The Ship Model Forum

I've decided to lose my mind and attempt a massive scratch-and-bash project in the wake of my USS Lexington (CC-1) taking "Best Of" in our local show. Imperial Hobby Production's kit of the not-Yorck is, overall, good but I want to really try to recreate what this vessel would have looked like, down to the last wee hypothetical detail.

So this, mostly:
Here's the kit and aftermarket I'm tapping:
I've managed to aquire a wealth of line drawings and sort-of plans, all of which contradict each other in some way or form. Consequently, I'm going to try to rebuild (read: scratch) the entire superstructure to best match plans and look/feel like a development from the Mackensens. I have good plans for these vessels.

IHP's kit is really nice, to be honest. Hull detail is sharp and Mike did a good job building up the upperworks based on the plans he had.

Anyway. Before my burnout, I planned to try my hand at substitution by scratch building. SMS Yorck will give me that chance. This will be a slow, semi-updated build as I rotate between motivated, confused, frustrated, and ragequit. I'm sure I'll be PMing a lot of the better scratch guys for advice.

So far, I've done this. I've drilled out the hull portholes, removed simple block hatches, and cut off any deck equipment I plan to replace with brass. The turrets were also re-drilled as existing holes (for barrels) weren't level.
More to come. Eventually!

Fascinating, a man after my own heart building all these battlecruisers. I shall be following this.

In case you haven't found it already, here's a nice reference of Mackensen:

https://sites.google.com/site/3dwarship ... -graf-spee

If I may interject, I have built this kit and I was unimpressed with the choice of shape and detail for the bridge area (in fact I didn't buy most of the 3D printed parts). What I ended up doing was actually buying a Combrig 1/700 SMS Baden and using the bridge, turrets and all the smaller parts and fittings. The bridge in particular I thought looks much better with the flatter face (not the odd jutting out platform) and beefier multi-level look, and the PE part with windows was very nice in the Combrig kit. Results below. I thought you might find this useful as Baden might be better documented than Mackensen that wasn't completed, if you want to follow this line of inspiration.

A very ambitious project, PG! I agree with Vlad about looking to the contemporary Bayern-class for inspiration. These are, or more properly would have been, beautiful ships. Based on your past efforts I'm sure you'll produce an outstanding model! Good luck. Looking forward to watching the progress.

I just finished making the deck houses and turrets for my two Yorck hulls... So I will watch this with great interest...

Vlad: Appreciate it! I have Combrig's Bayern which does not use several more closed-in levels of the superstructure. I may borrow some...

gscott: Thankfully, I have a lot of reference material on Baden, given that I have her in 1/350 AND a pressing need to build it. Many small details will be based on that ship.

Not_so_COB: I saw your stuff on Shapeways! I'm debating picking up a set, depending on how much scratch work I feel like doing.

Small update:

I purchased Flyhawk's German portholes and scuttles set and realized that the IHP portholes were waaaaay too large to use these. Given that I like the more detailed, finer design of the etch, I chose to start filling them for replacement. I'll likely re-drill with smaller holes and cover them with the PE. Much of the next few days will be (boring) hull prep, but I want to take this ship to Nationals. It has to be done right.

Only a small comment: it is "Ersatz Yorck" (replacement for Yorck) and not "Erstaz", which makes no sense. The ship was not called Yorck, there was no name yet assigned. E.g. the armoured cruiser Yorck was originally called "Ersatz Deutschland", because it replaced the old armoured frigate Deutschland.

ambitious project?but one problem. I noticed the bow shape which suggests transformation from derfflinger. Actually Her bow might resemble kongo or HMS BC that had more stretched sheers.

Maxim: I honestly don't know what to properly call the hull, though I am aware of the "replacement" nature of her name. I went with SMS Yorck as a placeholder.

sirmaumau: Mike @ IHP went off the drawings he had available. To be honest, I'm sure that a -lot- is wrong about this kit from the original, final plans, but those are (sadly) lost to history.

New Orleans was drowned in twenty-four hours of torrential rain, so I spent my entire day drinking beer and working on projects. I originally drilled out the IHP kit's scuttles and portholes with plans to cover them in Flyhawk's excellent portholes. However, the etch was too fine and the IHP kit's rendition of scuttles too large. I decided to bite the bull, fill, and replace everything with etch:
I think it looks much better now. I have the starboard stern left to do and then will move on to bulkheads on the superstructure. On deck details, I'm using various resources, including Staff's stellar book on German battlecruisers, to guess what this ship may have looked like, had it been completed.

Note: I need new searchlights. The options in the kit are very basic. Other than raiding a Flyhawk Lutzow or Derfflinger, and recommendations for aftermarket? Heeeeeelp!

