The Ship Model Forum

Hello Ramaja,
I noticed you have done some great work on it already. As for the kit. The ship is to long by about 3-4cm. It comes out to about 585ft on the model. On the real ship the correct length should be 557ft. Someone hear named Able has already made a Bolzano out of this kit. Look him up and check it out. It's very impressive.
Either way your mode is coming out great. I only noticed the length because mine is sitting next to other ships the are 600+ft and the Pola is very close to there length.
It's not a big deal.

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On the Bench
1/350 Independence
1/350 Dunkerque
1/350 Shimakaze
1/350 Sharnhorst Dragon
1/350 Belfast

New creepy slow update.
I'm Casting the damn turret one by one: it took three mould to get a decent usable one and I get on average one right every two casting. It takes about an hour to get this horrible stuff fully polymerized inside the mould so that I can check out if it's OK and there is a lot of secondary turret shield to cast (8 in total).
BTW I really hate casting resin stuff because it's dirty and slow. I hope to finish with this phase asap and go on with the actual model.

Here is a pic of some of the stuff I'm casting.

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"For the one who walk in darkness with a stick is blind, but the one who sticks out in the dark is... Fluorescent!"

Something is wrong here: I reshaped the bow and the stern of the ship, but no way I cut out two inches of plastic from there...
Still my ship, on the bench is exactly 52 cm all out. 0.52x350=182m, which is slightly short of the 182.8m given for the ship on the data from Regia Marina.
If THIS is the Bolzano you were referring to, I think "able" actually enlenghtened the hull to reproduce a correct Bolzano which was 196.6m long.

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"For the one who walk in darkness with a stick is blind, but the one who sticks out in the dark is... Fluorescent!"

I finally managed to cast all the small stuff I need (so far) in resin: Main gun turret and secondary gun shields were modified form the original stuff in the kit, with almost every aspect of them reshaped. The small stuff like the winches the spotlights and the absent 120/40 guns were cast using the equivalent present in the Trumpeter RM Roma 1/350 kit. The actual gun, other then the gun mount was taken cutting out the forward part of two brass 155mm gun I had in spare.
In the meanwhile between casting and hardening for the resin, I modelled some detail in plastic like several hatches on the main deck and like the protruding trees around the main bridgewhich will be assembled later on for fear of breaking them while handling the ship.

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"For the one who walk in darkness with a stick is blind, but the one who sticks out in the dark is... Fluorescent!"

Stop! Zara class cruisers didn't have the converted 120/40 gun for starshells, this was a solution unique to the Vittorio Veneto class.
Pola had the purpose-built 120/17 howitzer, called "Obice da 120/17 per granate illuminanti", a completely different gun



Photo:

http://www.naviearmatori.net/albums/userpics/13326/normal_1367672129.jpg

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You are probably be right: from the photos I have it's somehow different form the 120/40 on the Vittorio Veneto, albeit the gun itself looks a bit more slender then the 120/17. Something that puzzles me is that, on the "Associazione Navimodellisti Bolognesi" site it's said it was the even shorter 120/15 that seems to be employed on the Zara Class.
I'm hating this ship with all the lack of references...

(BTW, the pic you linked is that of a 120/15)


Anybody has documentation about starlight guns on the Zara class?

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"For the one who walk in darkness with a stick is blind, but the one who sticks out in the dark is... Fluorescent!"

I didn't know there was a shorter version of the gun, I said it was the /17 only because that was the first number to appear on google

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Using a "spannometric" approach to the issue I could say the ratio between the lenght of the gun and the height of the mount is about 2.3/1.4 which rotating the gun orthogonally to the camera plane could be brought up to 2.5/1.4 meaning about 1.786 ratio. in the drawing of the 120/17 is about 6.5/3.65 which is about 1.781 ratio
We can also clearly see there is wheel where the gun has azimuth pivot and lower we have what seems two distanced wheel like in the 120/17, so you are most probably right: the gun is a 120/17 illuminating howitzer.

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"For the one who walk in darkness with a stick is blind, but the one who sticks out in the dark is... Fluorescent!"

Here some Update: I checked as far as I could and Finally came to the conclusion that the Illuminating guns on the Pola were indeed 120/15. The 120/17 seem to have existed as a prototype only, superseded by the much superior 120/40 installed on the Vittorio Veneto and Duilio Class.
I did my best to scratch build something passable, but in this scale is truly a pain in the a*s: I don't know If it's decent but It will do for me: too much time and efforts poured on such a small detail. I built up a lot of respect for the nameless Umpa Lumpas sculpting this stuff for the model kit manufacturers and doing that much better then I seems able to do.
Meanwhile I ordered some photoetched stuff from Giampiero too: I'll get Portholes (clearly visible on the central hull sides of the Pola), some door to replace the horrible ones on the kit, Ladders and handrails. I already have the trumpeter ones for the Roma which I was planning to adopt but I absolutely needed good vertical and step ladders and they come together in a single sheet. I also got a set of Ro-37 which seems to be very nice and a whole bunch of USA Sailors from North Star Models which can be easily painted as Italians on this small scale.
I also have a never built Richelieu 1:400 in my "Davis Mountain" which comes out with a lot of very handy stuff to use for the Pola Kit (Anchors), Observation binoculars, and some boats which seems fit the Pola better then the ones out of the box.

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"For the one who walk in darkness with a stick is blind, but the one who sticks out in the dark is... Fluorescent!"

Hi Ramaja,

Your's 120/15 guns looks very good for me , we don't can to expect soo much from little details in this scale.

