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Nice, Andrew! I'm confident that you will do the remainder of this model justice, after which we will be able to say that you have well and truly arrived as a card modeler. Maybe HMV's Bremen will be next? 😉

Cheers!

No dowels, though plenty of plastic rod. I'm not ashamed to substitute other media for paper where appropriate.

Main gear are done.

Wow, that is an exceptional model! Congratulations!

4 hours ago, Johngr said:

it seems very detailed

It is! I have this one in my stash, and I also have an ~90% built SMS Emden sitting on a shelf (the infamous Shelf of Shame). The two kits are extremely similar, except for Undine's complete hull instead of a waterline hull. Both are worthy bearers of their sehr schwierig (very difficult) rating, but they are also exceptional in terms of detail and design.

If you'll look at post #5 in this thread, I discuss a technique I use to help straighten out the seams between deck structures and the deck, or between the structure and its roof.

I have built four of David's designs. Each is a little jewel (although some are by no means 'little').

Welcome aboard! That is a pretty diverse assemblage of models -- I look forward to seeing your progress with them.

I don't remember if this was an issue in my kit. If it was, I can't remember how I dealt with it.

You're not wasting any time on this. Wasn't this kit released, like, yesterday?? 😉

All glued up! Putting all the parts together reminded me of my fisheries work days when we used to regularly visit a hatchery that had crisscrossing lines suspended at different heights over the raceways full of fingerling tout and salmon -- the crossing lines supposedly played havoc with the depth perception of the local kingfishers. Well, these crisscrossing rods and struts definitely messed with my depth perception as well!

I won't place any weight on the struts until the glue has cured for 24 hours.

Hello, Swinging the Lead. May I suggest you create a separate build log for your model? I'm sure our members would enjoy seeing your work.

Dry run -- will wait until I have more time to do the real gluing.

More work on the gear . . .

If I counted correctly, each gear mechanism will have 33 parts when completed.

I see several other members have beaten me to the recommendation about the cannon. They are not period-correct. Amati's off-the-shelf swivel guns are not great, either.

Fairings, fairings, fairings . . .

First we have a couple of the flat parts, a bunch of partially shaped ones, and the scribing tool I used to help shape them.

Did you know that a Wildcat has eighteen underwing fairings in five different sizes? 😑

I strongly suspect that the rigging is not original to the model. Decorator models typically have rigging that is as fanciful as the rest of the piece. It looks to me like a previous owner re-rigged it and tried to make it somewhat more reflective of actual practice, although it is apparent that certain aspects of the model hindered his efforts, as can be seen, for example, with the stays at the mast tops.

Very nice, but a finished model should go in the gallery.

Lovely result! The lights look fantastic.

Well done! Congratulations!

That's coming along very nicely, Andrew! If it turns out that you are, in fact, short three benches, scratch-building some replacements should be relatively easy.

Moin, moin!

Welcome to MSW! I look forward to seeing some of your projects.

Cheers!

Outstanding -- a great improvement over the kit parts!

I see a Tamiya Matilda Mk. III on your shelf -- built one when I was a kid.

Looking very good!

I remember reading about von Werra when I was a kid.