Scharnhorst 1/350

[California Bound]

Olaf,

No problem, we all make mistakes. It's too risky, so I wasn't gonna move them. I would think though, that it's possible the rafts could have been secured only to the top rail and could then have easily been flipped from one side of the rail to the other whenever they needed to.

Now it's my turn to be wrong. I can't find my angled walk way picture.

Have you seen pics at militaria-house.com? They have a couple early career pics showing the staircase, but not it's angle, going from rear 105mm area down to main deck near C turret.
Although it's on the opposite side of the turret when compared to the model instructions, one of those pics also shows two pipes on the side of the turret base, and curved away from each other. There goes my theory, right down the drain.

Dan.

[Olaf Held]

I can't find my angled walk way picture.

Too bad ...

Have you seen pics at militaria-house.com?

Do you have a direct link, I can't find it and they don't seem to have a search function ...

They have a couple early career pics showing the staircase, but not it's angle, going from rear 105mm area down to main deck near C turret.
Although it's on the opposite side of the turret when compared to the model instructions, one of those pics also shows two pipes on the side of the turret base, and curved away from each other. There goes my theory, right down the drain.

I'll have a look at it but it may take a couple of days...

Happy Easter ~ Olaf!

[California Bound]

I'll look for the walk way picture some more this weekend. Here's the full link to that page.

www.militaria-house.com/schlachtschiff-scharnhorst.html

Hope that works.

Dan.

[Olaf Held]

Now I know what stairway you are referring to. I believe they were removed at some time. On the famous colour photo showing Hitler on board, I think April 1st 1939, launch of Tirpitz, does show the one on stb side. I'm not sure if they could remove it and store it somewhere, or if it was completely removed later. On most photos I only see ladder rungs on the bulkhead, on both port and stb. I ran into similar problems with my two Prinz models. On early photos, maybe just sea trials in the Baltic, those stairways were there on the Prinz (the same on the forward end of the deck, behind turret B). Then, later photos, beginning with Rhein�bung or just before it, those stairways were gone (or at least they are not visible anymore on photos). I believe this applies to Scharny as well. The stairways were at right angle to the angled bulkhead on Scharny.

The ladder I was referring to, is a very small one, going down from the catapult platform, on its port aft end. It reached down to where our beloved angled walkway on top of the aft part of the hangar roof would have its forward end ...

Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

[California Bound]

Looks like I'll have to make some changes. I didn't know about that small ladder. I was thinking only about the one on the rear wall of the hanger, going from the roof down to the range finder area.

Dan.

[Olaf Held]

Dan, you're right about the ladder on the rear wall. Via this you could reach the aft end of the angled walkway.

According to this photo, I believe the angled walkway led to the small ladder (red arrow).

The photo was up on eBay some time ago, and it shows an earlier version of the ship, but I doubt they changed this small detail. Note the cable reel as well ...

I have yet to put everything together in order to see if it really fits. Maybe the sailors needed a further step or two after the walkway to reach the ladder.

Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

[California Bound]

Olaf,

I think you're right about that little ladder. It looks to be long enough. I noticed that it appears to go all the way down to the hanger roof. The rungs disappear as they go down and to the right, but the shadow cast by the rungs continues down and to the left.

I did and didn't find the picture I was looking for. I found it, but it turned out to just be a mirror image of another picture. Not anything new or informative at all. Oops.

I'm running out of extra ladder pieces for mine so I'm having to improvise. I think I can scrape enough ladder together to add your little one.

I missed putting canvas on those AA platforms on the sides of the hanger. Gonna have to do something about that.

Dan.

[California Bound]

Hi everybody,

I got lucky and had extra time this week so I was able to get more done than I thought I would.

There are a few minor corrections this week. I only mention the first one because depending on your build sequence and choice of parts it could make things messy. The other two are simple but, if I'm gonna mention that one, I figure I might as well mention the other two.

1) Cyber-hobby photo etch has railing MA14 called for twice. MA12(MA13) should be used as railing at the base of hanger. Not MA14(MA13).

2) Original photo etch is short one piece of MA29. (Thanks Olaf). An extra MA39 can be used instead.

3) Instructions identify the bridge wing photo etch railings as MD2(MD3). Should be MD2(MD1)

Still have a lot to do and a lot of touch ups also. Here's what I've got done so far:

The gun turrets are mostly done. A and C turrets are glued down now. B is just sitting there.


I've never used elmer's glue to canvas before. I like it. Much easier than aluminum foil.


The already tight fit is even tighter with the boats already glued down, so I had to add the staircases now. I bought two different types of mesh to put in the air intake grid but now that I see how hidden the area will be when done, I've decided to skip the mesh.


I must admit that the rafts do look better in gray. Although I did use a different gray so that they would stand out a little.


I finished rigging the main mast the way I want it. Not all are visible in the picture but there's 12 white lines for flags, 6 gray lines for structural support, and 2 clear lines for radio wires. Eventually there will be some black lines to kind of secure the clear radio lines.

