Theodosius

A lot of dust around here, lol :-). Well, what can I say? Life with massive healthy problems, always low on energy and power, but I managed to do some wokr on this build lastly :-). @BenD the red tips of the guns was an idear from Siggis famous Tiger scratch build and not from me :-). Guns. Full rig or not, the usual question. Well, I found out quite quickly, that I would not have much fun doin more than the the wire for the recoil. As usual, build a small jig, and rig em all up. I was inspired by the great wor of @DavidEN's Diana :-). The hull is now finished, bar the tender. The boomkins are removable at this point, as was suggested by James. I realy like the lines of this small vessel :-).

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'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!

It's phantastic, what you can do with this kit 🙂

Cool project! 🙂

That's a cool addition! Grat! 🙂

I hope you find a good solution and you will continue soon your fine build of Sphinx! 🙂

If you are interested in this, here is a link where they were discussing the radar in more detail: Tirpitz' Radar - Page 3 - Naval History Forums (kbismarck.org)

I build the Nichimo Yamato some decades ago as an RC ship: On the water, this are scanned analog photos, so no good quality Sold it some years ago because of storage and dispaly problems, but nevertheless, this was an impressive model. Can't wait to see the build logs of the new and improved trumpeter one 🙂

Lovely! This is also one of these logs, that make me want to build wooden ship models! 🙂

Such a great work! I mean, even in the macros, everything is clear and sharp!

Amazing!

Congrats for finishing your first wooden model ship! It's looking amazing! In fakt, it would also be great, if it would be your 10th model! 🙂

Impressive ship and model! 🙂

A joy to watch your progress! I especcialy like how you do the rig, just one storey after the other 🙂

nice work on the deck! And thanks for the hint with the topgallant masts. This will be usefull, when I arrive at this point too! 🙂

Thank you all visitors for leaving a thumbs up here! 🙂 @Katsumoto: thank's a lot! I love your carvings and your 'how-to's' in your log! Thanks for all your work! I like the colours too, great design and colour choice by Chris! I think that I just went to far with that much blue, but I solved this in this episode! @Blue Ensign: thank you very much! But I'm afraid, it's the pictures that hide a lot of the problem-zones :-). The first blocks on the ship: I buyed the additional perwood ladders and gratings. In retrospective I should have bought them together with the kit, but then I was'nt so sure, that this whole adventure will turn out that well :-). I know, the forward-ladder is a little bit too high, but, after I lost it three times inside the hull (I had to build me some kind of a wooden-hook to get it out again, lol), I was hapy the way it is now. I can't become friend with my blue colour at the stem, so painted it all black butt the decorations in the hair brackets, frames and bow rails: Slowly I ran out of excuses for not deciding what to do with the guns 🙂

Nice to see you back on track :-). Perhaps you might want to share some pictures of your build with us, too? 🙂

Another interesting log to sphinx at 🙂

Your model become very attractive, and I'm sure, that I will steal that shellac-magic-idear 🙂 !

I'm with Blue Ensign: good idear with one improved side kick boat, and let enough space to see all the work on the main deck. But then a whole stack of boats has also something for itself, so, no wrong way here, but again: I like your improved small boat very much 🙂

Thank you all for your thumbs up, allways a very good motivation to go further :-). @Dave B: thank's a lot! I had some issues with the WOP I tested in that way, that it does'nt cover the parts very well, where I needed to use wood-filler. But that may be a problem of the brand I tryed. In the end I used shellack on the part above the wales, and pure linseed oil downwards. The shellack is lighter and the linseed oil darkens the wood a little bit more. In the meantinme I started with eyebolts and such stuff according to the plans. I also managed to build the first dead eyes. Nothing special here, but for me it was not so easy to bend the metal rings in a way, that the dead eyes would fit nicly in there, and then bend them back in a straight line. Well, no one will see that on the finished modell, I guess. As was mentined in the other build logs, I fit a dowl in the holes for the masts, mark the hights of the lines as per the plans, use a line top down and draw a line on the wales, where to drew the holes. Hell, those macros have no mercy, lol 🙂

Your launch turned out very well and adds a lot to Speedy itself 🙂

Again, thank you all very much for your thumbs up! 🙂 @Thukydides: hope you also feeling better, this covid is no fun at all. I don't want to know how hard it would have hit me, if I had'nt three antidots(?). @BobG: thank's man, much appreciated! 🙂 Finished the guns, still not decided if, and how much, of a rigging I will do with them. I tinkered with shadowing/highlighting etc, what Thukydides had also suggested to do. And Thukydides Alert look phantastic with his paint job! Well, I stoped half way through and in fact, tuned it down again. Not because I would not liked it, in fact, it looked prety good to me, but then it was not in line with the rest of the boat, where I had gone for just a 'clean' look. So, only two possibilitys here for me: less on the guns, or do it on the whole modell. Well, again, I went for the easy way and tuned the guns back down. But I still like it overall:

Ui, thank you all so much for your thumbs up! So much appreciated! 🙂 I'm still fighting with a covid infection, but I think the worst is behind me :-). Building more of all the deck furniture, the chain plates and started with the guns. Most of the parts are still not glued, I think, it might be easyier to install the guns first: