The Ship Model Forum

Hi All

I started this project some time ago, having this Hobby Boss kit lying around. I started collecting documentation and as soon as I opened the box I found out it was a mess.
Main problem with the Hull are the Stern and the bow: it seems the hull was taken out form a RN Bolzano Kit, having both, Bow and Stern too vertical for a Zara Class Cruiser. The propeller area is wrong too, so filled these area with white milliput and started carving the kit trying to shape it as good as I can.
After all this, I started adding material were it was lacking and ended up with this result: The two anti roll fins around at the middle of the ship were too thick and squared so I thinned them down as well

More progress on the next post

Going on with my work in progress on the RN Pola:
After correcting the hull shapes, I went back to the blueprint I had: both the main turrets A and D seems to be misplaced: I moved both of them about 0.5cm respectively to turret B and D. The original ship had barely enough space to rotate the lower turret without hitting the cylinders on which the raised one were placed
I had bought a wooden deck for this ship some time ago but I had to discard it since the turret were pre drilled on it in the wrong place and, furthermore, the deck adhesive wooden deck is far to short compared to what it was on the original Pola: it looks like the producer has copied the error on the Hobby Boss kit without putting too much thinking on what it should have looked.

The main superstructure on the kit is misshaped: I added the main tripod, delete the three ridges around the funnel and the main bridge tower and corrected several problems on the upper decks.

One of the problems with this ship is that it changed a lot since it's launch in 1930 to it's demise in 1941: several parts oft the superstructure were changed or added, and for this reason it's required to double check each photo trying to determine when they were taken. My Pola will replicate the status of the ship in 1941.

More progress next time

Finally, a comprehensive correction! We've seen many Pola builds so far, but none had really adressed all the faults this "kit" has. Carry on

Hello

a work which is more than hopeful really great
I will follow your work with pleasure
cheers
Nicolas

So far I'm back to the keel: I've found more issues with the anti roll wings and with position of the propeller shafts. BTW, the underwater stern seems different somehow from what can be seen in RN Fiume, with the propellers being more angled down and it seems the 'carving in the stern central line is completely missing. unfortunatley I'm trying to figure out the shapes from a few photos and this launch documentary more poca tomorrow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHY4-p6 ... ata_player

Back, with some news. I rebuilt the whole propeller area of the Pola trying to make it look like one the Luce "Pola Ship Launch" video as much as I could.
The real thing are much larger then what can be found inside the box, so I decided to use plasticard, milliput and brass rods. I'm rather feeling like a sculptor then a kit model builder, but nothing inside my spare box was close to the propeller shafts shape and the way it joins to the keel. I even tried a couple of Mk84 from hasegawa but they looked too fat and generally wrong. The reinforce arm structure joining the shaft near the propellers to the stern was inspired by a hull section drawing coming from Morskie Profile for the Zara sister ship: overall the shape is decent although a bit over angled down (but so is the keel): for now I can live with that.
I also rebuilt the anti roll wings trying to get as close as possible to what can be seen in the video and they now look much better then the two ridges moulded on the kit.

See you further down the Pola building road

Fast update: trying to simulate hull plating.

Amazing work ,really you are doing so well,I'm also planning this build and you're work is totally a Bible on this ship . I will follow your advance, and thank You very much,just a question ,the plating,are You doing it with Mr Surfacer?
regards

Thanks, but the road's end is still far away!

For the hull plating I'm using Tamiya spray surfacer medium: I tried to figure out the plating shapes form the usual video "Istituto Luce" about the ship launching and using various ship elements as reference points. this is a good tutorial: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCO8mGn7rLw )
Warship Pictorial 23 draw of the top and side of the ship is a very good reference but always double-check for errors, especially on the ship upper decks.
Now I'm trying to figure out the shape of the rear funnel, mostly at the base, where the WS drawing seems to be inaccurate. I'm also trying to carve the deck wood planking since the only Pola 1/350 wood deck is unusable: if the result is unsatisfying I'll probably order a "generic wood deck" and adapt it.
keep in mind that, while the main gun turrets are mostly accurate (you only need to rebuild the telemeter and set the guns closer each other), the secondary gun emplacement are plain crap: I'll need to rebuild one form scratch (not an easy shape to make) and produce 8 copies with resin or something like that: they are out of shape and way too small.
If I had a clue about the extensive problems on the Pola I would have converted it into a "Bolzano" instead: You'd need increase the hull length of about 4cm but that is on the centre of the ship (not an impossible task) but the shape of the hull should be almost perfect. I've seen a very good conversion on this same site (viewtopic.php?f=60&t=151890&hilit=bolzano).

