Imai Golden Yach 1/45 scale

[Bluebeard]

Hello fellow modelers.
After following Krill4 famous build of his Imai Spanish Galleon 1/100 model I was very much inspired by all the details and effort he put in in his wonderful model, details that I will be using in my new endeavor.
As today, I will be posting pictures of my new build log of my Imai Golden Yacht 1/45.
By the way if any body want an Imai “Spanish Galleon” kit, I have one for sale at $185.00 + shipping,

 

[Bluebeard]

Before I begging posting I just like to share a few words about the Imai models.
Imai was a Japanese model company that started producing models back in 1957-2002.
Today you could find some of the ship models through 'Woody Joe"model company.

Imai Kagaku Co; LTD. was the first model company to produce model of the James Bond 007 movies by the mid 60’s and at the same time it started to cross marketing with the American ERTL model company, that why sometime you see Imai models on Ebay with ERTL name in their box cover art.
Some American model where not impressed with their kits but others loved the subject matter, like always “Beauty is in the Eyes of the Beholder”.
Here is a picture of the Authorized Reseller’s sign that long ago you could see in some USA hobby shop windows.

I found this link that explains pretty well the details about Imai Models Company:

 

[Bluebeard]

Just to refresh our memories let me show a list of the ship models that Imai produced.

 

[Bluebeard]

Just to clear something out; I will never call myself an expert model ship builder because the little I know is by coping what you guys have posted in this forum and around the web but I stil will need and appriciate your advise and opinions, so please by all means, point out whatever you see that I'm doing wrong.
So, with all of that out of the way here are the first pictures of my build.

 

[Bluebeard]

I found this old model on Ebay and the wood luckily was in good conditions but the keel was a bit warped.
I tried soaking the keel in water and placing weights on top of it a few times but after drying it will slowly warp back again.



So I brought out the Big Guns.
I should have remember that by placing the keel into water, the moisture and heat from the bending iron will reform the structure of the keel, reorganizing the fibers of the wood to prevent the keel from springing back to the warped shape.
I will never forget that fact.!




This is an Ibex Bending Iron. If Im not mistaking, I got to know this tool from a fellow modeler in this forum using it....this is a wonderful handy tool and I highly recommended it.

 

[Bluebeard]

After creating a temporary building jig, I tried dry fitting all of the frames into the keel and they all looked perfect so I proceeded to squarely glue them down.


down..

 

[Bluebeard]

Next step was fitting and gluing the 3 decks and the anchor rope locker floor deck.
Here I found a small discrepancy because the one provided by the kit was too small by width and length, so I just cut out a new one and overengineered the wood deck and walls.

 

[Bluebeard]

These are the rest of the decks.
Since Im not an expert in planking, I decided to balsa fill the entire hull except the cargo hold
I think it will help me a lot when I start planking.
That is all for today.
I had to stop the build because working on my pool deck and setting the tiles with a rubber mallet I smatched my middle finger of the left hand and broke the bone, the nail and a few blood vessels requiring a very painfull surgery that attached a fake nail with many sutures around the finger..
If anybody wants to see pictures of it just let me know.

 

[Uwek]

Many Thanks for starting this already highly interesting building log.
Please tell us later on also something about the experiences with this bending iron.
I was thinking about to buy one ......