Again, thanks to OLaf for pointing out a mistake I made, the staircase in the lower right has been replaced with a ladder which I made out of an accommodation ladder steps from the White Ensign set.


As you can see, I'm kind of behind on building the non display side. I did get tired of the cable reels rather quickly and only wrapped up the four on the display side of the hanger walls. The rest are just the plastic parts and etch end pieces. No more wrapping these stupid things for me. If they would just make the center piece fuller and give it a ridged texture.


Thanks for looking.

Dan.

[nick]

Lookin' very good Dan!



Nick

[California Bound]

Thanks Nick

Dan.

[Olaf Held]

Oh, I never meant to correct 'mistakes', my own model may end up full of ooopsies. With regard to the stairways aft, I'm just saying that I don't see them on later pictures. I only see individual rungs on the bulkhead, not ladders. If I'm not mistaken they had the rungs in place just in case the stairways got shot away. But again, I could be wrong, and the stairways were there until the end, but just stored somewhere else (which I doubt, but you never know ...).

Then, you already noticed the tight fit ==> wait until you attach the conical cylinders of the forward high-angle AA directors ... I recommend painting after squeezing them through the holes of the bridge deck ...
And while you're at it, there's something wrong with the poles N21 for the small platforms L20(L21). First, they are too long. Second, if you attach them (and of course cut them to size), you will only have six of them for the large boat craddles, where you need eight. This is not a big problem, but it could be that they possibly mixed up some numbers again?

Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

EDIT: I just saw that the instruction calls for more N21-poles ... two of them supporting the L36 platform to the rear of the Gefechtsmast (what was the English word for it?), below the Signal Deck (aft of the Admiral's Bridge). Very confusing ...

[California Bound]

Olaf,

No problem.

I had seen some pictures without rear staircases and just rungs also. I just didn't think about it til you mentioned it. I figured that something had to be there, I can't see walking all the way forward to the boat area in order to get up to the second deck. While at the same time making the stairs removable doesn't sound right. I did draw the line at rungs though, and made a ladder. I'm not doing any rungs on this build. I wanted to try them on the bridge area but figured it would be a masking problem with them there and trying this camo pattern. So no rungs on the entire ship.

I do plan to try and do them on my Marshal Shaposhnikov build.

I imagine that the directors will be a pretty tight fit. I'll probably paint everything on the director from the hole in the floor up when I paint the level above the hole and then paint the rest of the director below the hole, after its through the hole and glued in place.

I'm already quite familiar with the whole N21 support post problem.

I've been dealing with it since one of my updates back on page 2 of this build. All of the support pole problems are sorted out now and assigned corrected parts numbers except for ones on the forward superstructure assembly. Here's what I've got left to figure out. I wont know for sure until I build those parts but this is my theory.

2 poles needed for platforms L20(L21): Not N21, probably N59, they're the right height

1 pole needed for foremast L23: Not N15, probably L18, there's only one and its also on sprue L

2 poles needed for small deck L36: Not N21, probably N5, right height and they have notch at one end

2 poles needed under that "small platform to no where" on the back of the armored bridge area based on indents on bottom of that platform and on the deck.: apparently not included in model

I hope this helps.

Dan.

[Olaf Held]

I hope this helps.

Yes, of course, thank you very much.

[California Bound]

I got lucky. By building the middle third of the superstructure and the boat racks early on, I encountered the N21 problem almost right away. That led me to the other support post and yard arm numbering errors. I should make one complete list of corrections. But for now, the corrections are scattered throughout my posts.

Dan.

[MartinJQuinn]

I should make one complete list of corrections.

Yes, you should!

[California Bound]

Okay Martin,

I'll try to make a complete list and post it seperately this weekend.

Dan.

[Olaf Held]

Dan, I already compiled most of the things in one list, so far I reached Step 13 (and it's already a four-pages document!). When I'm finished, I'll send it to you, I'm sure you have a few things to add or to clarify...

Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

[California Bound]

That's great news. Thanks Olaf.

I had no idea the list would be so long.

Build wise, I think I'll try to make new search lights and new square rafts this weekend. I'm not happy with either so far.

On a different subject, since I have to rerig most of Prinz, I'm considering repainting to the white bow/white blown off stern camo scheme(not removing stern though). Are there any recommended color shades for that?

Dan.

[Olaf Held]

On a different subject, since I have to rerig most of Prinz, I'm considering repainting to the white bow/white blown off stern camo scheme(not removing stern though). Are there any recommended color shades for that?

We could discuss this in the CASF section. However, I'm not quite sure about the stern and bow being white. The ship could have been in regular two-tone grey, on top of which the large dark grey patterns had been painted. I may be wrong, need to look into it first...

Are you sure you want to repaint the whole model? Removing your version of the Channel Dash cammo?

Happy painting ~ Olaf!

[California Bound]

I'm not sure. It's probably too risky. I'll most likely just rerig. However, I do have the 1/700 unbuilt and could try it on that.

Dan.