RGL

Thanks. 

Fore mast and bridge, slow progress 

It’s about the same as the Pontos Dreadnought I think and priced about the same. You’ll love it Carl. 

None of this is glued down yet, the deck appears to keep popping up.

The bridge is next. 

Then the deck features, then figure out the deck rigging for the nets. 

The rear or main mast section

Jan, this is the size of the Big guns 

Big guns finished

Ok, funnel and crane section finished. 

The Lino is actually the correct colour, but I’m going to have to overspray the funnel again to lighten it up. 

No,the limo is sprayed. I tried to use three shades of red. I’m thinking of using another layer of red on the aft funnel. 

Main superstructures are now painted, a quick dryfit. I can now start hand painting and weathering then rigging. 

The guns are done just need weathering. 

Love this build. It’s such a lovely ship and you’re doing is justice! 

The aft funnel originally has two white bands added for identification, they were painted over as the war began but left in place. I replicated this with tape. 

The aft funnel was painted red when away away from the shore to identify her in the battle line then repainted grey when it came back to port. I’m going to leave it red because I can. I’ve added a platform not mentioned anywhere but the original photos and I’ll add a small brass steam whistle. 

At the start of the build I bought Gary Staff’s German Battlecruisers Of WW1.

it has a fantastic history and reference photos but very limited on painting. 

This reference http://german-navy.tripod.com/sms_paint-overview.htm really points out correct colours, thus I need to repaint the top of the turrets jet black but with no circles as that didn’t come till 1917 when the torpedo nets were already removed. 

You’re welcome, remember my erstwhile friends will PSO be adding their interpretations. 

Ive preshaded the guns and superstructures, added a German red/brown Linoleum and finished painting the railings which are the only full metal ones on the ship, the rest are stanchions. 

Ive replaced all the kit searchlights with North Star ones as they are beautiful. 

I use a rattle can for primer on metal as it sticks really well. I used to do it all by can and brush now it’s mainly airbrush as it is such a scalpel. You can do so much with it and only uses a tiny amount of paint. 

I would only paint a really big piece of metal on the fret if it didn’t need to be bent. My dreadnought was all rattle can.

Main guns, the aftermarket provides resin blast bags, barrels and metal backs. 

And the paint cue

The main mast. I’ve bent all the railings and ladders, I’ve a couple of little bits to do then I can move to painting again. These are very heavily rigged so I need to figure out a lot of belaying points. 

Aftermarket Pat. The grey bit is kit but the rest is Infini models. 

If you, per chance, look at the photos of the PE sheets then the instructions you can pretty easily figure out what you could scratch build quite easily for a man of your talents. 

Main funnel and cranes.

The kit comes with its own PE, the dimples are for those. The Infini also has the handrails. There is a real art is putting them on and then adding a drop of glue. I usually put them in a stick with blue tack on them then put them on a stick and let it sit horizontally. 

The other option is to put evenly spaced rings and place wire through it. 

The crows nest is quite hard but also somewhat inaccurate. This photo is only accurate as to how it’s supposed to actually look (the crows nest itself). 

Starting on the bridge, formast and fore funnel 

Too big for the ship? Or wrong gun? Did you mean to do the quad vickers 

You’ve inspired me, I was in a hobby shop the other day and bought the old Tamiya kit of the Fletcher 

Nearly there!