Argentina Maru
あるぜんちな丸
Osaka
Shosen K.K.
Mitsui Steamship
Co.founded in 1878 as a ship owning company In 1884 the company
became Osaka Shosen Kaisha and was trading locally. Overseas
services began in 1890 with a route between Osaka and Busan and in
1908 the first Japanese emigrants were carried to Brazil. A Hong Kong
to Tacoma service commenced in 1909 and a San Francisco route was
opened in 1915. In 1916 South America services were started and a
service to New York in 1920. There were numerous other routes until
the commencement of WWII including a round-the-world service.
However, most of the fleet was destroyed during the war. It was not
until the 1950s that OSK resumed world wide trading and in 1964
merged with other companies to form Mitsui O.S.K. Line which is
still operating.
Technical specification
Type: Passenger/cargo
Built by Mitsubishi, Nagasaki, Japan. Yard No: 734
Laying the keel:
5.Feb.38
Launch
Date: 9. Dec.38
Date of completion: 31. Jun.39
Length overall: 166.26
m
Beam: 20.9
Tons:
12,755
Speed: 21.5 knots
First-class passengers: 101
Second-class passengers: 103
Third-class passengers: 662
Swimming pool
Routes
Japanese ports (presumably Kobe and Yokohama), Los
Angeles, Balboa, Cristobal, Curaçao, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Santos,
Montevideo, Buenos Aires.
Homeward voyages via Rio Grande, Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco,
Belem, Cristobal, Balboa and Los Angeles to Japan. The length of the
voyage was cut from 46 to 36 days due to the new ships of the class.
History
1939 May 31
Starts its cargo-passenger ship's route around the world, with her sister Brazil Maru.
Route Japan- South America
(Santos-Kobe) service.
1940 Sailing from Osaka to
Dalian and later transfer to route above.
1942 OSK sells
ARGENTINA MARU to the Imperial Japanese Navy.
10 Dec. Nagasaki.
Begins conversion at Mitsubishi’s shipyard to a light carrier.
1943 The conversion
to a light carrier is finish and she is renamed KAIYO ("Sea Hawk").
1945 July 24 Bombed by
US. aircrafts & beached on Beppu Bay.
1946 - 1948 Scrapped
by Nissan Salvage.

1939 cover of a brochure from the O.S.K. line
Building the model of Argentina Maru
The box contain beside the spurs, a
PE-set of all the ships davits I think this is a step forward for
Fujimi! the PE-set is in heavy duty - A fine feature. There is a
decal sheet included with all the cheat lines, nameplates and flags
etc. for the hull, but no company bands for the funnel - I miss
this!
The building of the model kit was
simply a joy! Fujimi launched the model in late 2008. And here we
experience the firm is back in line with the other brands of the
waterline series, when it comes to high quality of the new moulds.
This model kit is constructed on 3D Computer programs and this shows
in the fine arrangements of the parts and also in the very fine fit
of the parts. The constructor had really though well of how the
modeler will assemble the model and have the best results in
painting all the decks and superstructure. (I will give this kit 9
out of 10... or nearly perfect) - The only complaints I have is:
This is a liner, It will have helped me a lot if the plastic parts
was white instead of light grey (Her sister Barzil Maru was
converted to a dark grey troopship). But the white surfaces will had
been better as a base to paint the windows on. (To clarify
please see how I build the liner of KASUGA MARU)
The extra scratch building on the kit is:
First the PE-Set's used:
GMM Merchant ship (enough for 3 ships)
Lion Roar IJN vertical ladders
EDUARD IJN crew
Extra plastic
part from the "Leviathan" spur:
The two boats near the bridge is
substituted as the boats from the kit lack details. Two small
floodlights on the bridge wings was not included in the kit. The
foghorn on the funnel was converted from a type 22 radar.
But let's start at the bow. - A extra
hole in the bow was drilled. And the forward platform for the
flagstaff is build of styrene plastic. A new set's of anchor chains
were added. The booms on the masts had the wheels added and a extra
boom and the crows nest along the forward mast was also added.
On the front/back side of the
superstructure gangways were added. companionways on the side of the
hull was build as well as Red/Green lanterns. The blue water in the
swimming pool was made by a clear sheet of plastic painted on the
backside. All the support columns (styrene plastic) between the
decks was glued to the inside of the hull before the decks was in
place (This helped me as the columns run through all deck in one
piece).
As said before Fujimi had done a fine
job when planning all the openings in the hull -only at the extreme
end, one opening is missed due to the assembling of the hull (it was
easy to cut this open after the two hull sides were glued and dried)
Small holes just in front of the bollards for the secure lines were
drilled too.
The windows: As stated before I
preferred the model had come in white plastic - after several trail
an error in paint of the windows, I was frustrated with the results.
I had to find a new angle of attack to the problem. One evening I
sat by the computer and draw all the windows in Photo Shop (There is
many different designs around the ship, but it sound much harder
than it really was - I only took 4 hours to design the different
windows and doors - and hurray for the copy function! - Now I just
have to scale them down to right size - find a white sheet of
decal paper for my ink printer - and press the bottom "Print" - Now
life was much easier. And in return I get the bridge windows in
right size compared to pictures of the real ship. Also the funnel
bands with company logo was made of white decal paper.
Signal flags and company flags were
made of painted sheet of household metal foils. The rigging was made by a
combination of very thin cobber wire, invisible thread and stretched
spur.
Conclusion:
All in all a great model to build, I
had a desire to buy this model ever since I first lay my eyes on it,
and I was not disappointed when I opened the box. Its a shame we
modelers can't build all the fine liners of the golden age in scale
1/700 too, but the amount of ship is slowing growing - so maybe one
day we can see a complete fleet of 2, 3 and 4 stackers in the
collections?.......yes I still keep dreaming. Until that, we can
thank the company Fujimi for launching this fine model.
Reference:
Books form the library :
 |
Japanese Naval Warship Photo
Album Aircraft carriers
from Diamond Sha books.
(Japan)
Reference:
Picture |
 |
The golden age
of the Japanese passenger liners 1939 - 41
Ships of the world
(Japan)
Reference:
drawings pictures and background
Thanks to Mr. Buton of
Japan |
The
building time was 2 weeks.
Apr.
2009
If
you have any questions, remarks or things you will share, please don't
hesitate to contact me.
Aeronautic.
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