The Big One... Trumpeter 1/200 Bismarck 1940 build

[Olaf Held]

All secondary turrets had ladder rungs, but on different locations. If I remember correctly, the forward and aft pair had them on the respective corner of the rear wall facing the superstructure. Two or three rungs at the bottom of the rear wall plus a small two- or three-step ladder hanging below the lower edge of the turret (and of course below those on the rear wall).

Did you try clear matt varnish for your eyebrows rather than superglue?

Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

[Channell]

looking good so far! I can't wait till you start playing with your 'toothpicks'.

(maybe if you add some mascara to those eyebrows???)

If you hear a news report about the police arresting a mentally ill man arrested while wearing only giant gag eyebrows and shouting incoherently on the streets of SLC just ignore it. It wasn't me.

And Olaf, I might try that. Super glue just doesn't cut it at this scale.

Finally, here's an El Quicko build of the cool yet obnoxious bonus turret that comes with the kit. I knocked it off this evening in a couple of hours just because it was there :







Someone could go completely loony on superdetailing this thing, but not me. It's a fairly pointless addition to the kit otherwise.

[Christian M.]

Hello Channell,

Someone could go completely loony on superdetailing this thing, but not me. It's a fairly pointless addition to the kit otherwise

Well, I read from some people that they love it and make an extra display together with ship for it ... not me, my main intrest is far before with WW-1 and Pre-Dreadnoughts.


However, I will not play the headteacher or something like this, but please let me explain something about svastika & Co. symbols:

I think you got here a Bismarck kit which was normally for German market and went out of whatever reason to the USA, because in the US it is not forbidden as in Germany.
In Germany any Nazi symbol is in any matter and everywhere completly and strictly forbidden by law ... so in any area of modelling too. Violations can earn a fat fine up to imprisonment in hardcore cases. Out of this, in Germany has any model of any German WW-2 issue no NS symbols as decal and any sale of such decals from aftermarket, as well buying this in foreign countries where no problem and importing to Germany is same way strictly forbidden and delivery will be confiscated, if commercial you will get a fat fine. Also out of this it is, too, for example strictly forbidden to show Nazi Symbols on any ready model at expositions in Germany (having them on model is ok, but not showing in public, so you have to hide!).
Because we have in Germany also still a minority of Neo-Nazis as nearly every country of the world have them. In Germany we have a further issue too with that ***holes, because they show out of named ban for Nazi symbols the imperial german war flagg from WW-1 ... so even this flagg is now here in Germany not yet forbidden, but can be confiscated if shown in combination with any Nazi ideology.
Sorry for that off topic words here, but I think many Non-German modellers do not know this background, so only some explaining.

[P-J]

I don't think it is specific a case of a model for the German market shipped to the states.
I think Trumpeter chose not to use Swastikas because that way they were safe.
to my knowledge and as I can tell from most reviews, no kit has the Swastika included.

my model, imported by my modelshop, also came without the Swastika.
but it still made me happy to find that huge box underneath the Christmas tree!

[Channell]

I feel no great sadness that my kit didn't come with "real swazticas".

Besides, I'm aiming for a early Bismarck as she would have appeared during her trials, before they were painted on the decks. Flags are easy to come by in the aftermarket too.

Olaf... I was looking through the standard historic pics online but I can't find any secondary turrets with steps up the sides. Am I missing something?

[Olaf Held]

Olaf... I was looking through the standard historic pics online but I can't find any secondary turrets with steps up the sides. Am I missing something?

Yes, the rungs/ladders are not on the sides, but on the inboard-facing sides of the rear walls... such a small detail on a big ship...
Please have a look HERE.

You're looking at the rear wall of the aft 15cm turret (left-hand in that image), the image shows part of the bulkhead indention (called 'Redoute'). At the inboard facing side of the turret's rear wall you can cleary see the rungs leading up the wall plus the small ladder hanging down from the lower edge of the turret base. They needed that ladder to reach the rungs, even those secondary turrets were little 'biggies' ...

Happy climbing ~ Olaf!

[Channell]

Olaf... I was looking through the standard historic pics online but I can't find any secondary turrets with steps up the sides. Am I missing something?

Yes, the rungs/ladders are not on the sides, but on the inboard-facing sides of the rear walls... such a small detail on a big ship...
Please have a look HERE.

You're looking at the rear wall of the aft 15cm turret (left-hand in that image), the image shows part of the bulkhead indention (called 'Redoute'). At the inboard facing side of the turret's rear wall you can cleary see the rungs leading up the wall plus the small ladder hanging down from the lower edge of the turret base. They needed that ladder to reach the rungs, even those secondary turrets were little 'biggies' ...

Happy climbing ~ Olaf!