Vlad wrote:Fascinating, a man after my own heart building all these battlecruisers. I shall be following this.

In case you haven't found it already, here's a nice reference of Mackensen:

https://sites.google.com/site/3dwarship ... -graf-spee

If I may interject, I have built this kit and I was unimpressed with the choice of shape and detail for the bridge area (in fact I didn't buy most of the 3D printed parts). What I ended up doing was actually buying a Combrig 1/700 SMS Baden and using the bridge, turrets and all the smaller parts and fittings. The bridge in particular I thought looks much better with the flatter face (not the odd jutting out platform) and beefier multi-level look, and the PE part with windows was very nice in the Combrig kit. Results below. I thought you might find this useful as Baden might be better documented than Mackensen that wasn't completed, if you want to follow this line of inspiration.

Y1.jpg

I love your build, Vlad! To be honest, I think I'm going to scratch most of the superstructure, based on drawings I have and some artistic license.

PetrolGator wrote:I love your build, Vlad! To be honest, I think I'm going to scratch most of the superstructure, based on drawings I have and some artistic license.

Thanks! I'm a fan of bridges with multiple levels, enclosed areas with windows combined with open platforms. That's why I went with Baden because otherwise German ships of this period are very spartan in that respect. Artistic license is definitely in order with a ship that never was, I look forward to see what you come up with!

Small update. I'm trying to cut my teeth a bit on scratching the many, many small details that make a model transition from a decent representation of a ship to something approaching (potential) reality.

I'm using several resources for best guesses, paramount of which is my book on SMS Baden.

I started with something relatively easy, scratching the vents seen here along the second barbette:
Note: I also am trying to approximate the supply/ammunition boxes along this area, which curve along the armor.

Bits of styrene, patience, and some Ocean Spirit PE netted these:
Requisition of IJN Ammunition boxes produced these. I still need to do a bit of work to smooth them:
In addition, I added the "strip" seen on Baden's superstructure, portholes, and dry fitted some of the ventilators at her stern.
In this picture, you can see the numerous and large ventilators allegedly present on the ship. This are of the ship looks overly cluttered, IMO, and I'm tempted to choose one of the two styles abreast the number three turret and eliminate the other.

Next? I'll be attaching the scratched vents, Flyhawk bollards, and scratching other deck equipment where appropriate. Once I'm satisfied with the main hull, I'll decide on how extensively I'll scratch-n-bash the bridge structure. I did find some IJN BB PE that could serve as scaffolding under this vessel's numerous searchlight platforms. Once that's done, I'll clean/pretty up the funnel and move aft.

....days like this I wish I had kept up on my CAD skills. I'd LOVE to do much of this work in CG and have someone print it out.

All for now. Thoroughly enjoying this build!

She's an impressive looking beast, isn't she?

Nice work. The details you are adding will definitely make this model stand out when finished.

I've not had as much time to work on this as I'd like. I've continued to use pictures/plans of Baden and Mackensen for the bulkhead detail and I think added a lot of detail missing on the kit.

I have yet to find a single plan that matches the IHP plans. I chose to go with what's the most "official" plans:
I pulled the navigation platform from the plans, printed it off, and scratched it. Here's what came out (along with some other PE bits from Five Star and others:)
Stern:
...and the addition of skylights at the stern, care of Mike McCabe's new and excellent PE set:
I'm likely to replace the captains with something else. I currently hate how plain the replacement parts look.

I'm currently torn on what I'm going to do next. I'm getting to the point where I've added all the bulkhead/deck detail I want, before paint, and have to now proceed with a TON of scratch work on the superstructure. It's definitely pushing my limits/skills in ways that both are rewarding and frustrating.

I just hope I can do this vessel justice.

All for now.

Forgot to add this picture. This is the plan version of this level versus the kit part. The sketched bits on the edges of the new bridge are where I'm POSSIBLY going to cut out space for the bridge wings present on most German ships of the period. I'm still not sure if I'm going to do this, given the lack of them on the plans.

Project wrecked. Mods, please delete this topic.

PetrolGator wrote:Project wrecked. Mods, please delete this topic.

Not yet....

What happened?

Chelonian wrote:What happened?

Several things. I was getting severely mired in several scratch building attempts which escalated into a major bit of damage to work I had taken a long time to complete.

I've gotten back to work on this which required re-scratching several platforms and replacing broken photo etch. I'll post pictures later.

Thanks!

Nice that you keep working on the project. And if all else fails you can still try scratchbuilding this...

I would have plans of armoured cruiser Yorck's sister Roon - but I guess that the battlecruiser project "Ersatz Yorck" is easier, because it has simpler forms.