1/200 Bismarck May 1941 by trumpeter

[codythecatt]

Anton,

since you posted a pic of the love of your life ...



Yeah: I caress her in the evening ... and curse her in the morning! but she's mine!

[Perth_shipyard]

The good 'ol sark! She's a lovely ship, I have an unstarted Sergal kit of her. I'll be building that once I've finished the Diana. I know what you mean about PE. Caldercraft included quite a bit of it in the Diana kit. Perfect for some items like the flint locks on the guns, but they also used PE for te stern and quarter gallery decorations - these I replaced with carving them in walnut. They were a good template as a start though.

Back to Bismarck I've just finished with the PE ladders on the stern, taken most of the day but I'm chuffed with them. Much finer than wire, plus I would have a drill bit anywhere near thin enough to be suitable, the smallest I have for the dremel is .5mm and still would have left a gaping hole. I've also mounted in the single piece main deck. I'm looking at some styrene strips to replicate the lip joint where the hull and deck are attached. Trumpeter have left this area flat... This would have been a perfect item for PE strip but KA haven't provided this. Perhaps a thought for WEM or Artwork if any of these guys are snooping around

I'll just go ahead with the plastic strip for myself. I've seen some ideas of weld seems and rivets being adapted here but also in my opinion, at this scale it would be too pronounced. Though still tempting.

[Perth_shipyard]

some pics of the step ladders on the stern

[JIM BAUMANN]

welcome back to MW.com and straight into a huge project...

apropos HMS Diana

have a look here at the scratch model built by Roger Antrobus

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

Regards

Jim Baumann

[Captain pugwash]

Well not into ships of this ilk but this looks like a great project.

Put me down for a chair

Nice start on the metal .

[Perth_shipyard]

Thanks Jim, I've seen that Diana before i'm pretty sure it's based on the CC kit like mine. A nice job of her. Mine is further along than the photo I posted. She's ready to be fitted out on deck then its the masts and rigging. I really should finish her first, but do need a break.

Thanks pug wash I'm really enjoying this build so far. I initially thought a plastic kit would be far more straightforward than a wooden ship or scratch build warship. It's not! hahaha With the kit I find myself looking are the reference material and noting what has the be scrapped off and replaced with either PE or rebuild altogether. Atleast with wooden kits and scratch building, you can make it right the first time!?! all in the fun

[Perth_shipyard]

While it's still the school holidays here, I've managed to get quite a bit done on Bismarck while entering my boy.

The hull has had its major colour painted. I used testor paints over tamiya's fine surface primer. The Hull grey is a medium grey, about a shade darker than tamiya's primer grey. The boot topping i used a colour very similar to tamiya's Nato Black, which is a very very dark grey with a slight green tint when wet, but dries a nice almost black but not black... if that makes sense. I also used this same colour on the bottom of the hull creating a mottled pattern which I sprayed the antifouling red over. There is an ever so slight patchy look to the red which looks quite nice to me. Now the colours are still very crisp and clean but i will weather the hull as with the rest of the model once the superstructure components are added - so she won't look so clean.

The boss has vito'd me on camouflage and said if I want to display it in the house the silly stripes won't be appreciated by her... hahaha so I'll painting her as she was in the Atlantic. I'll add the white bow wave shortly, as soon as I'm happy with the template for the paint. The hull stripes which where almost coming through while at sea ill add with washes again once the superstructure is on.

I've also added the the KA wood main deck and it's perfect! the fit is tight and snug on every component and with a little forethought goes on easily.

[Perth_shipyard]

Now before any says it, I know she didn't have the stem anchor mounted while in the Atlantic but, I like it on there. So my artistic license takes precedence

As for the cutters on the main deck... I'll see how I feel once the ship is completed.

[codythecatt]

Looking sharp! That wood deck is the nicest of any I've seen posted here ... must be due to the large scale?

But the scale of the framing around various deck fixtures, and to a lesser extent the width of the planking, seems out of whack.

No 'silly striped' camo eh? Bummer. But it probably makes your life simpler in several ways. (I wish somebody would lay down that law to me! LOL)

[Perth_shipyard]

Thanks Cody, shes coming along a breeze. Keep in mind with the framing- some of those deck features are just the stumps so to speak. The actual vents and deck boxes etc will go over the top of these. That's probably why some appear to be quite thick compared to the others.

