I was looking for some information today on a Japanese model kit and went to the Zootoyz website and got a very pleasant surprise. The Zootoyz site has gone through noticeable renovation.
Japan’s Online Hobby Dealer
The sail training schooner Sir Winston Churchill is a beautiful looking 3-masted, steel-hulled schooner that was originally launched in 1996 to compete in the Tall Ships Race. Woody Joe’s revised kit was released in 2015. The model is 1/75-scale and measures 24″ long and just over 20-1/2″ tall.
Like other Woody Joe kits, the model features plank-on-bulkhead construction, using Woody Joe’s box-frame structure, which is designed to help the modeler more easily achieve good alignment of the parts. The kit features lots of laser-cut wood parts, with a healthy supply of both cast metal and photo-etched brass parts. The only plastic parts in this kit are the lifeboats and rigging blocks.
It no longer surprises me to look inside the box of the Woody Joe kits. Their ship model kits fit well in the box, and everything is plastic bags, so that the box is full, and the bags are so numerous that they provide a certain cushion, keeping items from getting knocked about and damaged in shipping. One sheet of styrofoam fills the remaining space underneath, keeping things from bouncing around in the box.
Small parts are organized into separate bags, with each bag carded and labeled with the part numbers, descriptions (though in Japanese) and quantities in the bag. Small bags are stapled to a cardboard insert that keeps the box nice and neat. A small coardboard tray at one end seems to be a standard packing feature of Woody Joe kits, and contains any loose packages of parts as well as the spools of rigging line.
The plans consist of 7 sheets of A3 sized paper, 13″ x 19″ each. Six of these sheets are pairs, so that they make up 3 larger drawings. Registration marks are provided, allowing you to align the sheets properly. Some of the older Woody Joe kits have larger sheets, but I expect that there is a cost-cutting move to these smaller sheets as they can be printed on a large office laser-printer instead of a dedicated plotter. Given the alignment guides, this shouldn’t be a problem for the builder.
There is one oddity, however, in that the models is about 1/4″ too long for the plans. The result is that the top of the jackstaff at the stern is cut off. This is a minor issue, but it’s a little odd to look at. I don’t it will create a hardship for any builders.
Instructions
The instruction book is extremely well illustrated with steps clearly identified, and lots of color drawings and photos. Being that this is a Japanese kit made for the Japanese market, all the text is in Japanese. This may put off many potential builders outside of Japan. However, if you are an experienced ship modelers, you shouldn’t have any trouble with the instructions. That may not be true of complicated kits of non western-style ships like Woody Joe’s Higaki Kaisen kit. But, for the schooners, galleons, clipper ships, yachts, and sailing ships and barks that Woody Joe makes, there’s probably nothing out of the average ship modeler’s experience.
Most of the text in the instructions and plans are labels. There are some instructions, but most are pretty simple in nature. If you look at the example below, Step 8 tells you to use a strip of wood to help you determine the correct bevel of the bulkheads. A close-up of a frame edge highlights the beveled edge. In another example, Step 11 shows you to use alignment marks laser-etched onto the bulwarks piece to get the position correct.
Woody Joe does a good job at “dummy-proofing” the process by putting two alignment marks, one for each edge of the bulkhead, so you would have to go to extreme measures to mess up the step.
The same step also shows you to pre-bend the bulwarks piece with a photo illustrating how you can bend it over a curved surface, like a large bottle, to apply the curve. One suggestion though, make sure you dampen the wood before you try to bend it.
Another piece of advice. Look ahead a step or two, particularly when you see red text in the step your on, to make sure it’s telling you not to glue something in place yet. Sometimes, a part, like the deck in this case, is just used temporarily to aid in alignment. If you look at the next step or two, you’ll notice that the part is no longer in place. That’s a good clue that you’re not supposed to glue that part.
Also, in any red text, look for a step number. If you jump to that step, you may see where the part does get glued into place, helping you get a better handle on the big picture.
Being that this is a model of a steel hulled vessel, Woody Joe’s method of hull construction is particularly well suited. The stern, in particular, requires a stack of laser-cut blocks that you must file to shape. This works just like bread-and-butter style hull construction, with the blocks pre-defining your contours for you, making it very easy to get exactly the right shape.
My steel-hull comment above refers to the fact that with some models, you want the lines of planking to show. But, this method used the stern block un-planked and flush with the hull planking. On a model of a steel-hulled ship, this is a non-issue, as you want a good smooth surface anyway. And the method results in an accurate hull shape.