Good luck with your build!

A very commendabel approach!
Good luck!

Cheers,
Guido

Some (few) progress about the Pola project
I focussed on the rear tripod: unfortunately the photos don't help much as the ship kept changing drom 1931 to it's demise ten years later.
I hope I made something acceptable.
I added some detail on the deck too and the winches are almost ready: I need to cast a certain number in resin from the original I made with a small Unimat lathe.

untill next time

(edit) the rear telemeter structure is turned in the wrong direction! fortunately it's not glued yet and I will set it properly in the next pics..

ok, here I am again. the summer heat was not exactly the most inviting environment to be modelling, so I droppped the project for some time. Today I got back to the ship and made some general finishing, fine sanding of the supertructire, door hatches rebuilding but nothing mayor. Next time I will start working on the main guns, which should proceed pretty smothly thanks to the brass guns I got and the overall correct shape of the 202 cm turrets. I've not made adecision on how to take on the secondary guns yet: I've got brass guns as well but the shape of the shields of the kit are awful, underdimensioned and plainy wrong, so I'll have to find a way to cast resin copies of the prototype, whatever way I'll find out to cave it out.
next time I'll post some pics of the progress

great progress ,beautiful job ,looking forward to see her completed

Very fine work. I�m also looking forward on this building

sorry for the lack of updates: i made some rather embarassing attempts to cast decent shields for the secondary armaments of the Pola but everyone was aborted: to make a decent replica I need to use the Vacuum forming and create a slightly scaled down master. Free hand casting was not satisfying so I ordered today from China a little cheap Vaacuum Forming machine for dental works hoping it will get the job done. It will take about 20dayd to have it delivered, in the mean time I'll do some works on the main guns.
Cheers.

very nice job .

NEVER, EVER assume the scale of a drawing is correct!
I was using Pola Morskie templates as a guide for my ship and rescaling them in 1/350 as a guide for the pieces to rebuild, but after several attempts I was unconvinced because of how the shield I was building as a Vacuum Forming template was coming out. Unfortunately, very small objects can differ by just a few millimetres from the correct scale, so you have to trust your instinct as much as you can.
I spent the whole afternoon trying to figure out what was wrong, but in the end I came to the conclusion that the blueprint I was using and which were labelled 1/200 were in fact more or less 1/150 drawings, and this "JUST" for the shield I was trying to recreate. The rest of the elements in the blueprint were correctly scaled. I obviously had checked the scale of the drawings using a couple of elements the measures of which I had as a testing bench, and the drawings seemed OK: this led me to the false assumption that, if some of the drawings are correct, then everything they put in them had to be as well.
The lesson is: always double check with the real thing, in photo or directly if you can, and you will save yourself several headaches.
Lesson learned!

Here is a long overdue update:
The Chinese Ass-hole on e-bay stole my money and never delivered the vacuum forming machine I paid for (97� damn him!).
I tried building a Copper foil turret from a 70's Polish review with a Pola 1/200 paper model plan, but it ended up having an unconvincing shape.
In the mean time I tried some prehistoric vacuum forming technique by pressing the master on a softened plastic sheet across a shape made in plywood but the thin master did not withstood the heat an got helplessly deformed.
Now I'll try with silicon gum and resin albeit I have no idea on how to anchor the master in order to build the silicon mould and then pour the resin in.
If everything else fails I'll try finding someone with a 3D printer hoping to get somewhere with the damn gun shield.

here are the pics of the second master (the right side need some trimming but glue was not cured enough to proceed):

This is going very well. Are going to fully correct the kit? If so the Hull is 2+ inches to long and measures out to over 615 feet.

I already have taken care of the lenght of the Pola most of the excess is on the bow, some is on the stern. Overall most of the extremities have been rescupted. The width of the ship at the center looks about right so I didn't bother.
BTW, I will double check tomorrow, but the model is about 52cm in lenght, which conform with the 182.8m given for the real ship. Not even near to the 5+cm you imply. if this would be the case this Pola would make a perfect base to convert it in a Bolzano (which indeed needs 4+cm enlenghtment in the centre of the base HB kit.
Can you please be more specific?