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PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:18 am 
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Posts: 161
Thank you, Randy, I’ll try to contact them, would be fantastic to have those boats readily available!

MARCO


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 3:52 pm 
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Location: New York City
Truly great work, Marco.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 8:50 pm 
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This is as far as I managed to go with the rear observation platform based on the scarce information available (For sure, few minutes after I glue it in place, several crisp clear pictures will be posted showing the area in detail, according to Mr. Murphy). All the details within the open platform area scratch, and the platform. The strange angled "roof" at the rear of the platform is clearly seen in a couple pictures, but got the shape from Kagero´s. Binocular stands were copied from the ones provided for the forward observation platform in the kit. The elevation of the platform and the walkways around the rangefinder base is more reasonable now.

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I finished gluing in place the searchlights and the PE rails around the funnel (when I got the advice to glue the PE around the platform edge, and not on top, I had already bent the part, but next time). I am using all the time Gator´s Grip Acrylic Glue on PE, is has been the discovery of the year to me!
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Finally I added a thin mast behind the forward superstructure that is evident in the pictures at Rio de la Plata, and a small service platform shown in Kagero´s, but barely noticeable in any picture of the Graf Spee. The mast seems to have been added after the changes to the forward superstructure in 1937. Before that, only some cables can be seen in the same place, I guess that Trumpeter issued the pre-modification version.
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Marco


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 09, 2018 3:45 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2005 1:40 pm
Posts: 8159
Location: New Jersey
Hmmm....could be ready for MosquitoCon in 2019! Looks great!

_________________
Martin

"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: Tue Oct 09, 2018 8:14 pm 
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Thanks Martin! Mosquitocon, right! In this accelerated learning process, I have learned a lot from you all guys, I hope to finish this first ship (of my adult age at least) in time.

Marco


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:47 pm 
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Not really an exciting area, but the supports for the boats on each side of the airplane catapult need some corrections. The part provided in the kit comes with the lateral supports, the "wings", molded at the same level as the upper deck and simply as an extension of the support frame. According to Kagero (and again, there is no good picture that I know showing the real thing), those lateral supports are made of three inverted "L" parts, and they are tilted upwards sustaining the boats above deck level:

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Most of the part provided in the kit is useful, I just cut the molded "wings" from the part, direct to the trash. The remaining frame will simulate the metal rim around the upper deck, I just sanded it thinner.
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I issued the inverted "L" supports following Kagero´s drawings, from plastic sheet, dryfitting them often on the ship to check the proportions and relation to other parts. I ended up with this shape:
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I only need to build 4 more... notice that the rest of the part provided in the kit looks quite nice. This is more or less where the scratchbuilt lateral supports should fit onto the ship´s structure:
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How I would have liked Eduard to issue these parts in PE!!!

Marco


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2018 10:03 am 
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HA! Got them!!! Shapeways offers the Admirals boat in 1/350 scale (and the transport boat)! The Graf Spee had one of these boats on the port side of the airplane catapult. Trumpeter provides only the rowing boats (lots of them!) and the Transport boat (2), but forgot the Admirals Pinnace and another smaller pinnace. Pictures and film at Montevideo, after tha Battle of the River Plate, show that there were two transport boats (one on the water, one on the ship), at least one Admirals Pinnace (seen in film on the water and in a few pictures on the ship; if it is only one it is curious that it had camo only on the port side?), and one smaller Pinnace barely noticeable on the starboard side of the catapult (with camo scheme), and at least two rowing boats.
As the smaller pinnace looks like a shorter version of the Admirals pinnace w/o the enclosed area, and I will get 2 Admirals pinnaces from Shapeways, maybe there is chance for conversion, let´s see when I get them.

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It is incredible to watch the films shot at Montevideo, you realize that this was for real, intense drama.
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Marco


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 9:34 pm 
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I completed the structure that supports the boats (Admirals Pinnaces and row boats) amidships, extending the rear arms until they completely surrounded the upper deck around the catapult, glued the PE parts and glued the structure in place.
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This is my third try with the boat racks structure on each side of the airplane catapult, I think that I got it right this time. The drawings shown in Kagero´s booklets, show the complete structure of the racks, BUT after looking at pictures like 1000 times, I think that, with the exception of the foremost rack, the two rear ones have the "leg" (the vertical part of the rack) inserted into the walls supporting the upper deck, and thus, the "legs" are hiden, just the horizontal arm is visible. I issued two complete fore racks, and four "partial" racks, like the ones below.
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This is the position of the complete fore rack, where the "leg" is evident. Notice that the outermost edge of the "leg" coincides with the side wall of the upper deck. The two rear racks will have their "legs" structure hidden into the side wall (kind of difficult to explain, will be clear when I achieve the final result)
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I continued working on the catapult, too. The one issued in the kit is not correct, the platform where the catapult operator and mechanics stand during operation, is completely abscent, controls as well. Eduard provides the PE catapult but nothing else (why not a perforated metal platform, Eduard?). Issued the platform with thin styrene strip (I needed perforated PE to be completely accurate, but could not find it). Big improvement, but could be better.
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I got the Admirals Pinnaces from Shapeways, nice little thingies, we´ll see how they look after primer.
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And started assembling the Arado 196 hydroplane, the smallest airplane I have ever assembled (painted some 1/700 when I was a teenager). I want to simulate the "pirate" scheme that they used on the Ar196 before the Rio de la Plata Battle, when they overpainted the German markings and painted "french-alike" rudder and underwing markings. In this scale, I hope something is noticeable.
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Marco


