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About Ship Model Okumoto

キットを開発中の奥本

Thank you very much for visiting our site.

At Ship Model Okumoto, we are continually developing “Structural model” kits of sailing ships under the supervision of modeler Akira Okumoto who has 40 years of experience in building such models.

It is said that long ago, in order to obtain permission to build a ship from royalty, builders would often construct a model to show and explain to them rather than attempting to explain by just using drawings.

Ship Model Okumoto came about as a result of Akira’s feelings of dissatisfaction with commercially available sailing ship model kits. So he started making his own structural models.

Initially, he did a lot of research, then drawings were made and the parts were cut out one by one with an electric saw to create a structural model. The resulting structural model was exhibited at a local sail boat model exhibition and received a very good reviews there.

Building structural models of sail-equipped ships is the ultimate dream of any sailing ship modeler, according to modeler Okumoto. However, in addition to the amount of time and energy needed to make the drawings and cut out the parts, the cost of acquiring the various tools required to do so immediately became a problem.

From his own experiences as well as the frustration he heard from other builders, he tried to find a way to solve this problem. It was then that he turned to computer aided design and laser cutting to produce the first 3 kits, Santa Maria・Endeavor・La Clone.

It was then that he decided he wanted to make it possible for others to be able to easily share in the joy and satisfaction of making structural models. His enthusiasm convinced the rest of us to build this site and start online sales of the kits. This site only came online in January 2018, but has already received a warm reception from other veteran modelers and fans by word of mouth and SNS.

Our mission, if we can be so bold, is to fulfill the ultimate dream of sailing ship modelers, and as the only structural model sailing ship kit manufacturer in Japan, we will continue to develop new kits and provide customer support.

Particulars About Our Structural Models

Struggling at the time of production

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Akira will tell you that the hardest part of making any kit is drawing the individual pieces of the hull, transferring them to tracing paper, then copying them to appropriate wood, and finally cutting out the individual pieces. There are about 400 individual pieces required for the hulls. No matter how much attention is paid to making the drawings and transferring them over to the wood, if the final joint between individual pieces doesn’t fit right, it directly affects the overall beauty of the ship’s hull and leads to disappointment.

In the end, it comes down to adjusting the details with the model itself. He bought various tools such as bandsaws, jigsaws, table saws, electric planers, belt sanders, and lathes, as well as a lot of hand tools. But most of the ship modelers he knew said that although they would like to try building sailing ship structural models, they were hesitant when it comes to purchasing all of the tools that would be required. This pretty much keeps building these out of the average builder’s reach.

Sailing ship structural models that anyone can make

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Akira decided to try making the drawings with CAD and then use computer- aided laser to cut out the individual pieces. Doing this, created a very aesthetic visual break made by the sheer line (the sheer is the break in the hull of any boat that runs from bow to stern and separates the side of the hull from the deck.) This is made possible by the fact that CAD allows him to draw with an accuracy of 1/1000 mm. In addition, laser cutting based on the drawings no longer required the use of all the electric saws and the parts we were able to cut parts accurately and easily.

The joint between the keel and the frame also fits as pleasantly as possible. This has allowed us to create a simpler and more precise structural model kit for others to enjoy.

新着情報

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