Star Blazers - Yamato
Dec 29 2003
As a kid I would get home from school and watch StarBlazers. Now this was like no other cartoon I have ever seen before. The stories were great and seemed very realistic. It didn't hurt that the ships in the show were neat.
When the show was on I was not ale to get any models of the ship becasue they were not available here or if by chance I did find one I could not afford them. Now that I have a steady job I have funds to buy the kits whenever they are issued. This is a Bandai 1:700 scale kit of the ship. For North America the ship was called the Argo. In Japan the ship was called the Yamato. The Yamato was the biggest battleship to be made during WW2. It did not have a very decorated history as the Allies quickly set about to destroy the ship before it could be used. It took quite a few torpedo hits to finally sink the ship.
The model was built straight out of the box with minor modifications.
Here is the upper bridge section of the kit. It is funny how building this model reminded me so much of the show and the angles that were shown on screen.
This is not a view that is shown that often in the cartoons. Looking at the model you think the proportions are wrong but then you realize that the cartoons were drawn very forshortened.
Now this view is more like what was shown on the cartoons.
The fit of the main deck to the hull was bad at the front and will need some puttying to smooth out. Not an easy task.
I had problems with the fit of the wave motion gun barrel. I tried some puttying but results were terrible. It didn't help that while doing some body work I slipped with the exacto knife and badly cut myself. During this process of self mutilation I dropped the model and cracked the barrel as well as the glue joint from the main deck to the hull.
This is the mounting stand for the ship. Interesting design as it allows for the lower bridges to stand freely. These lower bridges or observation decks have not been put on the model yet.
The white putty are areas where the wing were to be installed. These wings were only seen when the ship was in an atmosphere. Since this is rare I decided I didn't want then on and filled in these gaps.
