mtdoramike

I like Kyocera bits.  They are expensive but are very precise and very sharp. Also they all have the same shaft size so changing bits is a breeze
 

In order to make it water tight for R/C use, you would have to fiberglass the hull and preferrably seal inside the hull as well.

Don't you hate it when builds are started and never seem to get finished, especially when the object of starting a build thread is to possibly help others building the same subject who might get stuck on something and need a visual aid to get them started again? Blue Jacket is top notch as far as kits go.

Framing
Nice to see some new names. Thank you for following.
 
I actually started building in early August and have put in about 25 hours so far. The framing and rough planking are complete. I didn't take enough photos but here's what I have.

Yes, Gary, the model only has 5 frames, and one of them doesn't amount to much. The frames are built up out of laser-cut pieces and straight stock. They don't quite line up with the plans so you have to guess. The keel is built in 3 layers that leave a perfect rabbet for the garboards (first layer of planks.)
 
Assembling the keel, frames, and upper deck was really tricky. I cut a dado in a long board to hold the keel, then tack glued the frames in place. I glued the 4 subdeck pieces together, transferred the width between the frame uprights to the subdeck with dividers, and enlarged the notches to fit. I carefully put the subdeck in place and held it down with tape. Then I flipped everything over and glued the deck to the keel and frames from front to back with CA. Whew.

There are 2 heavy stringers for strength. Some of the pre-cut notches lined up, and some had to be enlarged. The joint at the bow took a lot of trial and error, mostly error.

The stern has 2 brass tubes for the rudder and prop. The rudder tube has a beam attached to the rear deck that is quite flimsy at first.

There is an interior tray for motor and servos. The plans show much larger pieces for the tray but it's not clear where they go. I am just building for display and won't use them anyway.

Bottom view of the frame.

Don't you hate it when builds are started and never seem to get finished, especially when the object of starting a build thread is to possibly help others building the same subject who might get stuck on something and need a visual aid to get them started again? Blue Jacket is top notch as far as kits go.

Don't you hate it when builds are started and never seem to get finished, especially when the object of starting a build thread is to possibly help others building the same subject who might get stuck on something and need a visual aid to get them started again? Blue Jacket is top notch as far as kits go.

Don't you hate it when builds are started and never seem to get finished, especially when the object of starting a build thread is to possibly help others building the same subject who might get stuck on something and need a visual aid to get them started again? Blue Jacket is top notch as far as kits go.

It's gonna be an interesting adventure! Following this build 😃 
Cheers
Carlo

Hi Rod,
Nice change of pace for you.... 🙂
I'll follow along.
 
Cheers and Regards,
 
Harry.

I'll follow along as well, as I have done several bluejacket kits.   Unless I am missing something, it looks to have a challengingly small number of frames/bulkheads.  And the other build logs you mention do not progress to planking.   Be interesting to see how you meet that challenge and any others that arise.

I remember seeing a finished version of this on display at BlueJacket when I visited in 2016. It caught my eye as a really attractive vessel and model. Great to see a build log of it here, BlueJacket often seems under-represented on MSW for the quality of their kits.

It's hard to quantify "many". As far as I know there is no empirical research into this issue. For example, I could say that "many" people do their research before buying. Whose "many" is more accurate? I don't know.
 
I can say unequivocally that I research my kit before purchasing them. I assume "most" do, but we all know what they say about making assumptions . . .
 
Bill

I for one appreciate your opinions on the kit and hope that you do not refrain from do the same in the future. It's always better for modellers going in if they are aware of pitfalls or short comings of a particular kit.

Theosidus,
 
In reading your excellent comments posted last Friday, I understood that you were criticizing OcCre’s Kit, not James’s review.   You express yourself well in English.
 
Your comments were valid and have every right to make them.
 
You are correct.  Without having access to a lines drawing for the vessel how can even a skilled model builder produce the templates to correct the bow.  It makes one wonder if OcCre used an accurate lines drawing to produce the kit.
 