As for the margin planks and the planks themselves, they are thinner than those scribe on the plastic kit deck, though I haven't actually measured them for scale as such yet. They are 1mm wide so probably over scale at 20cm on the main deck but the effect looks brilliant to me and much better than anything I could paint

[Perth_shipyard]

Oh and yeah with the camo, I was torn hence the poll... Though the boss is quite impressed with my grey warship! The tall ships she's always liked but never the modern ships I've built - they are RC so they live in the garage but Bismarck is slowly growing on her. She's also just mentioned how it would be even more interesting if it was in a diorama! So no I need to figure out if I'll waterline her or not, and I I do, whether a calm sea at anchor or cruising through the fjords or ploughing through the waves of the Atlantic....

[codythecatt]

I found myself "pencil planking" my Cutty. It didn't turn out so bad but it too was over-scale ... yet much better than the inscribed plastic kit decking ...

[Perth_shipyard]

You should be able to find or cut 1/96 scale planks for your sark I love planking ships normally. With my Diana above I cut planks to length and width... But at .8mm for 1/200.... Stuff that! Hahaha

[Perth_shipyard]

PE details, and wood decks added to lower sections of the main superstructure.

[NigelR32]

Hi Anton,

Would you please stop posting pictures of your build!! I have the kit, under the bed awaiting the Pontos set, and you are making me want to start it!!

Seroiusly, I am loving your build. Those portholes look amazing. Please tell us all how you fitted them so well? Did you slide them over a drill stuck in the porthole, align then glue? What glue did you use? Would thinning the plastic around the back of them improve the look at all, as Channell has done? There's no doubt in my mind that the plastic is way too thick here, but perhaps the PE hides it?

Sorry for all the questions...expect more!!

[Plastic Habit]

Hello everyone,

Nice builds going on. My question is: What is the length in real size or 1/200 that wood planks should be?

[Perth_shipyard]

Hahaha thanks Nigel. I did get a little enthusiastic, so didn't take any photo's but I will of the next bitts.

All the details that were to be replaced by PE I scribed off the plastic - Curtosy o the dremel I didn't thin down the plastic as I'll be using white wood glue to replicate the glass in the recess. This will hide the fact that the superstructure is too thick scale wise. As for white glue, that's what I used for the hatches and portholes. I diluted about 75white glue (PVA) to 25 parts water. Using a very fine tweezer to put the PE in place. To make sure there isn't too much glue on the parts, especially the vents hich are perforated, I dabbed the piece with a wet cotton bud. This left just enough to hold the piece in place. CA glue is far too risky with small parts like these as it dries too quick and can make a mess of the detail. I did use CA though for the Step ladders due to the extra weight of the piece.

I then paint that whole structure (primed then actual colour). I left the life rings off t this point as they are separately painted. Other items like paravenes and anything else which is not actual solid hardware so to speak I will paint and add on later. The scary bit is masking the border on the base of the superstructure, barbettes and deck hatches as the small PE even onced painted doesnt get along with masking tape! Luckily tamiya make their masking tapes nice a fine in width so I can mask off the base without it going near those parts, and paint by hand the dark grey deck banding. This I've done already tonight but I'll post pics tomorrow.

Hope that helps

[NigelR32]

Thanks for all those answers Anton, you are a Gentleman.

I have heard of using white glue for PE but have never tried it. I normally build large scale aircraft, so am not used to the countless tiny pieces of PE. I'm currently building a couple of 1/350 ships as my intro to ships... one of them is a Tamiya Bismarck.

Keep up the good work Anton!!

[codythecatt]

Looking sharp!

Referring to your 4th picture: Is all that stuff on the side of the structure PE? Or is some of it native to the original molding?

somebody had mentioned to me in my build log to use white glue to tack the pieces of the superstructure together ... it didn't work! The glue just popped right off the styrene. Maybe it works better on little dinky parts?

Oh: occasionally toss something into the pictures that will show the scale ... like a ruler or penny or something.

[Channell]

Wow, the PE looks about a million times better that the molded detail, and I thought most of the molded stuff looked pretty good. Great work Perth!