Japan Coast Guard Ship - Chikuzen

This kit is a Pitroad 1/700 scale ship of a Japanese coast guard vessel. They've been very busy lately fending off those naughty Chinese bandits. The Chinese navy with all their new boats have been behaving like some badass kid with a new car doing doughnuts outside your house. Anyway....here are the pics.



In the background you can also see my other jobs - 1/144 Mig, a group build subject and another boat.

Something different from the warship "norm"..... Looks good.

Not had any experience with pitroad kits, how tidy are the sprues, what's the fit like? Etc etc.

Also do you always build water level, or do you go full hull and use a stand at all?

Nice to see another "different" type of ship Chris !

Good stuff Chris.

Snake wrote:Something different from the warship "norm".....  Looks good.

Not had any experience with pitroad kits, how tidy are the sprues,  what's the fit like?  Etc etc.

Also do you always build water level,  or do you go full hull and use a stand at all?

Thanks everyone for the comments. I have been building 1/700 waterline ships since about 1971 when I was a kid at school. I still have the first two in my collection, they were given to me by a friend. Pitroad are good quality kits and very rarely have a fit problem. The sprues are tidy and injection pin marks and dimples are not a problem. They have the largest range of kits in this scale. I never use the lower hull, most kits don't supply a lower hull unless stated, I always build them as waterline as they look great on a shelf. I have a few hundred built and many many more to build. Every now and then I come across an accuracy issue but I guess that happens with all manufacturers and it doesn't really bother me. The Trumpeter range of 1/700 ships are the same kits as Pitroad, they appear to have some kind of arrangement.

Thanks for that Chris,

any chance of a piccie of the built ships?

A different subject indeed. Good luck with it Chris but I know you won't need it!!!

I'm learning of new model companies more and more here. Thanx for the review. Coast guard of Japan...maybe they're checking for North Korean submarines.

harron68 wrote:I'm learning of new model companies more and more here.  Thanx for the review.  Coast guard of Japan...maybe they're checking for North Korean submarines.

Thanks guys. Yes, I think they are very busy with all kinds of neighbourhood disputes.

I've had to stop work on this. I bought a Gunze Mr Color Bright Green for the deck. The paint I received is something called a solvent based acrylic paint. I'm used to using water based acrylic paint. This stuff behaved very badly in my airbrush and there is nothing acrylic about it LOL. All these years and I'm still learning. I've got the water based one on the way and in the meantime some of these parts are getting a bath in brake fluid.

Snake wrote:Thanks for that Chris,

any chance of a piccie of the built ships?

Thanks Colin. I will post some pictures in another thread. Take a look.

Sorry to hear that Chris but car guys are no strangers to the old BF bath. Good luck with it.

Been there and done that, way too many times.