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 2:50 am 
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Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2009 1:52 pm
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:thumbs_up_1: great work


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 9:29 am 
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Location: Montreal, Canada
According to Graf Spee's ship's log, on the first rendez-vous with Altmark, Langsdorff transferred two of the heavier launches, two 2cm AA guns, and flammable paints to that ship.
:wave_1:


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 1:14 pm 
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Interesting! As I understand, Langsdorff transferred two out of the four 11.5m Transport Boats to the Altmark. The Transport boats were normally stored on the area between the bridge and the funnel. Additionally, the Graf Spee kept at least one 11m Admirals Pinnace (known as Chefboot), two row boats and one small 9m Motor boat, all of these stored behind the funnel and on the sides of the catapult.
I will use the two Transport boats and two row boats provided in the kit, and the two Admirals Pinnaces from Shapeways (in the absence of a 9m Motor boat).

Marco


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 24, 2018 4:58 am 
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I can´t resist adding some detail to the cockpit of an airplane, so here it goes. I added instrument panel, control column, seats, bulkhead, radio equipment to the Ar 196. Opened the rear part of the canopy for a more realistic representation, and extended the cockpit opening rearwards, where the MG will fit in. Let´s see how much of it is noticeable after closing the whole thing.

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Marco


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2018 1:12 pm 
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I finished working on the rear boat racks, painted and glued them in place.

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Back to my confort area, I added some seat belts to the gunner's seat (they will be visible), painted the interior and closed the fuselage. After gluing the canopy, not much is still noticeable apart from the gunner's compartment, which will benefit later from a machinegun.

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Marco


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 10:17 am 
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Testing the Admiral's Pinnaces (Chefboot) on the racks. Shapeways smartly provides the pinnaces with the "V" shaped supports molded under the hull, but the spacing between them does not match the racks spacing of the Graf Spee. I had to sand them off. But, the rack supports are level, flat, and the Chefboots hulls are not. Evidently the center V support is way too high for the hull shape, and it makes the pinnace stand like on a wee-saw. To somehow solve this, I opened a slot in the hull, in order for the center "V" support to fit in, and thus level the boat and approach it to the other two racks. The trick worked, and the boats lay decently flat, touching both the front and center "V" supports, but still with a small gap to the rearmost support. I will add couple extensions to that one to make it fit.

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Marco


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:38 am 
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AAARRGGHHH!!!! Why do Trumpeter instructions show nice "T3+AH" markings for the Arado, but the decal sheet does NOT include them…???
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Marco


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PostPosted: Sat Nov 03, 2018 7:07 am 
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Location: Belgium
Very nice work so far! :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:
Great that the hull of the plane is split, to make it easier to get some detail in there.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 5:07 pm 
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Well here we go. The catapult as provided in the kit is not really accurate, it basically consists only of the rail and the compressed air tanks, that is it. I misses the service platform, controls, etc. I issued the service platform with plastic sheet, simulating the framing with thin plastic strip. Catapult rail came from Eduard PE set. Handrails from the ship´s PE. The Arado 196 will need some improvements as well.

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The Arado as provided in the kit has cannons and access doors for the cannons in the wings, it shouldn´t as Graf Spee´s was an A-1 model without that kind of armament. It is easy to remove the cannons by sanding and to fill the gunbay compartment doors with putty & sanding.

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The PE part that supports the airplane in place need some serius trimming, it is way too high as provided. Catapult looks much closer to the real one now.
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I started painting the tiny Arado, following early war scheme RLM 72 (not applied yet), 73 and RLM 65 undersides.

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I think that I will go for the "blue-white-blue" underwing roundels.

Marco


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PostPosted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 10:01 am 
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I finished painting the Arado 196 A1, used RLM 72/73/65 standard colors (8/2 with white for scale effect), representing the paint scheme where the underwing crosses were substituted by roundels, the fuselage crosses overpainted to look like "-", and the tail swastika removed. It is a pitty that Trumpeter does not include the correct decals for this Arado, they only provide the ones for the pre-war Experimental aircraft. I used only the crosses on the wings, then cut the ones on the fuselage to represent the "-", and finally found couple old argentinean-like roundels which I used under the wings. All the letters had to be issued by adding bits and pieces from old decals, they look decent enough and got the authentic T3+AH code.
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Having opened the rear cockpit permitted adding a tiny scratch built MG.

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Marco


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 11:35 am 
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Location: New York City
Looks beautiful, Marco.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 15, 2018 7:17 am 
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Thanks Dan. Couple more advances in busy times. Glued in place water breaker, painted and glued in place bow capstands. Kept the red and green color codes, I think that they are still visible while in Montevideo.
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Started assembling the rope reels using Eduard's PE, adding "rope" issued with plastic rod.
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Not glued yet, need to paint the parts. I wonder what the lateral PE levers are, I can´t find them on any references.
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Marco


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