WIP: 1/350 Revell Bismarck w/Eduard PE etc COMPLETED Feb 26

[Anthony P]

Last spring I began my build of the Revell Bismarck. As I write today, January 2nd 2012, the ship is still not finished, but at least I can see the end now. I have been documenting my build,or at least most of it, and having noticed lately that a couple of fellow MW members talk about starting Bismarck builds, I thought they may find my experiences useful. I am not a master modeler, but I am comfortable with the various media used in ship modeling. My builds are rarely smooth, but they are true experiences that empty mind mind from real life's problems. This narrative will reflect my personal opinions both of the kit and the various extras used. Others might go through their builds differently...

As references I used the "Anatomy of the Ship: The Battleship Bismarck" by jack Brower, "Schlachtschiff Bismarck: Das Original" by Josef Kaiser, and "Warship Pictorial 19: Kriegsmarine Bismarck. They were all useful, but , as it happens only too often, they also contained some conflicting information (on minor details, to be fair), and I confess that i am not that good in exrapolating information from grainy 40's pictures. In addition, I made use of this site's "Calling All Bismarck fans" forum (indispensable!), John Asmussen's http://www.bismarck-class.dk website, and the http://www.kbismarck.org website.

Early on, I decided that I was not up to doing Bismarck in full Baltic stripes, and after seeing an aerial picture of the ship approaching Norway, I decided to do Bismarck in Operation Rheinuebung, at the time it was entering Korstfjord on May 21st, 1941. I opted to follow the camouflage patterns as provided by John Asmussen (http://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck/p ... elarge.gif), with Baltic stripes on the hull only and dark turret tops.

For my build, I used the Big Ed Bismarck set from Eduard, an old WEM Bismarck for Tamiya set I had lying around, BMK and Master brass barrels ranging from 15 inch to 20mm AA, Orange Hobby Kriegsmarine rafts, a Ka (Mk I) wooden deck, the wonderful new Veteran Models Kriegsmarine fittings and various other bits and bobs.
I chose to use the Lifecolor Kriegsmarine acrylic paints set.

I like to waterline my ships, and was aiming for a dead flat, dark water as i imagined it in a Norwegian fjord in a sunny day in late May.

THE BUILD
Up to this point, the largest model I had built was the SMS Grosser Kurfurst.Compared to it, Bismarck is huge. It is amazing how battleships grew in 25 years...
As it was also the first time I would use a wooden deck, I decided to do the build in subassemblies: waterline the hull, paint it, add the deck, add all hull PE detail, prepare the base but mount the ship as late as possible. Then build and paint all small pieces (armament, boats, cranes etc) separately and put them aside. Then proceed with the various superstructure pieces in the same manner, and, finally bring it all together! Well, it did not turn out as simple as that...

The kit has been waterlined, painted, and the wooden deck and PE details placed. Chains added as well. Swastika background made by cutting a circle with an Olfa cutter on 40mm Tamiya tape and using it as a mask. The swastika itself is a decal from a 1/48 aircraft decal sheet. Already unhappy with the wooden deck. Too thick for my taste, and great difficuly in placing it. Its adhesive does not allow corrections, and placing it even a fraction of a millimeter incorrectly will haunt you later, as other pieces either will not fit or leave gaps.

Eduard PE on barbette face. Fiddly but nice. Did I mention that an Optivisor at X2.5 is a must???

Bow and anchors, which brings me to Part II of my rant about the Ka deck: it does not provide/include the different plank pattern which existed between the capstans and the extreme bow. If I recall correctly, the kit is incorrect in that as well. Eduard does provide the correct part, but.... it is PE! How do you match the paint with the wooden deck??? Simple: paint the wooden deck as well.... (which defeats the point of having a wooden deck, doesn't it?) That was the first crisis of the build.

[Anthony P]

Base prepared and ship glued on it with epoxy glue. A 1/700 old bismarck model is shown for size perspective!

[Anthony P]

Details at the side of the hull: boom bases replaced, kit porthole eybrows replaced with wire, camo painted by making masks from the kit decals. Weathering intentional! Not individual Eduard ladder rungs. Difficult to place correctly -despite the template provided- as even the finest drill (0.2mm is) wider than the PE rung, allowing some play of the part until it dries. White glue recommended.

[Anthony P]

Bow wave on a calm sea

20mm AA with Eduard PE and Master brass barrel

The infamous Army 20mm mount with a master barrel

[Anthony P]

37mm twins with Eduard PE and Master barrels

20mm quads with Eduard PE and Master barrels

[Anthony P]

The two types of 4.1 inch heavy AA with eduard parts and BMK barrels. Accuracy of Eduard parts questionable, but they look good.

[Anthony P]

Main armament with BMK barrels and eduard PE

5.9 inch secondary armament with BMK barrels and Eduard PE. Lots of individual rungs again...

The blast bags were made with Tamiya 2-part epoxy putty, sculpted when still malleable and then painted and weathered.