Best Regards,

Ricardo

Slow updating, but the project is still alive; scratch building tinny elements is time consuming and not much rewarding in term of showing

I modified the 120/15 illuminating guns to better replicate the very good pic provided by R.Ricardo, and assembled the main and secondary gun elements: now I need to sculpt canvas gloves for the main guns and detail the shields of the 100mm a bit.
I'm waiting for photo-etching by Giampiero which has everything except the portholes. I asked him to send the whole pack in one solution.
Checking R.Ricardo parallel building I was not satisfied with the main structure basement so I cut it off and rebuilt with plasticard.
Next I focussed with the two lateral range finders: I tried sculpting them in out of two spare resin main turrets in stash and I hope they are not that bad, except that I don't have decent blueprint: I made them looking at images of the ship I have trying to fit the heigh of the assembly in regard with the main tripod and the shape of the platform they were intended to sit. The range-finder's Barbettes were made out of aluminium rod of decent diameter.
Next step (after sculpting the canvas) will be the metal parapets on the main structure platforms: I'll try with copper or else lead foil, whatever allows me to reproduce the upper curved shapes. I'd prefer copper because lead is prone to begin accidentally damaged but we will see.

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"For the one who walk in darkness with a stick is blind, but the one who sticks out in the dark is... Fluorescent!"

Holy cow. You might aswell have just scratch built the whole thing. Looking good. Sorry about the bad info. I have two books and i keep the smaller one around for basic info but it seams to be unreliable . I will be following your build so i can update my Pola. I have working on and off on it for a year or two. Keep it coming.

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On the Bench
1/350 Independence
1/350 Dunkerque
1/350 Shimakaze
1/350 Sharnhorst Dragon
1/350 Belfast

Hi Ramaja,

Nice additions you did at your Pola. I like soo much your work at AA fire directors. Please, if it's possible post more detailed pictures from them as reference for us. Soon I'll update my topic too, with some pictures from the work at rear tripod mast assembly I'm doing. I'm working in the curved parapets at tripod mast superestrutures too. But in my case I prefer to use a bended thin plasticard for it, due a strongest contact cement for styrene I use to avoid damages later.



Best Regards,

Ricardo

HI Ramaja

this is a very good work you provided on your Pola
Keep the way !
cheers
Nicolas

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https://ladiagonaledubosco.blogspot.fr/

Some close pics (bad ones) of the range finders, of which I'm not overly satisfied

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"For the one who walk in darkness with a stick is blind, but the one who sticks out in the dark is... Fluorescent!"

Hi Gianluigi,

Yes, it looks a good interpretation, but may be it can be improved. Now I'm searching new pictures in a new source I posted at my topic. May be I'll find a picture that aid us here too. For now my only observation is that in some pictures seems to me AA fire director body looks to be less larger than its cilindrical base.



And a good lateral close up from AA director in it's initial shape I had use to did my sketches.



Best Regards,

Ricardo

I think I need to rebuild my range finders: as they are they're not convincing me.
The back plate has angles instead of blending in the sides, the Barbette at the base should be probably enlarged even more out of the shape of the range finder itself, the front welded object seems the only thing which has a different angle instead of blending with the inclined upper plate, which IMO hasn't any convexity in it's shape: the inclined plan seems just a plate with no complex shape except for the embedded parapet.
Here are some plans and 3D modelling I guessed form the Pics I found and drawn in 1/350 scale. The only thing I'm not convinced of yet in the actual thickness of the front welded object which may be between 1.5 and 2mm but in that, changing the angling of the oblique plate. Overall the shape looks pretty convincing, especially rotating the actual 3D model on perspectives similar the the ones observable in the real photos.

NB: the two rear windows may be positioned slightly lower.
The black object above the RF main platform looks to be some kind of canvas, so I didn't include it
Some small detail could be inaccurate: better double check with references at hand.
The top element visible in the 1035 pic from R.Ricardo, doesn't always seem to be there, so I'm not really sure what it might be; probably something like a hatch or a movable element of some kind. Also check the "Ears" of the RF in the last two Pics form R.Ricardo: at the Base of the Ear in the second one seems to be some sort of "door" or something protruding up to half the outward. In the second pic the detail looks completely absent albeit being the same ship. I don't know what to do with that...

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"For the one who walk in darkness with a stick is blind, but the one who sticks out in the dark is... Fluorescent!"

Lookking good I am following eagerly awaiting the finished result

Hi Gianluigi,

I agree with mostly yours observations and I think you're in the correct way to be close to reality in this drawing. Nice work youre doing with this 3D view. :thumbsup1:

My only observation is, some pictures show something like a cilindric object at top cavity, may be covered by a dark canvas as you said. But I'm not sure about it because like some others details in this ship, seems to me these rangefinders change some details times to times.

Soon I'll post here some pictures I'm enlarging to aid you in your research.

Best Regards,

Ricardo

Hi Gianluigi,

It's the better I can do with the poor pictures I have.

My conclusions are:

As I said above, this rangefinder changed throught the time, but some changes don't make sense to me.




Observe this 2nd picture, range finder has the same configuration than Jane's picture I posted above. Without front object and with vertical bars at lateral. These bars appears in some pictures but in others none.It's a good view to calculate the frontal plate high measure without front object.





Probably they are hatches as you said.



Here we can see the cilindric object I pointed above.



And here a device at the same location. My conclusion is, the cilindric object is a rotating cover to protect this device when it was out use. Something similar to the rotating cupolas we find in german ships like Bismarck, Prinz Eugen and Scharnhörst.



And the cilindric cover again.





A better view from device,





A good lateral cover view



Vertical bars and hatches again. This picture is from 1938 naval parade. I have no idea about this bars.



Best Regards,

Ricardo