Category Archives: Vendors

とやまの和船 – Book on Traditional Japanese Boats of Toyama Prefecture

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The first treasure of my recent Japanese book buying binge arrived late last week. The book is in Japanese and is called Toyama no Wasen, which means Toyama’s traditional Japanese boats.

This is a beautiful book and it is loaded with drawings. I flipped through it and counted about 30 boats detailed in drawings, though some drawings offer more details than others. Also, some of the rice field boats are little more than floating wooden tubs that are pushed or pulled through the fields by the farmer.

This book appears to be a 2011 publication by the Himi City Museum. I found my copy through Yahoo! JAPAN Auctions. I haven’t seen it listed even on Amazon Japan. I suspect it normally purchased directly from the Himi City Museum and, as it’s a museum publication, isn’t going to be found anywhere else.

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Japanese Book Buying Binge

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While I have plenty of projects and potential projects to work on, I seem to be hungry for new material. Recently, I was hunting for the source of a pdf copy of an out of print book that I had originally obtained from the Nippon Foundation Library a few years ago.

But, try as I might, I couldn’t find it anywhere. In fact, most of my saved links to the site appear to be broken. I hunted for the pdf book, but couldn’t manage to locate it. However, I did manage to run across an actual physical copy on a Japanese auction site. Now, I don’t actually need the book, since I have the pdf file, but it’s always nice to have a physical resource.

The book I found was one on the history of the Takasebune, a term for the various types of shallow-draft transports found on the rivers across Japan. Watch for an upcoming post on researching and reconstructing the Takasebune of the Tone river system.

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New Japanese Measurements Page

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Here is some information on measurements in the Japanese unit called the shaku that I just put together. I discovered that information like this is in my notes somewhere, but I often don’t know where I put them. So, for easy future reference, and for your benefit too, I just added this info to a new page under the Resources menu and called it Japanese Measurements.

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Higaki Kaisen Build Article – Ships in Scale March/April ’17 Issue

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I hadn’t heard any word at all from the editors of Seaways’ Ships in Scale magazine after submitting my article on the construction of Woody Joe’s Higaki Kaisen kit. I submitted the article in late November, so I figured I’d send them a note to ask what the status was. I got their reply a short time later and it’s good news, the article is scheduled to appear, starting with the March/April issue.

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Given the size of the article, I expect it will appear across 3 issues. That’s the what happened with my Mary Taylor model article a few years back, and it was of similar size. This one actually might be a little longer, so maybe it will span a 4th issue. I don’t like super long articles, so I hope it gets limited to 3, but certainly no more than 4.

As a reminder, Zootoyz is selling Woody Joe kits again, and they’ve revamped their website a bit and added the newer offerings, like the Kitamaebune. That, by the way, is a slightly beefier cousin to the Higaki Kaisen, built for the long journeys between the northern ports and the large port cities of the south. If you are interested in a less complicated kit, but really like the look of the Higaki Kaisen, consider the Kitamaebune. It’s a newer kit, same 1/72 scale, with simplified construction for about $20 less.

Kitamaebune

Woody Joe’s Kitamaebune kit. A beefier bezaisen than the Higaki Kaisen.

If you don’t subscribe to Ships in Scale, now is a great time! You can find out more information from their website here: http://seaways.com/. Back issues include my reviews of the Woody Joe kits Higaki Kaisen, Kanrin Maru and the Charles Royal Yacht, as well as my article on scratch building the pilot boat Mary Taylor.

At some point, I am considering detailing Woody Joe’s Hacchoro kit too, and writing up an article about that. I already have the kit sitting and waiting in the closet. Too many other things to finish up first!

 

Woody Joe Kits are Back at Zootoyz

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This should make it easier to get your wasen model kit!

Ship Modeler

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.

Japan's Online Hobby Dealer Japan’s Online Hobby Dealer

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…

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Initial Thoughts on Woody Joe’s Higaki Kaisen

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Recently, my kit review of Woody Joe’s Kanrin Maru kit was published in Seaways’ Ships in Scale and I’ve since begun looking at Woody Joe’s Higaki Kaisen kit. I’ll develop a complete review pretty soon, but I have had a chance to work on the model a bit and I do have some initial thoughts on the Higaki Kaisen kit.

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My first impression is that it’s a fascinating looking build of a traditional Japanese ship. There are a lot of laser cut parts and it’s missing the traditional framework we’re used to seeing in ship model kits, but there is a small set of frames that make up temporary building molds that helps hold the hull parts in place during construction.

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