[Anthony P]

Arado 196 with folded wings and WEM struts. Antenna also added as well as a scaper behind the propeller. A waste of time, as a) with the WEM struts and the antenna it becomes too tall to fit the hangar and b) eventually I placed it halfway in the hangar and you can't see much of it.

The cover on the machine gunner position is cigarette rolling paper dipped in white glue. BTW, the colour of the interior of the hangar is academic to me, as you can not see anything on the completed model.

[johndon]

Looking very sharp so far

John

[sgtryan13]

Hell of a nice build so far! Keep it up, this one is gonna be a real winner.

[Anthony P]

Thank you for your kind comments. This WIP, being a retrospective, will show the build progress very quickly.

Now, boats! Inspired by the work of fellow member Stefano Salesi in the WIP thread, I went all the way: all plank detail was sanded off and replaced by planks cut from a sheet of the same wood (veneer?) wooden decks are made from. In retrospect, i am not sure it was worth it, as not much can be seen, but it does make a difference. Parts from PE stairs were also used, as well as the relevant Eduard PE parts and wire.

11m launch

11m launch

11m gig

11m gig

9m gig

8m Long Boat

[Anthony P]

Funnel cap: exhausts drilled and cap painted with Alclad white aluminium

WEM PE reels with wire wound around plastic rod to represent the hoses

Working on superstructures. All doors and scuttles replaced with Eduard and WEM PE

The Eduard PE for the hangars is rather comprehensive as you can see...

[GTDEATH13]

I have a strange feeling that I will have to go and have my eyes examined by the end of this build....

I was thinking of using a Lionroar super set for my Revell Bismarck... I will get the eduard set and the wem set for my Tirpitz...

[Anthony P]

Thanks Niko... but what would you say if I told you that I would only recommend either set with reservations? You'll have to wait until the end of the build for my final assessment!

Anyway:

Roof of main hangar with Eduard PE and a BMK ship's bell with a scratchbuilt mount. I really like this particular BMK assessory and try to incorporate one in all my builds.

WEM PE vents and scuttles

More PE detail on the first superstructure deck.

Scratchbuilt running lights and other details. The bridge wing has been placed the wrong side around, something I realized much later in the build and had to rebuild...

[Anthony P]

A couple of months ago, and just at the right phase of my build, Veteran Models from Taiwan released a series of Kriegsmarine fittings. All I can say is that they are amazing and worth every penny. I did not use the light AA, but I used the rest. One word of caution: I had a lot of trouble understanding WHERE they fit. Terminology differences between Veteran's instructions, the Anatomy book and the Kaiser book held me up for a couple of days. An example: where the Anatomy book refers to a "target giver position", the Schlachtschiff Bismarck: das Original book, which is written in German, refers to "Scheinwerferrichtgerat", which, loosely translated, means "searchlight controller", which is what Veteran calls the part. Bismarck is heavily documented, but I wonder what will happen when someone attempts to use those parts on the Prinz Eugen or Admiral Hipper...

here are some examples of the parts, painted and weathered but still on the resin pouring gates

signal lamp -fantastic- need a RN one!!

160cm search ight

[Anthony P]

next stage was to paint the various superstructure pieces. The idea was to do a full paint and weathering job and then just drop them into place. Didn't work exactly that way, as the Ka deck complicated the fit. The second deck of the front superstructure actually gave ME fits!

This was the piece that woudn't fit, even when braced internally.

Portholes replaced here as well

Note Veteran models details

Front hangar painted. Note Veteran models loudspeakernext to the ladder

[Anthony P]

By this stage, it had all begun to come together. Fit problems on the back superstructure decks were manageable.

Note L'Arsenal paravanes -another highly recommended assessory

[Anthony P]

I love this stage of the build...

Rear superstructure

Front superstructure -the troublesome one. Among the things I failed to realize, is that both the semicircular structure behind the front 5.9 inch guns and the side of the main bridge structure (both form the second superstructure deck) should be seamless extensions of the first superstructure deck. Well, I had seams... very obvious seams... and i had to remove those seams... so I had to remove a lot of carefully placed PE work, putty the area, sandpaper VERY carefully to minimize collateral damage, replace the PE work, and then repaint and weather so as to blend everything together again. A stiff drink was definitely required after all this...

Another view of the rear superstructure

The PE railings at the top level were later removed, as I could not make them sit properly. I did like the kit-provided foghorn -which had to be drilled- located over the Admirals bridge.

[drizzt73]

Looking good Anthony - such fine detail and very nicely executed. Good luck with that superstructure!

I have the Veteran Models IJN searchlights and binoculars for my Nagato build so am hoping I can work out where they go also (my first ship build so I am struggling a bit)

Cheers

Anthony

[Anthony P]

It is now time for the pictures of the ship at its present build stage. The ship is now basically complete. All subassemblies have been glued to the hull, and most final corrections have been made. It is still missing the masts, the aft director and the cranes. I also intend to make a few more corrections (the camera does not lie unfortunately...) and add some crew figures. So:

overall view

Bow detail

Anton and Bruno turrets

front superstructure

This shows the camouflage from the top. Wide angle lens.