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PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 10:12 am 
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I have been learning from this excellent forum for a while, really shy to post my work after looking at all the professional work I see here. But well, no sweat, no gain, I want to learn more. My reason to chose a subject is not really the subject itself, but the story behind it. And of course who hasn't heard about the Battle of the River Plate and the "Pocket Battleship" Graf Spee. I decided to use the Trumpeter 1/350 kit, plus metal cannon barrels from Master Model and Eduard PE set.
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All the main and secondary batteries, and the 105mm AA cannon barrels were replaced with the metal ones. Some corrections were made to the rear opening of the secondary armament turrets, rounding upper corners and narrowing doors. I glued them all in open position as there is decent detail inside
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Started working on the transport boats, kind of frustrated that the kit does not include all the boat types that the Graf Spee carried on board during the Battle of the River Plate (missing is the Admiral Boat type, stored near the Arado 196 catapult).
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Correcting the stern anchor position took a while (mostly deciding on how to do it!), in the end I cut the whole chunk, rotated 90 Degrees, glued/filled/sanded.
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Painted and weathered secondary armament, AAs and torpedo tubes.
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The stern should have a metal frame, like a half moon, that protects the bronze eagle from getting damaged by the ropes, very noticeable in reference picture and abscent in the kit. I scratchbuilt the frame and modified the flagstaff base to resemble the condition during battle (no flagstaff). WIP
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Started working on the front superstructure, fitting of the lateral observation platforms is awful, and still manage to find imperfections to fix. The base color was airbrushed, the camouflage was painted using brush.
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I opened the funnel ducts and glued plastic straws on the inside to give the correct impression of a duct. Added some PE bits, which improves much its appearance. First time bending PE railings.
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When I started with the rear superstructure, I noticed several discrepancies to reference pictures and drawings.
1. The deck around the Arado 196 catapult is missing in the kit
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2. There are two "ears" missing from the base of the superstructure (wonder what these were for)
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3. The rear castle is completely enclosed in the kit, it should have an open observation platform facing back

4. The transport boats support racks don't resemble the real ones.

I did my best to fix these issues, scratchbuilt the "ears" and the open platform of the rear castle, used a "graft" from the deck that will be hidden under the superstructure to issue the missing deck around the catapult.
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Rear castle good reference pictures are pretty scarce (well, one only that I know showing it closely). As I had already assembled the structure, I had to cut off the wrong parts, shape correctly the oval rangefinder base, and scratchbuild the observation platform. I took advantage of the roof, which became the floor (it can be trimmed to the correct shape), and built the walls using plastic sheet.
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I started working on the catapult, it only needs a service platform which was attached below the catapult rail, completely missing in the kit, but easily built with plastic sheet. Shape was irregular (not rectangular like drawings show). still WIP
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Some work already done to the secondary rangefinders and cranes, pending painting.
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And this is as far as I am. I hope to improve my skills to end up with a decent Graf Spee, and pair it to the announced HMS Exeter from Trumpeter in a near future.
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Marco


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 11:01 am 
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No need to be shy; that is some great work. Great boats, and a very interesting way to handle the rear anchor position.


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 12:11 pm 
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I always like models being broken up and remade. I think you'll end up with something unique.


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 1:51 pm 
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Very nice scratch work and mods to the kit. She is looking great! :thumbs_up_1:

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:13 am 
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Location: Nr Southampton England
Ahoi and :welcome: Marco

Great that you are posting your build in the forum. :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :wave_1:

You have made a lot of good progress.

If I may add my thoughts/ advice one one aspect in particular?

here goes :cool_2:
==================

Plastic ( and resin ) kit platform are usually far too thick to be in scale

I usually scrape and pare them thinner with a broad blade from the UNDERside-- that way any detail above is conserved ( or vice/versa )

I then always add the railing to the OUTSIDE perimeter of the platform-- that way the lower rail ( which is not present usually on a platform)

see images below


does not contribute to making the platform appear even thicker even than the kit part already is

This is particularly important for the platforms higher up the masts-- as these are very thin in real life also
======================================================================

in extremis - in1/700 -- I have often formed the railing to the desired shape and painted it ,

and then spanned the underside with a film of white glue ( which dries transparent :thumbs_up_1: )

and then painted the platform from UNDERNEATH--that way getting PERFECT paint demarcation between rail and platform .

To make it stronger and rigid--after painting I then apply thin CA to the underside of the dried and painted white glue film

Hope it helps


Best wishes

Jim Baumann :wave_1:
Attachment:
spee funnel platform.jpg
spee funnel platform.jpg [ 258.79 KiB | Viewed 4949 times ]


Attachment:
spee funnel platform. 3jpg.jpg
spee funnel platform. 3jpg.jpg [ 491.62 KiB | Viewed 4949 times ]

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:04 am 
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Nice progress, Marco. It was nice to meet you at MosquitoCon. Hopefully we will see Graf Spee entered in next years contest!

