WW2 Model Gun - Japanese Type 11 Taisho Light Machine Gun

Hi fellas.
I have always been interested in model guns since my youthful days owning several MGC replicas. But where I live, such replicas are becoming scarce given the inability to import them into the country legally. I am also less a gun enthusiast and interested purely in military history and scale model making (I build plastic models). In my quest for Japanese WW2 subjects, I came across a real Type 11 LMG barrel and stock/trigger grouping, rusting away in a barn north of where I live (it was missing the breech, hopper ammo feed and sling). Given the huge rarity of this firearm, I decided to scratchbuild the missing breech and ammo hopper as a modeling project to make a display gun but with original barrel and stock. Here is a sequence of in-builds on this quest to finally own a 1/1 scale partially original Japanese LMG in my model collection, and share my experiences with you on this great site!

History of the Type 11:
Developed in 1922 (Type 11 refers to the Japanese calendar year 1922) and used extensively in Japan's invasion of China and subsequently WW2, the Type 11 "Taisho" was design by Japanese arms giru Kijiro Nambu, based on a modification of the French Hotchkiss. It was an air-cooled, gas-operated design, using a variation of the 6.5x50mm Arisaka cartridges as the Type 38 infantry rifle.

This firearm is unique to military weapons as the only gun in firearm history to see extensive combat service with a clip cartridge-fed "hopper". The Type 11 machine gun has a detachable Hopper magazine that can be refilled while attached and does not require removal during operation (thus avoiding belt or stripper clip feed). Designed to hold up to six standard Arisaka stripper clips (max 30 rounds before refill), it was however prone to dirt and dust. It also added to the nightmares of logistics by adding a similar caliber but different (less powerful) round to compensate for reliability problems. This new round was called the 6.5x50mm Arisaka genso round. The gun was phased out with the introduction of the Type 96 and Type 99 Nambu LMGs but was still in service until the end of WW2. It also was used in armour vehicles such as the Ha Go and Chi Has, fitted with optional armoured sleeves and telescopic sights. The Type 11 was also available with a special mounting for anti-aircraft use and infantry support. Some 29,000 were produced by the time production stopped in 1941. It was the primary Japanese light machine gun through the Manchurian Incident and in the early stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Type 11 LMGs are very rare and I only came across 1 deactivated in Canada, and 3 in the United States. The real steel are very expensive running around $10-$15k, (even deactivated ones cost around $7k), so my "modest" purchase of this rusty barrel and stock/trigger grouping for $500cdn was I feel a bargain if I wanted one (and also did not break the law in owning a real one without permit).







Planning the Project
I first needed plans to determine the dimensions. There were no sources on the internet as to specific dimensions or plan views. I only knew of one person in Canada who is lucky enough to own a deactivated one who was very kind enough to send me detailed pictures and dimensions (thank you Teri Bryant!) as part of her extensive collection of Japanese WW2 militaria.

I then needed to see what material to use for the breech. Any project that requires support for a heavy object such as barrel, requires a very strong material. Real steel or metal was ruled out as I do not possess metal equipment nor wanted to pay huge costs to have a dummy metal breech custom built. Plastic was also out of the question as it was not strong enough to support the heavy barrel or stock. The only choice left was "wood". I chose to avoid softwoods such as balsa and bass wood, and used maple wood (a very dense hardwood that is very strong). I could not find a piece that matched the breech size, so I had my plastic modeling buddy (who works in the cabinet business), to cut and laminate one for me out of maple wood!

Starting the Breech Build
I traced the rough dimensions on the wood, including the indentations. The other challenge I had was how to mount the heavy barrel (weighing itself a hefty 9 pounds), and stock/trigger (another 4 pounds)! I decided to mount two metal rods (in the barrel and gas tube) into the wood and supporting the barrel. This way, the original barrel could be removed to keep its value as a very historic piece of equipment.

