Hachette Yamato construction, Volumes 51-60

Volume 51 looks like another easy one.

It’s a motor for the second main gun turret, but it looks like they just reprinted the diagram from the first one.

Simple enough to construct.

Done. But there’s an issue. This is the motor that causes the cannon barrels to rise and lower, and its notch (at the bottom) is out of alignment. I had to take the pliers to it. If I didn’t, the barrels wouldn’t settle to a neutral, centered position when turned off.

Volume 52 is a plump one.

We’ve got a hull plate for the midsection and parts for a third stand.

This will allow us to finish and attach another section of hull. The third stand is needed to keep it upright.

There’s the finished section.

And now it’s attached. This gets us to just under 21″ long and a little past the halfway point for the entire ship. We’re roughly even with the full length of a 1/500 model kit (which I haven’t built yet). Also, the entire structure weighs just shy of four pounds.

Also, the middle stand isn’t actually doing much at this point. #1 and #3 are taking all the weight. But I’ll keep #2 in there so it thinks it’s doing a good job.

Interesting parts for Volume 53.

We’re going down to the belly for the first time. The blue parts are for something else.

Looks like we’re in for some fiber work, too.

Specifically, we’ll be capping off and plugging in four of the flank running lights.

Done with the belly bubble. There’s a light at the tip of the fin. This part of the ship was used for the first time in Ark of the Stars as the launch port for the Ki-8 space boat. We saw it again as the staging area for the Space Cavalry’s mobile armor in 2202. For whatever reason, it was not given any functionality in this model. Maybe it was just one thing too many.

Bolted in place. This work was done entirely from above/inside.

Fibers capped, about to be plugged.

And here’s the mysterious blue thingy. What do you suppose it’s for? We’ll see shortly.

Next batch of four, and this is a milestone: Volume 55 gets us HALFWAY through the entire build.

Volume 54 gives us a new kind of hull plate.

We’re now firmly in the mid-ship area, on the port side.

Easy stuff. No lighting (yet).

Looks good.

Volume 55! From here on, we’re in the second half.

This is for the flank. The windows are for the lateral torpedo launchers.

We have a new magnet to work with.

All set. The magnet is the thing with the “S” on it. And it’s another big boy. Lots of drawing power to hold the wing on.

With Volume 56 we’ll get into some lighting again. Those are all fiber optic parts.

Staying in the midsection.

All this is just to add two dinky little lights to the plates from the last two volumes.

Correction, three dinky little lights. Each one has three individual parts: a tiny clear piece that fills the slot, a fiber optic cable that transmits light to it, and a sort of clamp that holds them together. The clamp is screwed into the interior of the hull plate. Also, the fiber cable gets a flag to identify it. (Although in this case, they forgot to give me the flags. Bummer.)

There, all three installed. Hopefully they’ll get capped and plugged before things get too messy.

Volume 57 earned a reputation as the simplest, dumbest volume so far.

Here we have a motor to rotate the second gun turret (though they’ve incorrectly indicated the first one again).

You put a gear on a peg. That’s it. Done.

Next four volumes opened! Some big parts in this one.

Always glad to see another hull plate.

Returning to the midsection.

Here we’ll attach another hunk and finally install that mysterious blue thing. What IS it?

Ta-daaah! It’s the INTERIOR for the lateral torpedo launchers.

It has a spring-loaded shutter door that will open and close on command.

And here it is from the inside. That lever in the center pushes the doors down and up.

Volume 59 is a big boy!

It’s the midsection deck that will contain all sorts of things.

Fairly simple to put together, though. We’ll attach the second gun turret’s motors (two of them) and get the barrels for the next gun turret, the one that sits directly in front of the bridge tower.

All put together. The wires are for the two new motors and the range-finder lights on the turret.

Here’s what it looks like underneath. Every single turret will have a setup like this, even the smaller ones. The step motor rotates the entire turret. The central motor makes the barrels go up and down.