I found something last last night too:

http://3dhistory.de/wordpress/?page_id=179&page=3

What a great site for info BTW!

I'm gonna have to pass on my Bismarck though...I've already painted my secondary turrets and it is not easy to drill holes that small. I think I'll mostly stick to replacing the molded "steps" that Trumpeter left for me to fix.

There really is no limit to how insane one can go with detail on this kit! Anyway I'm off work today for the holiday and have nothing to do but build guns; I'll post some pics of the results tonight...

[Olaf Held]

I looked it up again:

Both the fwd two 15cm turrets had rungs and ladders at their rear-facing wall, a bit off-centre to port on the port turret, and stb on the stb turret respectively.
The two middle turrets are identical, with an access door in the left half of the rear wall, rungs plus ladder to the right of that door.
The two aft turrets have their rungs/ladders in place as described in my previous post, but with a small correction as I made a mistake: the rungs/ladders were not on the rear-facing wall, but on the very aft part of the side wall facing the indention/redoute.

Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

[Channell]

Thanks Olaf. I hereby dub thee resident Bismarck Guru and hope you stick around to steer me straight as I honestly don't know much about this ship and am going almost purely on the same 20-30 historic Nazi propaganda photos that are all over the web and the stuff brought up here on the forum! Thank you, and I DO mean it!

That said I know I'm not gonna get a 100% accurate Bismarck and that's OK by me... This one is for me to build new skills and have some fun. I'm trying to get close but will settle for 95% on this build.

So here's my update:

As you might have seen I had a problem sticking tiny metal pieces on plastic without making a mess (Hey, I'm still learning here! )

After consulting with the works of the pagan model gods I have found the true path now and promptly made use of it to get all the teenie-tiny PE rails onto the main guns (with a quarter for scale):







The secret is tiny amounts of plain old Elmer's white glue... the same stuff I used to make cute paper cutouts for mommy back in grade school. I'd heard the suggestion before and blew it off with a chuckle; surely REAL modelers don't use ANYTHING on their models that isn't toxic, smelly, messy and crazy-expensive... right?

Well, I've changed my tune and am convinced a chemist invented the stuff because he had a hobby that involved sticking near microscopic metal pieces onto to plastic and needed the perfect glue for the job. Perhaps he couldn't find a big enough market before PE so he sold his wonder invention as child's craft glue. It works, and how!

I also opened the vents on the front of the turrets; they were molded open but solid.

Here's some photos with paint; they still need weathering and some more assembly, but all and all they are represented very well by the kit with little modification.







... And another shot of a couple of the secondary guns:



I also looted and modded a craft organizer box to keep them safe since this is a LOONG TERM project.



Now my mistakes, so you don't make 'em too! After putting on the rails I noticed the side rails should be lower down on two of the turrets (turrets Bruno and Caesar, I think) That's a mistake that will just have to stay, since it is impossible to get the rails off without ruining them.

The kit gives you the option of putting either the rangefinder "wings" on the turrets or capping them off; near as I could tell all four turrets had them early on (the time I am portraying my Bismarck) but later on turret Anton? had them removed and capped off. Maybe somebody knows what the deal was; Trumpeter didn't give any elaboration on the how or when or which turret had what. It's an important detail to consider if you are aiming for a specific point in time for your Bismarck.

(EDIT 1-2-13 I did some reading and found out the rangefinders were removed on turret Anton in the winter of 1940-41 because they were functionally useless. It seems they were too low and exposed; sea spray would fog them up.)

Finally I spray-painted the PE before installing it (I was having bad memories from the Arizona where the kit PE was so soft you could deform it by looking at it ) but probably shouldn't have; I would have got a more delicate effect had the rails only been painted once. Someday I'll join the 21st century and get an airbrush, but for this project (I'm going for a very clean museum-style build on this one like my Arizona) an airbrush is just a rattle-can that I have to clean afterwards, so I'll continue to wait.

[grayson72]

Would countersinking the portholes from the back have produced the same effect as replacing the material around them?

[jlbishop]

Guys,

Anyone have any drawings on hull plate layout? The Trumpeter hulls is smooth and period pictures show the plating quite clearly - it is going to be very noticeable at 1/200 imho.

???

John
jlbishop@wideopenwest.com

[Channell]

Would countersinking the portholes from the back have produced the same effect as replacing the material around them?

My main reason for replacing the portholes was to replicate this:




...complete with clear porthole glass at the right depth.

That means the hull had to be basically paper-thin around the portholes. I tried grinding and sanding from the inside but just couldn't get equally thick (but still extremely thin) hull plating around the portholes without ruining them, plus I was left with a rough inside edge that would have been difficult to fit the porthole "glass" in right. finally, I didn't want to weaken the stern too much by removing too much of the hull plastic.