On this model, the deck is not planked. Instead, you are provided with a single laser-scribed sheet, with all the deck planking and waterways already marked for you.
Wood
The wood in the kit is made up of at least three types. The frames are made of some type of plywood that resembles birch; the remaining laser-cut parts and most of the strip woods are Hinoki, or Japanese cypress, a very pleasantly aromatic wood that is stiff and slightly brittle when dry, but bends easily when wet; and some structural parts, such as the stern blocks, are a fine-grained, grayish wood called Ho (I don’t know the western equivalent name).
The laser-cut parts are interesting in that there is almost no char. Either a lot of care has gone into the manufacturing of the kits, or the woods used are thin enough or possess some other quality that makes the laser cutting process easier. Probably, it’s a combination of both, as Woody Joe tends to use parts that are a bit thinner than other manufacturers
All laser-cut sheets are also laser-scribed so that part numbers are clearly identified on the part or next to it. Woody Joe also makes good use of scribed lines to create alignment guides and beveling guides or, in the case of the deck sheet, the outlines of the planking.
Fittings
As I mentioned before, fittings are well packaged and identified. Each pack is carded, includes the part number and quantity. Note that Woody Joe’s quality control is very good, and I’ve yet to hear of missing pieces. But, if the model calls for 20 turnbuckles, as shown below, that’s exactly what you’ll get. There’s no extras thrown in, so make sure not to lose anything, as it’s not going to be very easy to claim that the kit was just missing a piece.
Those who don’t like plastic, can easily upgrade these few parts using commercially available fittings. My preference for wooden blocks would be for those made by Syren Ship Model Company. Being that this is a 1960’s steel-hulled schooner, perhaps metal blocks such as those sold by BlueJacket Shipcrafters might be more appropriate.
Cast metal parts are plentiful and the castings are of excellent quality. I’ve had someone ask me about them before and I’d send them photos, and after getting the kit, they told me the photos didn’t do justice to the high quality of the castings. They’re very good.
There’s also a nice sheet of photo-etched brass parts, some turned brass parts, etc.
Rigging and Sails
The kit includes three sizes of black line for the standing rigging, and one size of tan line for the running rigging. These are provided on plastic spools, so there’s no worry about your line getting tangled and knotted.
The sails are a stiff cloth, possibly, this is pre-stiffened in some way, as the cloth comes rolled, not folded. The material is printed on one side, and the ink used is a beige color, so the lines of the sail are subtle, as they should be.
Weaknesses in the Kit
Really, this is an excellent looking kit. I think the detail is better than the Kanrin Maru kit that was the first Woody Joe kit I’d ever reviewed. I was actually pretty excited by what I could see of this revised kit when it was released, and I haven’t lost any of my enthusiasm for it when I looked it over in detail.
Wood Joe kits are, however, designed to be relatively easy to build, and there are sometimes simplifications that experience ship modelers might not like. But, these seem to be pretty minor in this kit. In fact, some things that I might consider a weakness, are just a matter of personal taste, like the use of a plastic for the blocks and dinghies.
There is really just one weaknesses that I can see in the Woody Joe kit, and that is that the laser-scribed deck sheet is thin and a little delicate, and will require some care to work with, as I’ve discovered in working with the kit. In particular, the deck is weak along the laser scribed planks. If you run into any issues, I recommend reinforcing the deck by gluing some short wood pieces underneath. Just make sure that they don’t interfere with where the deck rests on the framing. You might even want to do this before you run into any issues.
Less of a weakness, and more just a simplification, is that the way the mizzen sail attaches to its mast. The use of mast hoops are shown, but I believe the real ship doesn’t use mast hoops there, because the spreaders on the mast would interfere with the raising and lowering of the sail. Instead, I believe there is some internal track inside the mast to which the sail attaches. I don’t know how a kit manufacturer would design this in a kit thats supposed to be a fairly easy build. Certainly, just using mast hoops is simple.
Another simplification are the yokes on the ship’s squaresail yards. These are simply made from stamped brass in the Woody Joe kit. This is the same thing they do in their other kits as well. I’ve tried to catch a glimpse in photos on the Internet of what these look like on the real schooner, but I’ve had no luck. I’d probably replace this with something that looks a little more realistic, even if it’s not accurate.
Woody Joe versus Billing Boats
The Woody Joe kit’s of scale of 1:75 is the same as the Billing Boats kit of the same ship. I had hoped to find the Billing Boats kit to do a comparison, but it’s been hard to come by. However, I’m pretty familiar with the Billing Boats offerings and their instructions and plans.
