The Ship Model Forum

I will never buy another academy model, too many blunders like to small mast, different guns (105 mm, 20 mm too big 20mm guns), very poor quality and famous decals from academy, trumpeter has much more details. Paint scheme from German Naval Camouflage (vol1. page 99.) I used vallejo and tamiya acrylic. I used eduard kit, mk1 german catapult and flag from AMP. Also I used Eduard kriegsmarine figures from my another model.



















































At the weekend I will glue the glass case

Nice looking Spee. But, I wouldn't be too quick to write off Academy all together. Their Indianapolis is supposed to be a good bit better than Trumpy's. No manufacturer's kits are either totally good or totally bad (well, there is Lindberg) as a group. You just have to research the kit you are interested in and make an informed decision. It isn't like you can't Google up at least one review of most of the kits on the market today, especially the recent releases.

Bob

robertmelvin wrote:, I wouldn't be too quick to write off Academy all together. Their Indianapolis is supposed to be a good bit better than Trumpy's.

Bob

I prefer kriegsmarine

The Indy was simply an example. Academy may well release a very good Kriegsmarine ship at some point in the future. I was simply making the point that it would be a mistake to write off an entire line of kits with one pass of the brush. I don't particularly care for Trumpeter, especially their older releases like the North Carolina and the Hornet (CV-8), both of which are notorious for errors. But of late they seem to have released some pretty good offerings such as the U.S.S. England, their Kriegsmarine destroyers to name a couple, not to mention their 1/200 offerings, which are being well reveiwed. And their Merit division is releasing some apparently quite excellent kits with their Yorktown (CV-5) and the much anticipated Enterprise (CV-6). Hasegawa seems to be somewhat irregular in their ship kit quality, and Tamiya, usually pretty reliable for decent kits, appears to have released a howler or two. Some of the smaller brands it seems can be very hit and miss. I merely suggest that if you see a kit in you area of interest, I wouldn't write it off just because one manufacturer or the other stuck it's label on it. It is too easy these days to research the specific kit, usually getting multiple reviews, and then make an informed decision based on the merits, or lack thereof, of a specific kit.

I understand that it is very easy to get frustrated when you are fighting with, or have just finished fighting with, a problematic kit. After I attempted, and I stress attempted (that's a long story in itself), the North Carolina I wasn't sure I'd every buy a Trumpy kit again. But, new kits came out, I read the reviews and now a few Trumpy offerings sit in my stash, along with the Merit Yorktown.

But, I actually got side tracked from the original intent of my post, which was to compliment your work on the Spee. She looks very good indeed. The fact that you built her from a problematic kit speaks well of your talents and abilities as a modeler. Its obviously a lot easier to build a nice looking ship from a great kit that to produce one from a pig of kit. In my opinion, you accomplished the latter - you built a great looking ship from an inferior kit. Well done.

Bob

robertmelvin wrote: The fact that you built her from a problematic kit speaks well of your talents and abilities as a modeler. Its obviously a lot easier to build a nice looking ship from a great kit that to produce one from a pig of kit.

Bob

but I didn't change anything I only wrote academy blunders. But maybe in the future I will buy trumpeter kit and paint model from december 39'

and don't worry! Even the Trumpeter ships has no the same quality.

thanks guys for everythink

Nicely done but she never had dark grey turret tops!

Regards!
Dirk

Apophysis wrote:Nicely done but she never had dark grey turret tops!

Regards!
Dirk

Paint scheme from German Naval Camouflage (vol1. page 99.) - I wrote it in the beginning