Just before Christmas last year I decided to indulge myself and build a Lindberg, ex-Eagle, Dorsetshire just like I did when this kit was first issued.

Thinking more about this, it occurred to me that another Dorsetshire wasn't something I actually wanted but I still wanted to build a plastic kit.

Yamato has been a favourite battleship since I bought the Aurora kit back around 1959/60. The attached photo of Yamato is my screen saver and the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to build the ship in this configuration. There are 2 kits to choose from - the Pyro kit and the Revell kit. The Pyro is a poor model, not worth spending time back dating, valued now only as an unbuilt bagged or boxed addition to the Pyro/Eagle collection.

The Revell was the only option.

Revell currently own the ex-Casadio, ex-Esci moulds and re-issue the various ships from time to time. Yamato is not currently available. I checked eBay and found one on sale for an asking price of £30 - stupid money! I checked further and found a handful of Esci kits at the much more sensible price of around £8.00. This is the same kit as the Revell, moulded when the moulds had less wear than they have now.

So I bought a few.

The basic 'thing' about this kit is that it is not actually an accurate scale model. It is though, a good 'look alike, scale-ish' model. I recognised that I didn't want to try and make the model 'scale', but wanted to make it look as if it was a version offered by Esci. For his reason certain key elements of the model were not done - the most obvious are the distinctive mast, the horrible 5" turrets, the main turrets, and the comprehensive reduction in the depth of the hull and the tower.

The photos tell the story of the conversion which involved the removal of almost all surface detail on the deck, reinstatement of relevant detail and the creation of the new deck where holes had been created. I made no attempt to scribe new wooden deck lines.

I started with a ready built kit that I had to hand as this provided stability for the serious 'surgery' that had to be done.

I'm reasonably happy with the outcome, but am aware that I could have done certain things better. I'm not going to list these - anyone interested can try and spot them and I will address any issues raised.

I started with a ready built kit that I had to hand as this provided stability for the serious 'surgery' that had to be done.

I will be posting this post with far more photos on the 1250 FB Group page.