Pricewise, the Woody Joe kit lists for ¥30,000. At this time, that’s about $300. The Billing Boats kit, by contrast, lists for $249 at Ages of Sail, which is the U.S. distributor for Billing Boats.
Having seen other Billing Boats kits, the main comment I can make here is that the packaging of the Billing Boats kits doesn’t even come close to the care taken with the Woody Joe kit. Most Billing Boats kits are put in oversized boxes that are sturdy, but leave the parts to slide around inside, often allowing the heavier wooden parts sheets to potentially damage the bags of fittings. I’ve seen this in many cases, where the parts bags get torn in shipping and small parts fall loose in the box and either slip out of the box or end up damaged.
Also, the parts in a Billing Boats kit are usually just all piled into one bag, requiring you to sift through them to find out what’s what, and to make sure you received everything you’re supposed to.
Both the Woody Joe and the Billing Boats kits offer laser-cut wooden parts, stripwoods for planking, dowels for the masts and spars, rigging line, etc. Both offer turned brass fittings, photo etched brass, as well as some plastic parts. But, one difference is that the only plastic parts in the Woody Joe kit are only the blocks and the two dinghies. The Billings Boats kit provides quite a few detail parts in plastic, including the props, cabin doors, fife rails, binnacles, ladders, boat chocks, anchors, etc. Most of these are either cast metal or laser-cut wood in the Woody Joe kit, which certainly adds to the cost.
However, the Billing Boats kit does have the advantage of including one page of instruction in English. You can check the Billing Boats instructions out for yourself, as they have the instructions on their website and you can download them here.
As for the Woody Joe instructions, simply from the images I posted above, you can see that with any experience, you should be able to build this model just from the numerous color photos and illustrations. And comparing the two brands, Billing Boats gives you 9 pages that have a large black and white, labeled instructional photo or diagrams, many of which simply show you where things go, plus 3 pages of illustrations of the included parts. Woody Joe provides 33 pages that are packed with color photos and illustrations.
That said, I actually do like Billing Boats kits. They seem to do a nice job on overall accuracy of the basic structure of the subject. Where they may be a little lacking in detail, they can be enhanced by a good modeler. And, I for one, am the kind of person that will buy a kit and replace the fittings with ones I like better. So, a cheaper, but accurate kit isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
But, if your expectations are high for a kit, and you appreciate quality and want something that will build into a beautiful model with a minimum of fuss, the Woody Joe kit is hard to beat.
You might be able to find the kit sold on Ebay or Amazon, but I recommend purchasing from the Japanese online dealer Zootoyz. Prices are reasonable, and service is very good. Ω
Those of you who are interested in kits from the Japanese manufacturer, Woody Joe, will be happy to hear that after more than a year, Zootoyz is now carrying Woody Joe kits once again. I received word from Zootoyz owner Kazunori Morikawa on Sunday. The purchase links for Woody Joe kits on his website, http://zootoyz.jp, are now active again.
He just made the announcement, so it may take a little time to make some corrections to the site, as there are several new Woody Joe kits that aren’t listed yet, like the new Kitamaesen, and the I400 submarine, etc. There are also some old items that may be no longer available that are still listed on the site. Finally, it looks like the exchange rate calculator may need to be updated, as the prices are off slightly.
So, give him a little time to fix things up on the site. But, if you really want to order something, I recommend just sending him an email about it, and he can give you the correct purchase info.
I have completed an initial draft of notes I compiled on building the Hacchoro kit by Woody Joe. The kit is a model of an 8-oared Japanese finishing boat from the area of Yaizu, Japan, which is on the coast, roughly about 100 miles southwest of Tokyo. The boat is a traditional type boat, following the classic 5 sided Japanese construction. That is, bottom, garboard strakes and shear strakes in a hard-chine hull configuration.
The real boats were roughly 45 feet long and could carry 3 square sails on masts that could be stepped as needed. There are still Hacchoro in existence today, though I don’t know what the total number is like. I also don’t know how they are used today, except that there are Hacchoro races where teams man the boat’s oars to race each other on a short course.
I am aware of two operating Hacchoro in Yaizu. With the help of a wasen authority in Japan, I have made contact with a gentleman in Yaizu who has offered to show me the Hacchoro there. So, I am now making arrangements to see them in order to record some of their finer details for later use in modeling them. This is part of my Japanese Boat Research Trip that I’m trying to raise some funds for. If all works out, I will take lots of photos and record the details.