Roger
 
 

Not at all! I didn't take it as such.
 
I know the bow castings for this are metal, but those could be omitted and the planking continued to a sharp point, so no need to sand down metal. 

I for one appreciate your opinions on the kit and hope that you do not refrain from do the same in the future. It's always better for modellers going in if they are aware of pitfalls or short comings of a particular kit.

Hello!
 
I think about my post for every day now, since I posted it here, and thought about to add a comment or not. Perhaps I will regret this, but here it is :-).
 
Please let me point out some explanations first:
 
I'm not a native speaker, so it is very possible, that I don't hit the the tone I want to hit, or that the meaning of my writing is not in the way I intendet to write it. Please keep that in mind!
My intention is never to offence someone or someones work here on the forum, but if a post of mine sounds like this, than I'm very sorry!
 
@James H: your review is great, very detailed, and I'm sure was a ton of work to do! My first comment was not intendet as a critique of your  work. 
 
I write this, because you get a lot of thumbs up for your comment on my post, in which you pointed out, that you have allready written about the low-quality-deck. Yes you did, but it is not ok to point out a bad point again? Then sorry for that!
For me, this 'feels' like it is not wanted to write about the things in the kit I don't like, or my comment is seen as a criticism of your review, but it is not!
 
Well, lesson learned, I will not do that anymore, this will be my last posting under a kit review!
 
But then again: when nobody tells the industry what is not ok, if we only ever praise the kits, then they will never improve them. Why would they, if everbody is fine with them? It would just cost em money.
I mean, one could see a criticisym(?) also as a help for the manufacturer to improve his kits! But they only can, when they will see that there are things that could be done better.
 
So I don't understand why it is wrong to point out something again, that you allready have talked about? OcCre can say, "look at this, only one see the deck as a small point to improve, every other comment on the review is full of praise, we did all things the right way"
 
My second point, the bow: I know, I'm not a good modell builder, so perhaps I have not enough experience to call this a no go, even if I pointed out twice, that this is only my personal oppinion.
Well, I have read the instructions(*), and I'm not sure that everybody how says, "it's so easy to correct this", read them too, because,
The bow is NOT formed with a wooden planking method, it is formed by two relativly massive metal cast parts. And inbetween the wooden keel. In the middle part of the bow you would have to sand almost all of the metal away. Have fun.
You need templates/plans to find the correct lines. Because with the provided material of the kit you can not know at what point you have to start to correct the lines of the ship(**).
(*) & (**): To mee, this looked very much like the a long time ago provided subscription kit where you buyed small amounts of the kit on a monthly base. At least I could not see any differences, but I have to say that I did not collect this one, so I can not be 100% sure of that.
At least, the bow- and deck was disscussed at the time of the collectibel PE kit, becaus it looked just like this one. Even if the bow parts were made out of plastic instead of metal.
It is possible, that during construction the PE was not a success as Bismarck was, so they needet to make more compromises and had to save money.
 
The Bismarck partwork was a success, and that brings me to:
 
@TeckB: go for Bismarck. The partwork Bismarck (I kollected this one) is the base for the now available Amati kit, James H wrote this in his kit review of Bismarck. My point here is: the Hachette Bismarck (the partwork one) was developed together with Josef Kaiser. I mean: Josef Kaiser!!!! Well, some 15 jears ago that thrilled me and a lot of other modell builders at that time :-).
I sold the kit later, because I still want to build a big BB when I can sort out my storage problems, but it will not be Bismarck, I'm in (and have tons of plans) a different ship.
 
So again: sorry, if my message was seen as a criticism of James H's great review, it was not! He's done a phantastic job there! My personal meanings of the kit are still my personal ones, but, as allready told, I will not criticize a kit anymore :-). I wishes everybody building this PE-model a lot of fun!
 
