the silicone to dry. Couple coats of paint on the deck the next day was worth about 30 mins total of my attention with about 2 hours total drying time.
Summary: 1 hour of work, 2 day turn around total project.
Having an awesome carrier… priceless. :-D
Time to see how Variable makes an Unryu, it’s really nice.
Here’s mine
That works, Looks great :-D
