Here we have yet another Trumpeter Bismarck build. Having followed Anton and Jasons builds on here, I couldn't resist getting stuck into modifying the Hull on my kit.
I plan to cover rivetting, weld lines and corrections to the portholes. I have been a little concerned about the Bow on my kit. The two seperate parts were a real pain to put together and then didn't fit the hull very well. I think this is an issue that only a few kits have succombe to as most seem to report of great fitting in this area.
In this first pictiure we can see what I did to improve the fit, basically 0.010" card added to the inner edges to pack the pieces out.
Once I had a good fit I started looking deeper into the shape of this area and was not happy with it. I thought it needed some sanding to make the bulge more pronounced as the kit bulge was faired very smoothly into the rest of the hull.
In this picture we can see the results of all the sanding. I have nearly gone through the sides of the separate pieces....
In my opinion this is not the correct shape. Looking at pictures of the Bismarck in dry dock I think the bulge was more pronounced than this. I need to do some surgery to correct it. You know how it is when you just aren't happy with a certain part of your model........it's the first place your eye goes every time you look at it.
So, I marked out the Bow to use some templates I found on the internet. These templates show the hull needs to be pinched together about half way up, for about 5 inches along the hull, and the bulge at the bottom needs fattening up.
Watch this space for a little feature on how to correct the Bow. I'll try to do it step by step so anyone as anally retentive as me can also correct theirs.