Original Type 11 Barrel (cleaned of all rust)


Original stock (cleaned well and wood restored)


I traced the end of the barrel dimensions to create a paper template to determine the exact placement of the metal rods. I raided the local hardware store and ended up using a hollow metal rod (1”) and a ¼” drill bit (for the barrel). Using a drill press, I drilled holes deep enough to secure the rods. I was well underway now with the breech!





Next posting will be cutting the basic shape of the breech! - Harvey Low

Welcome to the Forum kagero

Thank you very much for your first post, this project has definately got my attention and I can't wait till the next installment
Please do keep us updated with this.

Thanks Cerwyn! I forgot to thank my freind Vince Pugliese who kindly drilled the deep holes for the barrel mounting rods with his large drill press (thanks Vince!). The Breech is now cut to proper size. Now I had to figure out how to cut out the slot for the cartridge ejection port, as well as the other indentations. I first used a table saw to carefully cut the indentations and slot where the charging handle would go (don't worry about the uneveness of the cuts as they will be covered later with plastic sheeting as noted below). I then cut out the cartridge ejection slot by using a large scroll saw and cutting from the front end of the breech to remove the entire area, and cleaning up with a finer scroll saw and hand files. I then used the piece of wood that was cut out and plugged it back into the front end (you will see what I mean by the picture below where the piece of wood is descernable by the cuts are just to the left of the slot at the front of the breech). I had to use thin styrene to build up the thickness where the saw took away some of the wood, which is also evident in the photo. This was easier than trying to drill a hole and start cutting a rectangular opening into a hard piece of solid wood!

You will see the smaller slots long the the edges of the breech. I used hand chisels to cut-out these rectangular slots in the upper part of the breech. Be careful to use chisels slowly otherwise you risk splitting the wood! The small circular cutout below the ejection port is to allow the bipod to fold up cleanly to the stock. FYI - The thin line along the top of the breech is not a measurement line but the line where the two pieces of Maple were laminated together.

NOTE: Working with wood will not yield the sharp straight-edged effect of metals. As such I elected to use only the wood as the core, and then build-up the shapes and angles by laminating sheets of plastic styrene of varying thickness. This also gave me more control over details of the breech which would not have been possible using wood as the material. You can also see a single (white coloured) strip of .020 styrene that I glued to the side of the breech. This piece of plastic is very important to place correctly and parralell to the top edge of the breech, as other subsequent styrene sheets will use this piece as a guide for proper alignment and straight edges!





Next posting will show you how I did the plastic sheet lamination process! - Harvey Low

I'm enjoying this even more

I'm eager to learn more about fabricating using plastic styrene sheet too as I have sets of templates to make various replica gun "shells" of Browing M1917 / 1919 / M2 .50 Cal, Miniguns too.
Plywood can also be used so your project might just give me the push to start on these.

Looking forwards to part 3...

What a great thread!

Design of Type 11 is interesting - solutions are enough different from Western firearms that they attract. Just look at the curve of this buttstock! Amazing, it is somehowe reminiscent of much older firearms, where looks were just as important as the function (if not more).

I am partial to Japanese firearms ;-)

Teri is a terrific source of information about Japanese handguns. I did not realize she also collected larger ones. Pity (for us) that she is so busy with real life that there is not enough time left for publishing new material on her website.

Your build process is interesting to watch, I enjoy reading the details and learning along the way! Thank you :-)

Thanks Smootik for your kind words of encouragement! Now that the wood core is complete, I started the plastic styrene lamination process. Once the first piece is laid on squarely, the rest of them are quite fast to apply actually.

I used sheet and strip styrene ranging from thin .010 thou (or .25mm) to .080 (2.5mm) thicknesses made by EVERGREEN. The base layer is .015 styrene which covers the overall wood (I used .010 thinner styrene for the indented areas). Styrene is easier to work with as all you need to do is to measure, score with sharp X-acto, and snap free for perfectly straight edges! Notice the sharp edging around teh shell ejection port now, by using plastic strips as opposed to leaving the uneveness that would result from cutting the wood.

