Hiryu or not Hiryu

saxophone · Post by **saxophone** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:34 pm

Decades ago, I purchased a large lot of naval miniatures from someone. They were mostly GHQ with a few other brands thrown in. One carrier in my collection I've always assumed was the Hiryu. The island is on the port side. GHQ is stamped on the underside of the model.

I recently purchased a GHQ Soryu model. When I place the two side by side, the Soryu looks bigger. Wikipedia says the two differ in length by 0.1 meters. That difference would not be noticeable at 1/2400 scale.

So what would account for this noticeable difference in size between my two models? Why is my "Hiryu" model noticeably shorter than my Soryu?

pmskaar · Post by **pmskaar** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 3:40 am

This is interesting. I may have an answer and hopefully my memory serves me correctly.

I seem to recall that when the Hiryu was first released by GHQ there was some problem in the casting and that it was actually redone. What you might have here is the earlier version since you bought this as part of a collection. I assume these were not in their original packaging but it may be a moot point either way.

I ended up having mine replaced for the corrected version but can't remember exactly why but probably the dimensions were off.

Another ship that I know was redone was GWG15 Magdeburg. The original casting was way too long. The corrected one has been shortened to a more correct length.

Pete

saxophone · Post by **saxophone** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 5:08 am

I recently acquired a bunch of deck decals. I'd better check my Hiryu against the decal.If the sizes don't match, I may have to order a new Hiryu from GHQ.

Quesiton: When GHQ issues a re-make of a model with significant changes, do they re-use the catalog ID or create a new ID?

pmskaar · Post by **pmskaar** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 7:03 am

In the fairly few times that GHQ has redone a model, they just use the same catalog number.
They did not change for the Hiryu or Magdeburg.

I have never seen any sort of announcements in general either that the models are or have been redone. The only exception is when they make a brand new model from an already existing model that is already available but needs an upgrade such as the JS-III, BMP-1, or the T-62..
A case in point is when they made a new Panzer IVF2. The older model had a different catalog number.

Pete

saxophone · Post by **saxophone** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 11:33 am

Just checked my deck decal. It's too big for my Hiryu model. Looks like I'll have to order a more current and more accurate Hiryu model from GHQ.

RedDragon · Post by **RedDragon** » Sat Apr 02, 2016 6:22 pm

That's unfortunate!
Makes me appreciate the brave product reviewers even more.

hussar62 · Post by **hussar62** » Sun May 28, 2017 9:02 pm

I must have had the old model as well. This week-end I decided to use the deck decal and it was about 1.5-1.75mm to long for the model. to resolve I cut the decal in half just aft of the center elevator trimmed about 1mm from the middle of the aft half of the decal and applied in two stages. Down side is if you look "very" close the forward decal elevator does not line up exactly on the forward elevator molded on the model. However all the notches in the decal for where the AA guns are do line up.. go figure!