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"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 12:22 pm 
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Location: Herndon, VA
Really nice work!

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 5:19 pm 
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Hello Marco,

it looks good, I'm looking forward to seeing your updates! Your photos with the stern anchor were very useful, I'm building the same kit now and without your post this error might have gone unnoticed...

cheers. greg


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 6:56 pm 
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Hi guys, sorry I hadn't checked your messages, very encouraging! And Martin, thank you for the advice, very well taken! I hadn't thought about glueing the railings to the SIDES of the platform, such a simple solution, thanks ( the funnel railings are not glued yet, maybe I will give it a try!

Some more advances. The stern anchor chain capstan is kind of poorly shaped in the kit, more like a "peg", in comparison to the real shape it is really difficult to ID it as a capstan.

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I am learning some lessons here, like don't leave for later what you noticed EARLY was wrong! I sanded the peg shorter, and added those radial strips around (Evergreen). Finally a cap issued from some spare parts. At least it looks now like a capstan!

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Marco


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 1:56 am 
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:thumbs_up_1: great work


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:45 am 
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Location: Bangkok, Thailand
That is very nice! Love the scratch-building modifications you are doing! :thumbs_up_1:
I also have a Graf Spee in progress, waiting for her turn to be finished...

Regards,
Aop

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:56 pm 
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I have been eagerly waiting to get to this part, painting the white "waves" on the side of the hull. The waves were painted I don't know exactly how many days before the Battle of the River Plate, but not really that long before, the Graf Spee can be seen with the fake second turret and funnel without and with painted waves. Crudely painted while on high seas, the waves were not symmetric, and the water significantly deteriorated the lower part of the front waves, evident in all the pictures taken at Montevideo. And I wanted to simulate that deterioration.
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I masked the profile of the waves using thin strips of Tamiya's yellow masking tape, following the openings on the hull as reference for size and proportions (they follow moooore or less the real spacing, but I don't have a better reference). Then I "chopped" a thin strip of masking tape until the edge was irregular, and masked the bottom part of the waves, little bit above the black (anthracite) flotation line.
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I then airbrushed white (later while weathering I will tone it down), and voila! I am quite satisfied with the results!

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Marco


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PostPosted: Wed May 09, 2018 7:41 pm 
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This is as good as the stern eagle gets. I would like to have some more "body" in the figure but the provided PE does not allow for more (resin would be ideal). Anyway, it is tiny (ruler is in milimeters), and the effect is quite convincing for the scale. Will add the swastika later.

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Marco


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PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2018 6:39 am 
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Great work, Marco.


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PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2018 8:12 am 
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Nice work, Marcos. My only comment is that I would have made the white for the false bow wave a little more translucent, as it was probably painted on both hastily and not in a dockyard.

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"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

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PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2018 7:29 am 
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Yes, will try to down-tone the waves later, and indeed, they were painted while on high seas, more or less at the same time when they issued the "disguise" with the second main turret and the second funnel.

Marco


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 9:42 am 
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Have been slowly working on the GS, here some advances:
1. The Dark Gray camo was applied to the fore and aft superstructures, shadows were highlighted with diluted water color, same as the skylight & window openings. After finding out that the lower front face of the fore superstructure had medium gray camo pattern, I added it freehand.
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2.Optical bits and pieces were added to the open bridge. A third central scope was added to the rangefinder.
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3. Searchlights glued in place on the funnel platform.
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5.105mm AA guns were installed following instructions. Had modified them before to allow the cannons to swivel up.
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And that is it by now!

Marco


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 10:03 am 
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Very nice work! I really like how this is coming along.

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"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2018 9:56 am 
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I revisited the rear observation platform, lack of information is frustrating but I think that I didn´t get it right the first time, definitely the observation platform level should be higher that deck level, and there seems to be a narrow walking platform around the rangefinder base structure. I ended up modifying the already modified structure that I had made, basically by elevating the whole think 2mm (5/64"), because… that was the most appropriate styrene strip I had. Looks appropriate. I cut, bent and glued the styrene below the rangefinder platform and observation platform, and then added the narrow walking platform around the rangefinder base structure. Now I got an observation platform which is higher than the deck, and I have a reasonable ways of accessing the observation platform, coinciding with the very scarce references. I had the chance to check a scale model of the Deutschland at the Deutsches Museum and I guess it influenced my decision.

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This is the Deutschland scale model that I mentioned above.

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Marco


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 6:22 am 
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Excellent work !! In reference to the Admiral's gig, check out Model Shapeways-Di Stephan and see if he'll do this in 1/350..

https://www.shapeways.com/product/7WMJB ... d=61872113

Randy

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