Working from the photos of the real steel, I then added successive layers of styrene in varying thicknesses, carefully replicating details shown in the photos. I then used TAMIYA putty to fill in the gaps and seams. The large oddly shaped object on top of the breech is the beginnings of the oil container that oiled the rounds as they entered the chamber from the hopper magazine. It is carved from Basswood, covered with MR. SURFACER 500 Primer applied by hand. The front portion of the breech was not laminated as that area would be hidden by the barrel assembly.

A note on glues! I found the following glues useful for bonding dissimilar materials in this project:
1) Super Glue (ZAP-a-GAP brand) - GOOD: Very good and precise for gluing styrene to wood and very strong (applying ZAP KICKER to increase the curing time when required). Does not attack plastic or wood. NOT SO GOOD: Very expensive and lets off fumes that can irritate the eyes.
2) Contact Cement: GOOD: Very strong. Does not require mixing. NOT SO GOOD: Kinda messy. Requires glue to set for a few minutes before joining parts. Attacks thinner plastics!!!
3) 5 Minute Epoxy: GOOD Good for small parts such as plastic. Does not attack plastic or wood. NOT SO GOOD: Must mix. Weakest of all glues when joinng plastic to wood (not recommended).
4) Polyeurathane Liquid Glue: GOOD: Very very strong! Does not attack plastic or wood. Good for areas that require gapping or glue to expand and fill voids. NOT SO GOOD: Expands and very messy because it leaves expanding foam residue that must be cleaned as it dries or cut away once dry.

The pictures show the base lamination with oil container. Other small protrusions are made from Basswood as well. Remember to treat wood with a wood sealer (I use HUMBROL), sand it smooth, then coat wood with a thick primer such as Mr. SURFACER, or the grains will show up after painting! NOW IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE AN MG BREECH!!!





NEXT: Finer details!

What a Great project !
I am glad to know you are making strange Japanese LMG outside Japan.
It has unique feeding system though not practical in battle field.

I am absolutely loving this thread! cannot wait for the next part, this really is inspiring me to try something like this! Many thanks Kagero43

Thank you kindly JohnnyV! I stumbled upon this great website and I am also lving all the posts from others and their cool model guns as well!

Also a great "Domo arigato gozaimashita" to HIGUsan for posting the diagrams for the 6.5mm Hopper!!!! This set of diagrams is extremely useful in showing how the ammo feeds, and the construction details of the bottom of the hopper! What a mechanical nightmare to design and build this in real life ! I have never seen this diagram ever before nor had I seen anyone explain technically how the system works! Thanks again HIGUSan! I am almost done the hopper which I had to build from scratch using plastic as I could not find one to purchase. While I wish it worked, I will intend to use original WW2 Arisaka rounds to display in the hopper. I did however lots of overall shots from Teri and others which helped emmensly in design and construction of my replica hopper. HIGUsan is correct in that this system was logical in theory, but in combat was not a good design as evidenced by the fact that all subsequent Japanese LMGs did not use this system ever again. If you want to see a real Type 11 firing, go to YTUBE and search for Japanese Guns WW2 and you'll find clips of one firing live, from History Channels History of the Gun!

While I am busy laminating more plastic, I would like to ask if anyone knows the details of that "piece of cloth" that is in the photos below seen hanging below the barrel. I presume it was used by the gunner to hold/carry the gun as the barrel likely got pretty hot after a few rounds! Lokks like a simple cloth tied to the barrel. Wonder what color it would have been, or the material?







Next more details of the lamination process - Harvey Low (kagero43)

That piece of cloth? Wouldn't that be the sling that's used to carry the gun on the shoulder?

More plastic layers are being added to slowly build up the details of the receiver. Most critical however, is how I will mount the charging handle and trigger grouping/stock. First the charging handle.