For now, anyone who is building Woody Joe’s Hacchoro kit can download a copy of my notes.
But, in using these notes, you must accept that these are just suggested guidelines and there are always the possibility of errors in the document. Also, the document includes my own translation of the text of the Woody Joe instructions. I am not an expert in translating Japanese into English. Use them to give you more confidence in using the kit instructions, but you must agree not to hold me responsible if you end up gluing a part into place wrong. The kit is pretty well buildable using just the illustrations in the instruction book. But, sometimes it helps to know what the text says. Also, note that there are a lot of labels in the instructions, and I’m only translating the descriptional text and not all the individual labels.
Download Hacchoro Notes and Translated Instructions
Of course, if you have any questions about the document, just send me a comment with your email address and I’ll answer as best I can. Ω
Tonight, I’m happy to report that my 1/24-scale Yakatabune model is finished. The kit was from the Japanese kit manufacturer Woody Joe and compliments my 1/72-scale Higaki Kaisen and 1/24-scale Hacchoro models. If you are a member of Model Ship World, you might have followed the progress of the build over the last few months.
It wasn’t a difficult model to build, but I ended up adding some extra details that took me a little while to figure out. I am still planning to provide interior lighting, but need to figure out how to properly make a couple large hanging lamps. Once I get that figured out, I’ll remove the deck house and its roof and install the wiring, which I made room for.
The model was pretty much built straight from the kit, though I did make a few simple modifications, most of which deal with color/paint scheme. The wood color comes from the use of wood dyes that I mixed to my own liking. The paint scheme is based on classic Japanese paintings of Yakatabune from the Edo Period.
The kit included a very rudimentary interior, providing a simulated tatami room floor with table. So, added a few items of my own like zabuton seating cushions, and shamisen – a 3-string musical instrument that I play.
Right now, you can’t see much of the interior because it’s dark inside with the roof on. However, I did make the roof removable, and may display it that way. In the future, I hope to have a few sake cups out on the table too!
Other small changes were that I increased the length of the Ro slightly (the long sculling oar), reduced the size of the rudder, and added a simulated bamboo pole, which sits on the starboard side. The pole would have been used by the boatman to navigate the boat near the shore.
As I’m sure I mentioned before, Woody Joe’s is an excellent kit that’s not officially marketed in the U.S. The instructions are in Japanese, but they are very well illustrated. If you want to buy the kit, I recommend shopping at Zootoyz.jp. It’s about $170 shipped. Ω
Just caught this today as I was doing my rounds on the Internet. Woody Joe has certainly kept busy. At this past weekend’s hobby show in Tokyo showed the prototype of a new kit they’re going to be releasing of a 1/144-scale WWII era I-400 IJN Submarine. Then, this morning, I discovered an announcement on their website of a revamped 1-75-scale kit of the 3-masted schooner Winston Churchill, just released 9/28/15.
I’ve only seen the original kit on the Internet. But from the looks of this new kit, I would say that they’ve not only improved construction of the kit, they’ve also improved scale detail as well.
I wasn’t particularly excited about the old kit. But, after seeing photos of the new kit, I’m impressed enough to want to get this kit. It’s 5000¥ more than the old kit, bringing it up to 30,000¥ (about $250), but the increase in price looks absolutely worth it.
Check it out here: Winston Churchill on Woody Joe Ω
A little while back, I wrote a post about working on some projects while out of town (What Does a Ship Modeling Fool Do When Out of Town). One of those projects was the Mini-Yakatabune kit from Woody Joe of Japan. Well, I added some finishing touches and finished up the model recently. These were mostly little modifications to the kit, which I though added a little realism.
Keeping in mind the Mini-Yakatabune kit is designed to be easy to build, there are some small details that were left off in the design. Mostly, these are rigging lines that aren’t really necessary, but certainly add realism to the final model. In addition, to make construction easier, in place of very thin and fragile dowels, the kit provides brass rod.
Being used to working with very tiny, fragile parts, I replaced the brass rod with thin wooden dowels that I reduced down to size using a jeweler’s drawplate.
Drawplate from Byrnes Model Machines.
Close up showing the dowels in place of brass rod. Small rope coil at bow.
I ended up with a long piece of dowel left over and so I just trimmed it to a reasonable length and used it to represent a bamboo pole used to help push the boat along shallow water and at the shore.
