Aoshima 1/700 Yawata Maru

The Yawata Maru 八幡丸 named after a Shinto Shrine. Built in by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. at Nagasaki. Laid down December 14, 1938. Launched October 31, 1939. Owned by Nippon Yusen Kaisha Line (NYK) as a cargo and passenger vessel.

Departed on her maiden voyage on July 31, 1940 providing service to the United States including San Francisco until 1941. At the start of the Pacific War, requisitioned by the Japanese Navy. Initially, the ship was assigned for transporting prisoners of war.

Rebuilt at Kure Naval Yard as a Taiyo class escort carrier during November 25, 1941 - May 31, 1942 with a flight deck 490' × 75' and was equipped with two elevators no island, catapults or arresting gear. Capable of carrying 9 fighters and 18 bomber aircraft. Armed with 4 x 140mm guns and 8 x 25mm anti-aircraft guns, then upgraded to 14 x 25mm anti-aircraft guns. Renamed the Unyo, she served until sunk by the USS Barb while sailing near Hong Kong in September 1944.

I got back into modeling in 1973 when stationed at NAS Atsugi. There was a little shop in a nearby town of Yamato that was packed to the gills with model kits. At the time, I was drawn to the 1/700 ship collection for a couple of reasons. One is that they had ton of them and other is that thanks to the excellent dollar to yen exchange rate (at the time around 300yen to the dollar), my pittance of a paycheck could buy a bunch of these, especially as the destroyers were less than a dollar each.

At the time, my knowledge of kit quality was almost non-existent and this was especially true of Japanese kit companies as one simply didn't get much in the way of Japanese kits in the early 1960s when I was building a lot of car kits. I soon learned that there was a hierarchy of the four companies involved in the waterline ship business. The best was Tamiya, followed by Hasegawa, Fujimi, and Aoshima. Of course that is no longer the case as all four companies now produce superb kits.

This kit was provided by IPMS Gateway for an upcoming build competition called 'Free shipping'. They got a box full of waterline kits and we each got to pick a couple for the build. The kit is still sealed, despite its age, but none of the kits came with instructions. Fortunately, Scalemates has some of the instructions in their data base so there is something available to help.

The kit is molded in white with the flat waterline plate and the nameplate in red. There is also a large weight for the waterline section. The upper hull is a single piece with two sprues that contain the rest of the superstructure along with the various cargo cranes and the life boats with their davits.

Probably the most difficult part of the build will be painting the decks as portions of the deck also include some superstructure bits. I'm thinking that a lot of prepainting will be needed, unlike most of the combat ships which are often an overall dark grey. The instructions I copied are for the sister ship, but they appear to be identical in terms of parts so should not be an issue. What may well be an issue are the decals which are quite old and may not be viable. I guess only time will tell as getting replacements will be difficult at best.

I started this by painting the first three decks with Vallejo's wood paint, masking a few areas. I did not paint any of the ones above that as the instructions did not show those being painted. Mistake as ALL the decks should have been painted wood. Not only that, but a shade or two darker than what Vallejo provided. Live and learn, eh? I then painted the hull and some of the superstructure white using Tamiya white primer.

This was followed by a lot of brush painting of the details on the wood painted decks. I can only imagine that were I not pressed for time, that perhaps I'd have done a better job. In the end it didn't matter as I had forgotten how horrible these old Aoshima kits were in terms of general fit. It would not be that much of a stretch to say that very little actually fit as it should. Now modern Aoshima kits are superb so apparently they learned a lot over the decades.

Just getting the major bits to fit together was a real chore. Even the usual mass sanding was insufficient to deal with all the issues. The front bridge section was particularly bad as wers the side railing pieces. Clamps and super glue were used in more places than I'd have liked. The pieces all had their fair share of somewhat extensive mold seams and all of the lifeboats suffered from both large sink areas and mold misalignment. While the double boom pieces were fairly sturdy, the single boom pieces had attachment points so flimsy that simply handling them broke them off. I think that by now you get the idea of how it went. To add insult, the red waterline base is oversize so there is a small lip around the entire ship.

As mentioned, the ship was basically white with a black lower hull and a black smoke stack. I coated the decal sheet with Microscale decal film and that helped keep them together. The decals had yellowed over the years, but other than the flags, they went on without any major issues. All the portholes and other openings were blacked out using either a 0.1 pen or a 4B pencil.  

It has been quite a while since I've been this pleased to have a kit finished. It is one of those that is more survived than anything else. Obviously, it is beyond my skills to turn this into anything really decent, though I know some of you do have the skills to make this into a beauty. The rest of us need to avoid this one. I know I've learned my lesson.

https://pacificwrecks.com/ship/maru/yawata.html

23 May 2025

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