Of course I opened a whole other can of worms; it was quite difficult to keep the porholes straight for one. I've since replaced several of the portholes that were slightly crooked and am going to try the "eyebrows" again with wire and white glue.

Supposedly the Pontos aftermarket set will include PE portholes to do this a bit more easily.

Anyway, it really just depends how far you want to take it. I'm probably going a bit extreme and may end up falling on my a$$ in the end, but that's what makes it fun!

[Channell]

Guys,

Anyone have any drawings on hull plate layout? The Trumpeter hulls is smooth and period pictures show the plating quite clearly - it is going to be very noticeable at 1/200 imho.

???

John
jlbishop@wideopenwest.com

I've looked but haven't found anything either yet. Please help us poor 1/200 Bismarck builders!

[codythecatt]

Good Morning Channell!!! Wakey, Wakey! Rise and shine and get glue on those fingers!

Please help us poor 1/200 Bismarck builders!

Isn't that sorta like Br'er Rabbit crying: "Please don't throw me in that thar Briar patch!


PS: love the transparent gun! just send it to me and I'll give it a good loving home.

[Channell]

Quick update on the "eyebrow problem":





It's mostly been solved.

I'm not sure if it was all worth it, but at least my Bismark isn't botched beyond redemption.

[codythecatt]

that looks 100x better than stock!

I'm pretty sure I would have never attempted it though. Way toooooo close to 'rivet counting' for me.

[Channell]

Finally! Major surgery is done on the hull; it's all cleaned up, the portholes are 100% done, the bar steps are all on and it's nearly ready for paint. I also worked on the stern anchor hawse but I think I should put a little bit more work into it to make it look good. The "detail up" set also came with new metal anchors that I think will look great.





I've tried and failed to add weld lines/rivets; the scale is still too small to get them to work effectively with my so-so skills... not to mention I don't have a good resource for laying them out (especially below the water line) and don't want to just make stuff up.

The weld lines on the bow were especially frustrating to let go; I got a fairly decent scale effect by taping the location of the welds and adding an extra layer of primer (on one side only), then pulling the tape and painting over the whole thing again. Unfortunately the vast clean stretches of hull below the waterline threw it off and made my efforts look more like a bad paint job on the bow when looked at as a whole.

So I've decided to go with a clean "museum style" hull that I will very lightly weather for effect but otherwise direct the viewer's attention up to the decks where the real eye-candy will be. Looking at historic photos, the real Bismarck's hull was fairly clean anyways... sometimes it's just best to leave "well enough" alone.

[Channell]

Work is slowly progressing; I'm still waiting for my planks to show up and I'm starting to run out of things to do without extra PE. I don't want to get too far along only to have a decent PE set show up after it's too late to use them!

I've been trying to work out how to best do the window and porthole glass in the superstructure. I had some success with thinning out the windows from behind but for some reason I just can't get the portholes to work as well. I have some clear styrene taped behind the triple windows in the photo... getting every window and porthole "glassed" with clear styrene is the real point behind all this madness. It really ups the realism factor!



Even though this is the "HUGE AND GIGANTIC" Bismarck kit, we are still talking about details the size of Washinton's nose on a quarter!





The bridge windows cut and thinned out:



...and "behind the scenes"



It is very difficult for me to scrape the portholes from behind and keep them equally thin + flat enough inside to put a piece of clear styrene behind 'em without them looking wrong on the outside. Also, any porthole on angled sections of the superstructure are molded wrong (they are molded straight on from a side profile instead of 90 degrees from the surface around them) and become a complete mess once they are thinned out. In the end it is actually less work for me to just replace them.

So that's what I'm doing, just like on the hull. Here's how they look "in the rough":





(The detail areas that I don't want ruined are masked off, BTW)

I'm getting pretty fast at redoing portholes; it only takes me maybe 5 minutes per porthole to replace them (minus putty, sanding and exterior detail anyway).

[angeleyes]

http://www.modellschlachtschiffe.de/sho ... Mehr+Infos

Just for those who want an extra (but rather expensive ) touch if they build this full hull.Full turned brass propellers and shafts.

[Channell]

http://www.modellschlachtschiffe.de/shop/product.asp?numPageStartPosition=1&strPageHistory=cat&strKeywords=&strSearchCriteria=&PT_ID=95&P_ID=273&btnProduct=Mehr+Infos

Just for those who want an extra (but rather expensive ) touch if they build this full hull.Full turned brass propellers and shafts.

85 Euros just for propellers?!

That's about 1/3 the price of the entire kit just for propellers! I swear the aftermarket have totally lost their minds on this kit.