The rigging was a little trickier since it’s such a small model, but mostly, the issue is the delicate nature of the model. First off, I coiled up a tiny piece of line and laid it down at the bow. It’s pretty small, so it doesn’t look like much more than a blob. From building the larger Yakatabune model, I was aware of a line used for raising the rudder. As was pointed out to me by another ship modeler who built his kit before I built mine, there is a hole in the rudder, but the instructions show no reason for it. The line then tied at this hole and the ends of the line reach up and tie around the support beam above it.
Again from the larger Woody Joe kits I was aware that in early days, the two pieces of the oar, called a “Ro” in Japanese, had a piece of rope wrapped around the joint. That was a pretty easy addition. The tougher addition was a loop of line tied down to the deck, that went over the handle of the oar. This required me to fashion a loop in the end of a line inserted into a small hole that I drilled into the deck. The loop then slips over the handle that sticks up out of the oar. To reinforce the placing of the oar, I inserted a small piece of brass wire into the oar, which fits down into a small hole I drilled into the oar’s support beam.
Finally, I figured this tiny model is going to get knocked over on someone’s shelf, so I first glues some thin brass rods into the base and drill corresponding holes in the bottom of the model. This keeps the model removable from the base, but it sits securely on the base. I then decided to cut a thin sheet of cherry wood to mount the whole thing on.
Somehow, I managed to lose the silhouette figure that’s supposed to stand at the oar handle, but the model looks pretty complete as is and I think it will be a very appreciated gift.
As I mentioned before, the basic model kit was essentially completed in a single day. Added details took me a little longer to complete. Overall, this was a really fun kit to build and I found the results to be really nice. I even went so far as to buy two more kits to make into gifts.
Those interested in building the kit, remember that the instructions are in Japanese only. The instructions are very well illustrated and the kit goes together very easily, so the language shouldn’t be an issue. Just remember that any wood that you need to bend needs to be dampened first. Also, there are a lot of very delicate laser-cut parts. Cut away through the tabs that hold the pieces in the sheets, but make sure to remove the knife blade from the sheet before trying to remove the wood from the sheet. Don’t skip steps. And, since these kits are only available from Japan, don’t expect to find/get replacement parts. So, be extra careful not to break or lose anything!
If you’re interested in buying a kit, and if you’ve read this far I really think you should, I recommend ordering from the online hobby dealer Zootoyz.jp. Prices are good, shipping is reasonable, and service is excellent. Ω
This past weekend, I was away in my old hometown, a place where I didn’t have a whole lot to do one day. Knowing this would probably be the case, I brought a couple easy to transport things to keep me occupied. Some people would just bring a book or watch TV. Me, I’m a ship modeling fool, so I brought a couple new ship model projects along. One was an unstarted paper model kit, a 1/96-scale model of the British frigate HMS Mercury, by Shipyard of Poland. The other was the Mini-Yakatabune kit from Woody Joe of Japan.
While the HMS Mercury kit is a major project, I figured getting the framework together would give me something to show at an upcoming ship model meeting. Also, last year I had a paper model of the British cutter HMS Alert that I took with me to the Nautical Research Guild Conference. I was working at the Ages of Sail table in the Vendor Room and the partially completed model made for a good display of these kits. The next conference is coming up in another 6 weeks or so, and I’m working the Ages of Sail table again. I thought it might be good to take a different started kit. I considered taking the HMS Alert, with is much farther along, but I’ve put a lot of work into it and don’t want it to get damaged in the trip.
Bear in mind that this is the 1/96-scale Paper Model kit and not the 1/72-scale Laser Cardboard Series kit. It was fun to get a paper model started, especially since all the frames and sub-deck pieces all pre-cut. So, as far as I got, it was all just cut and slip parts together. I didn’t actually spend a lot of time on it. But then, this was actually project number two, which I didn’t work on until I was done working on project one.
The first project, Woody Joe’s Mini-Yakatabune kit, was something I received a couple months from the Japanese online dealer Zootoyz.jp. I’ve been working on the large Yakatabune kit from Woody Joe, so I was already familiar with the craft. While I’d been working on the larger model, I’ve been writing about it on Model Ship World. Meanwhile, a fellow ship modeler has been working the mini-kit. Since I had the unstarted kit on the shelf and was very impressed by the work that the other ship modeler had done on his model, I took the kit along with me. Woody Joe product listings suggest it’s an 8-hour build, so I put that to the test.
I came away from the weekend with everything on my list done, and also managed to pretty well finish up the Mini-Yakatabune. I’ll post more info on that kit later. But, I will say for now that I built it in a day – pretty close to the 8-hour suggested build time. I’ve built Woody Joe’s Hobikisen mini-kit and also have an unbuilt Utasebune mini-kit on the shelf too. But, from my experience, the Mini-Yakatabune is a great kit with lots to do and it looks really nice when it’s all done. It’s more expensive that the other mini-kits, but has a lot more laser cut parts than the other mini-kits. I highly recommend building it!
