Hasegawa IJN Yamato, 1/450 scale

Special Update 5-12-2013

Hasegawa is scheduled to release in June of 2013 a totally retooled 1/450 scale IJN Yamato kit and from the pictures I’ve seen, she’s a beauty. Everything I grip about is fixed and then some! Rumors say the Mfr price will remain about the same as for the old kit, about $45.00 USD. If so, it should be a very popular kit indeed. Here’s a link to Hasegawa’s new 1/450 IJN Yamato. If you plan on buying the new Yamato make sure the Mfr Number has Z01 in it and not Z11 (the old kit).
Great job Hasegawa! More new 1/450 scale please!

Original Post: (March 2011)

I was eager to get a review of this kit up on the web. Before buying this kit, I’d looked about for one with zero luck. Its fairly large scale, low price and subject matter made it irresistible to me and a rather favorable review of the Hasegawa Akagi kit also in 1/450 scale closed the deal.

Straight into the bad news

My biggest gripe: The stern section of this kit is a disaster, it needs extensive modding to make it reasonably accurate. As-is it’s ridiculously bad. On this build the boat and aircraft handling areas both received a hefty dose of modification, I easily spent 1/3 of the build time on these areas.

A lesser gripe: For a fairly large scale warship model the kit generally has a remarkable lack of fine details. Its early 60s roots are clearly showing. With the exception of the hull portholes, not one door, ladder, vent or window is engraved anywhere on the ship. To be fair, there are faint ladders on the sides of the main turrets. However they become all but invisible after a thin coat of paint. The same is true for two barely there rows of windows on the main tower.

Other problems are found around the main tower bridge. Details missing and scratch built by me include: the 2 fire control platforms halfway up the sides of the tower (toward the back), the series of small platforms with ladder access on the backside of the tower, and the 2 sets of fire/searchlight controllers at the forward base of the funnel.

The funnel itself is poorly detailed and practically level on top. I raked it back a bit by building up the front but just couldn’t bring myself to address its poor detail. I could have easily spent several days reworking the steam piping and cowling and perhaps I should have. After a while though, I couldn’t help but feel the same effort applied to a different kit, would result in a far superior product. I do like the outcome of this build, and I did enjoy the challenges of modding it, but still…

Thank god for PE!

I did use a Gold Medal Models 1/350 PE set on this build, and it thankfully replaced some of the most offensive stock parts, adding much needed detail. However they are noticeably over sized and there’s no doubt I should have used a 1/500 PE set instead but at the time I didn’t know one existed…

Some good news

While it may sound as if I’m down on this kit, it’s really not so. Hasegawa did lots of things right too. The general shape of the hull and main superstructure island is quite good. The main turrets (except for the rangefinders) look about right as well and in general the model’s lines are reasonably accurate and quite attractive, making the kit a good base for folks who like to tinker. Plus the price is right. This Yamato can occasionally be found for as little as $29.00 and consistently for $40.00. For this price you get the chance (and the challenge) to construct a respectable tribute to an undeniably great warship.

Bellow are pictures of the raw kit.

Update:

I wouldn’t think of buying this old kit today with the new one mentioned at the top of this review now available (unless you have way more time and skill than money). However the Akagi is a much nicer kit and well worth the price. You can find a review of that kit here: Hasegawa 1/450 IJN Akagi.

The image below is a link to a gallery of pictures of the two builds displayed together.

Hasegawa 1/450 scale warship ship model IJN Yamato, WW2 Japanese Battleship