Happy modell building! 🙂

I would like to add my appreciation to OCcre for producing a nice battle ship model in a worthy size. As for the stem and the planking, both of those issues can be overcome with little effort on the builders part. There is one major benefit to building a wooden battle ship like the OCcre kit versus a Trumpeter plastic model is with wood, you can fix about anything you dislike about the original kit where as with plastic, you are pretty much stuck with what you get out of the box, not a whole lot you can do about it.
 
Like I tell newbies, a kit is a kit and only a starting point, it's up to the builder to make the model all it can be. 
 
So although there are a few things I nit picked about the OCcre kit, it still would make into a worthy model and I think easy enough to convert to radio control if that is your ticket with modifications and lightening up the super structure whetre it wouldn't be nearly as top heavy.    

All model kits have flaws. But, as modelers, we make decisions to either accept those flaws or improve them. Decks are easy. The cutwater can also be improved with a little creativity.  For example, I once built the Constructo HMS Pandora. The entire bow section was grossly misshapen. It was much too sharp. Working with plans, I rebuilt the entire forward third of the ship, then corrected the model as much as possible with what we know of her class.  It can be done.
 
Bill

I would like to add my appreciation to OCcre for producing a nice battle ship model in a worthy size. As for the stem and the planking, both of those issues can be overcome with little effort on the builders part. There is one major benefit to building a wooden battle ship like the OCcre kit versus a Trumpeter plastic model is with wood, you can fix about anything you dislike about the original kit where as with plastic, you are pretty much stuck with what you get out of the box, not a whole lot you can do about it.
 
Like I tell newbies, a kit is a kit and only a starting point, it's up to the builder to make the model all it can be. 
 
So although there are a few things I nit picked about the OCcre kit, it still would make into a worthy model and I think easy enough to convert to radio control if that is your ticket with modifications and lightening up the super structure whetre it wouldn't be nearly as top heavy.    

I saw where Model Expo is offering this kit for $399 on their website. Seems a fair price for something like this IMO.
For those who want upgraded details but are put off by the cost, I just noticed that the Pontos update set for the 1:200 USS Enterprise is a mere $549, and that's more than the cost of the model kit itself which sells for about $475. Hey, it is what it is. 

I would like to add my appreciation to OCcre for producing a nice battle ship model in a worthy size. As for the stem and the planking, both of those issues can be overcome with little effort on the builders part. There is one major benefit to building a wooden battle ship like the OCcre kit versus a Trumpeter plastic model is with wood, you can fix about anything you dislike about the original kit where as with plastic, you are pretty much stuck with what you get out of the box, not a whole lot you can do about it.
 
Like I tell newbies, a kit is a kit and only a starting point, it's up to the builder to make the model all it can be. 
 
So although there are a few things I nit picked about the OCcre kit, it still would make into a worthy model and I think easy enough to convert to radio control if that is your ticket with modifications and lightening up the super structure whetre it wouldn't be nearly as top heavy.    

That was noted in the review, and I also said the model would benefit from a laser engraved deck.

From the pictures, it looks great, I wondered how the kit would look once released. But with that said, two glaring issues for me is way to much metal fittings in this kit. It would have lightened the load a bit by using plastic fittings in a lot of places, the second issue is the use of fiber board, which I detest in kits, it has a tendancy to be brittle and if you have a warped piece, you can't soak it and flatten it out like you can wood.
 
 

I'm sorry, but there are two major things, that are in MY opinion a no go:
 
1. the deck planks are ridiculous out of scale, they make the whole ship to look like a toy! For this price tag I would expect a to scal lasereched wood deck with all the edging for the huge amount of guns/fans/boxes etc.
Perhaps the aftermarket will develop some, but than again: price tag!
 
2. the stem is an even bigger no go: it is fat and round like the nose of a blue whale, while the real ship has had a razor-sharp cutwater! It would be an huge amount of work to correct the lines of the forward half of the model to went elegant into the needet sharp stem.
 
Again: just my opinion, and these two points might be of no interest for other builders!