It’s such a neat model and the subject seems culturally significant, so I personally think the completed model will make a great gift. I’m going to give this one to my shamisen teacher and even went so far as to order a couple more of them to build for my former taiko teacher. With a list price of 5500 yen, about $46 at the time of this writing, building this kit as a gift shouldn’t break the bank account.
Well, this ship modeling fool is now back from the weekend. Surprisingly, I didn’t do much ship modeling today. But, the day’s not over yet! Ω
I’m a bit behind the curve on reporting on this latest mini-kit from Woody Joe. This kit, released in May, joins the two other traditional Japanese boat mini-kits, the Hobikisen and the Utasebune. The Yakatabune (yah-kah-tah-boo-ney) is an Edo period pleasure boat that become a common site on lakes and rivers in the later years of pre-modern Japan. The appearance of these boats coincided with the rise of the merchant class and the accompanying increase in leisure time and disposable income among commoners. The Yakatabune and boatmen would be hired for a day or an evening for taking in the sights at cherry blossom time to view evening fireworks, or maybe just to drink tea or sake and enjoy good company.
Woody Joe already produces a large, 1/24-scale kit of a Yakatabune, but this one is small and quick to build and costs less that one-third as much as the larger kit. The kit features a large number of laser-cut parts. The design of the hull is nearly identical to the other mini-kits of the series, but the decking, rudder, and deckhouse means there is about 50% more wood in this kit. As with the others, the wood provided is Hinoki (hee-noh-key), a variety of Japanese cypress that is extremely aromatic, and it easy to work with.
Parts are always well packaged and well labeled in Woody Joe kits.
Japanese language instructions are extremely easy to follow, thanks to the well illustrated, 12-page, step-by-step guide.
Laser-cut sheets are clearly numbered, and each part has its own identifier to make locating parts simple.
Color printed paper is used to cover the shoji screen walls of the deck house and for the lanterns hanging along the side.
Having been building the larger scale Yakatabune kit, it’s clear that this is a simplified model. But, that’s the whole point here. This is a model that can easily be built over a weekend, and results in something that looks nice on the shelf.
The kit is solidly packed into its box, which measures about 9″ x 3-1/2″ x 1-1/4″. The model itself measures about 8-1/4″ long when complete and includes a nice base and brass tape nameplate.
At 5,500 yen, the Mini Yakatabune is the most expensive of the three traditional boat mini-kits. At today’s exchange rate, that works out to about $45. As always, I recommend buying the kit from Zootoyz.jp. Prices are good, shipping is extremely fast, and service is great.
For those who want to add a little detail, if you’ve built the larger kit, the details you might add are pretty obvious. There are the beams that protrude from the hull under the side railing, there are the rope wrappings around the sculling oars, the lifting rope on the rudder, and copper caps. But, I think it’s a better kit to be built as-is. A nice simple weekend project that would make a nice gift either as a kit or a completed model.
Personally, I’m a student of the Japanese folk instrument called a shamisen and my teacher would clearly love to have this model on her shelf. She’s been hinting to me, showing her collection of all the different things that her various students have made for her over the years. I think the Mini Yakatabune is going to have to be one of them. Ω
For those interested in following the build of Woody Joe’s 1/24-scale Yakatabune kit, I decided to go ahead and start one on The NRG’s Model Ship World. For those who don’t know, the Yakatabune is a traditional Japanese pleasure boat used on lakes and rivers. They could be hired for a day or evening, allowing a group of passengers to enjoy the gentle rocking of the boat, the sites along the water, view the cherry blossoms, and as a place to simply gather, bring along hired entertainment, drink sake, or whatever.
Here’s an image of a colorized photo I found on the Internet, though I don’t recall where now.
The 1/24-scale Woody Joe kit is available for around $170 shipped. I got mine from Zootoyz.jp. Woody Joe calls this a 50-hour build, and that may be pretty close. It’s not a difficult kit.
Visit the build log here: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/10860-yakatabune-by-catopower-woody-joe-124-scale-small/ Note that you will note be able to see the images without joining Model Ship World and getting a free account. There is no advertising associated with this site and it is part of the Nautical Research Guild (NRG). There are also advantages in joining, as it grants you automatic associate NRG membership.
Ship Modeler 