I wanted to have a model gun that could cock with a simulated charging handle action. The challenge is that I wanted an actual real steel charging handle, since building one out of wood I thought would not be strong enough. I tried to look for an authentic Type 11 charging handle over the internet but with no luck. BUT I managed to find a charging handle from a Japanese Type 99 LMG through a military gun collector in the USA!!! These charging handles were close enough in design with the only exception being the handle itself (the Type 99/96 had a simple cyclinder for the actual handle while the Type 11 had a backing support for the fingers). The position of the Type 99 handle was also a bit higher but not enough to be noticeable. I used a thick plastic styrene rod from EVERGREEN that I split to wrap around the original rounded handle. I then added the backing support from thick .040 styrene glued with styrene plastic model glue. I used alot of putty to fill in the seams, and "voila", a charging handle for a Type 11!! I did not glue the plastic to the metal by the way, so as to retain the provenance of the authentic Type 99 part (which fyi cost me $75usd for the part - Gee these Japanese LMG parts are rare and thus costly!). I mounted the handle to a raised block of styrene topped with a brass strip that fit the contours of the charging handle grooves, to allow it to slide back-and-forth. The brass and styrene mount were screwed into the receiver with 4 small screws to ensure a STRONG fit (the forward one being intentionally raised a bit to provide a "sound" when the handle is being pulled back by the underside of the charging handle hitting the screw and making a "clicking sound"). Both ends of the slot for the charging handle also had "stops" screwed into the wood so the charging handle would come to rest after pull back and push forward action. I did not use springs of any kind as I could not find ones strong enough to force the handle forward after pull-back.

As for the trigger grouping/stock, I used the same principle of a mounted metal strip, with small wooden block added at the back ocne the trigger/stock assembly was attached, to hold it in place (leave off the trigger groung/stock though to ease in painting later). In this case, large screws were used (5 in total), as the stock was heavy and needed to be mounted strongly. All the heads of the crews hand to be grinded down flush to permit the parts to fit precisely. Again, I designed it so it could be easily removed to again protect the provenance of the original parts.

The metal strips by the way, were cut from a metal shop that cuts custom sized metals here in Toronto Canada. When I asked them to cut these two parts, they were nice enough to cut them for me for free since they were so small (according to the work they usually get), so a "coffee" was all I ended up paying them!!! THANKS Here are some shots of the "modified" handle and the metal strips to hold the handle in place.

Hello again gentlemen: It's beginning to take shape. One of the barrel rods is now inserted and glued with Polyurethane glue. Small details are now added (the oil cap is actually a water bottle cap).





I used a DREMEL TOOL with small dental burrs (free from my dentist!) to engrave the markings on the breech top and sides (based on the pics of the markings on an original Type 11). Notice the small colored parts on the breech - these were from my spare parts box of plastic model parts).





OK - now the fun part: to test the dry fit of the barrel and trigger group/stock assemblies!!! The sling is an original WW2 Czech ZB-26 sling that was used by both Chinese and Japanese troops on their LMGs (a real sling for a Type 11 would have been around $500-$750)!

Here's more progress on the final details of the breech. I used the rear sights from a MAUSER VZ24 since that was easier than scratchbuilding one! The MAUSER sight is very similar to the Type 11. Besides, where would I have found a Type 11 rear site eh?

Now that the breech is 99% complete, I turn attention to the ammo hopper, arguable the most difficult of this project! The pics posted by HIGUsan immensly helped with finishing off the hopper which I had to build from scratch with very little in the way of plan dimension references other than the great pics that I got from Teri. I could not find a real one (again real ones would have cost about $500 and up anyways) so the choice was a total scratchbuild. The complex curves and angles of the hopper magazine necessitated the use of styrene again, but with thicker plastic in range of .060 to .100 thicknesses.

The front and back walls of the mag were first cut to shape and then bent to proper angle by gently holding the pieces with pliers and heating them over a stove element. Once the angle was correct, I added the side walls using thinner plastic glued with polystyrene modelers glue (actually very strong using HUMBROL tube glue and reinforcing with TESTORS liquid glue). The hopper "trapdoor" was made using a small wooden cooking spoon and wooden handle made of plywood, glued to a laminated styrene top, all cut to shape using a scroll saw. It's later hinged (after painting) with small
styrene and metal tubing. I constantly used a real ammo clip with 6.5mm ammo to ensure proper base dimension. Notice the top lip has a slight rounded overhang. This was achieved using TAMIYA epoxy putty rolled to a thin tube and placed around the top of the mag. A small wooden block (actually taken from the surplus wood cut out from the cartridge ejection port), was used to later glue the hopper back into the cartridge slot. Here are pics of the finsihed mag (the grey areas are putty to ensure all seams are filled.











Final test fitting:

Hi Kagero43,
According to Type 11 LMG manual, the grip pad inside was made of asbestos covered with wire net and outside was made of cow leather, colored brown.
It had a hook and chains only one end. It is logical fit to the old pictures that you posted.

Hi Kagero43,

I've been watching your project with immense interest and delight! ''
Your attention to detail and your creative talent just "blows me away"!
You are an inspiration to any Modelgunner who would like to develop their own scratch built versions of guns that are impossible for them to get - either through cost or legal licensing issues - or any other reason!

And you are working quite FAST!

Not only are you getting satisfaction and enjoyment from your LMG construction - so are well all!

Awesome mate! ''

Kiwigunner

Thanks for your kind words KIWIGUNNER. To me it is all about sharing. I also gain alot of insight to model guns from all the other posts here. I am in awe as to what many of you guys can own! I wish we had the openess to "model guns" here in Canada. While we are permitted to own real ones, the replica, deactivated and airsoft are all prohibited from importing and very hard to come by. You either have to already own it, know someone here in Canada for sale or trade, or make it yourself. But glad you enjoy the posts as much as I enjoy posting

kiwigunner wrote:

Hi Kagero43,

I've been watching your project with immense interest and delight! ''
Your attention to detail and your creative talent just "blows me away"!
You are an inspiration to any Modelgunner who would like to develop their own scratch built versions of guns that are impossible for them to get - either through cost or legal licensing issues - or any other reason!

And you are working quite FAST!

Not only are you getting satisfaction and enjoyment from your LMG construction - so are well all!

Awesome mate! ''

Kiwigunner

Thanks again HIGUsan. I never knew the material had asbestos in it, nor the color. Now if only I could get one of those KTW airsoft Type 99 LMGs

HIGUsan wrote:

Hi Kagero43,
According to Type 11 LMG manual, the grip pad inside was made of asbestos covered with wire net and outside was made of cow leather, colored brown.
It had a hook and chains only one end. It is logical fit to the old pictures that you posted.

First an important note: I decided to create a new post later on PAINTING MODEL GUNS, since this one is already getting long. A separate post on painting will also be better so people can find it easier and the topic is contained.

So finally it is done!!!!! Here are some pics of the final mounting of the trigger/stock and barrel. The final pics of course are of the finished model gun. Again, I will go into detail on how I painted it later in separate post.

I thank you all for your wonderful comments and hope you enjoy this as much as I have enjoyed making it, and visiting all the other posts on this great website!





DUCT tape warped around base of rod to ensure good snug fit into barrel.


Final LMG.






























PS - Anyone know where I can get barrel and stock of Japanese Type 96 or 99 so I can do same? Cheers
- Harvey Low

Wow... what an effect!

Fantastic , what a superb finished project

We've all followed this project closely with great interest to be rewarded by this beauty of a replica, Congratulations kagero.

Your plan for a thread on Painting Modelguns will be eagerly anticipated. The finish you've managed on this is perfect. The question of How to paint plastic models has been asked often. It'll be great to have a step by step guide how to get a realistic looking painted finish.
Marushin's abs MP40 Hudson's M3A1 Grease Gun are just two abs models crying out for a realistic looking finish so there'll be plenty of us following your lead with this.
Thanks again for your efforts, they are very much appreciated

Nice one!!
Really good to see this kind of work. Thanks for letting us see this process!
look forward to the next one:)

Speechless ...simply fabulous ...

That is absolutely fantastic work! Very impressive indeed!