Dan Vadas

I had planned to make the roof removable to show off the interior, but it turns out I can't. So I decided to make the four hatches with working hinges so some of the interior will be visible. Here are the first two - they work perfectly :





 
Danny

Maybe. I'll have to actually install the barrel and then make some modifications to the elevation pivot if needed.
 
Now we're really getting ridiculous. These are by far the smallest diameter tubes I've ever had to roll - a mere 0.6mm in diameter. They are the handles for control wheels, and are rolled around a 0.4mm drill bit (a 1.0mm drill bit is shown for comparison). The second pic is of three sizes of tube for the gunsight assembly, with the largest being 1.5mm diameter :


 
The gunsight and gunner's seat completed and glued in place :


 
More pieces of the breech fitted, including the catch basket for expended shells :


 
Danny

The main gun assembly was particularly difficult to work out due to the VERY poor instructions. I'm not at all happy with the effort, or rather lack thereof, that GPM put into these. Why on earth would they bother "detailing" how to assemble a bucket, axe and German helmet for instance, but show only a very basic drawing of the really complex assemblies? Makes my blood boil 🤬.
 
Not to worry, I eventually worked it all out . The pics below are of the breech and the elevation/sweep support bracket. I've managed to make it work both ways. I used a piece of 3mm PVC tubing for the elevation pivot, as the kit probably didn't allow for this assembly to actually work :



 
This whole assembly, including the outer skin, is still only dry-fitted, there is quite a bit more work needed before I can permanently mount it :



 
Danny

The driver's seat :


 
The engine has a few details, most of which are completely hidden once it's fitted :



 
I found out a bit too late that I'd fitted the engine a bit too far toward the rear. There were no pics or diagrams anywhere in the instructions as to where it should have fitted . It SHOULD have been hard against the firewall. I had a fair bit of modification to do to the radiator later on to get it to fit :

 
The radiator and fans. The centres of the fan spindles took a bit of work :


 
No parts were supplied in the kit for these two exhaust pipes, so I made them from PVC tubing, heated with a hot air gun to get the bends. It took a few goes to get two pieces which looked the same and actually fitted :


 
My progress to date :

 
Danny

I needed to roll 28 small tubes, I'm not sure if they are supposed to be bolts, pins or whatever. The parts supplied in the kit were obviously wrong - the tubes are supposed to be 1.5mm diameter x 2.0mm long, but the kit parts were only 2.0mm square whereas a bit of very simple math comes up with a part that is 2.0mm x 4.8mm. I cut new parts from some left-over hull skin from Bismarck. The tubes were rolled around a 1.2mm drill bit :


 
The assembled drive mechanism fitted to the gearbox :



 
Danny

The Gearbox consists of about 40 parts. Here's a pic of some of them, the rest have already been put together :

 
There are even four bolt heads :

 
The finished box :


 
Danny

No plywood, that's the colour of the 1mm card. There is also laser-cut 0.5mm card in the kit for things like the decks and superstructure.
 
Hope you have fun with your Bismarck. I also hope they fixed the issue I had with the mis-matched colours of the main decks.
 
If you didn't get the laser-cut options I would STRONGLY recommend that you put the model on hold and order them.
 
Danny

I had planned to make the roof removable to show off the interior, but it turns out I can't. So I decided to make the four hatches with working hinges so some of the interior will be visible. Here are the first two - they work perfectly :





 
Danny

Thanks very much guys .
 
No, I've had enough of this model .
 
Well, this is it - Bismarck is FINISHED . Here are all the final pics - enjoy :






















 
Thanks to all those who followed this build, and especially those who commented. Now onto HMS Hood .
 
  Danny

I've fitted the one boat that sits on the davits. I used 0.2mm wire to simulate the lowering cable, and some 0.4mm wire for the support bracket that holds it to the middle of the davit :

 
All the railings are finally completed, apart from a bit of touch-up paint for the port side ones :





 
Because I was two lengths of railing short I've had to use a some that was left over from Amatsukaze. Unfortunately it's only a 2-bar rail, but I managed to have enough 3-bar to get to the aft cleats so I did a bit of a "fudge". Unless you look carefully it's not really noticeable, and it'll do me :

 
There's actually still quite a bit to do to finish this model, things I'd forgotten about. I'd left off fitting the portholes and steps to the hull in case they were damaged any time I had to move the model (which was a lot ). I've made a start to the steps - there are about 70 of them to fit. I'm using 0.2mm nickel-silver wire for them :


 
Yes, I've noticed the bit of grey touch-up paint needed near the bottom . It's not the only bit either.
 
  Danny

Thanks for the replies guys .
 
The four anchors are fitted. I used 15 link-per-inch chain for the main ones, and 40 lpi for the auxilliary chain on the foremost one. The rather poor quality printing really stands out in the different red colours, and that panel didn't line up properly either . More touch-up will be needed :




 
I've also made the fore and aft flagpoles from 1.0mm and 0.6mm brass wire :


 
Now i'm onto the railing for the main deck. This should take me a couple of days - there's over 2.5 metres of it .
 
  Danny

Most of the smaller main deck details are now fitted. The rest will be done after the main deck railing is installed. The main guns are also permanently mounted :






 
The Wash Deflectors took a while to fit, with all the very small support braces taking the longest :


 
  Danny

The last "major" pieces before I fit all the small details to the main deck, the four 20mm single guns :

 
Here are a couple of pics of the main deck before I start fitting the details. The main turrets will be fitted after this work is completed, then on to the main deck railings :



 
With the end in sight a welcome delivery came today :

 
  Danny

Correct Popeye (for the time being at least ). Here's my next model - another Card one from Halinski. HMS Hood :
 


 
I'm not really interested in building a plastic model Yves, too much painting involved. I really don't like painting any more than is necessary.
 
Moving right along. There are only two Davits supplied in the kit, so that's all that is going on. Quite difficult to cut out without distortion, but I managed it :


 
There are also 7 Paravanes. These are a lot smaller than the ones on Amatsukaze, so there isn't as much detail. Also no PE for them :


 
Making to nose cones for them looked impossible at first - they are tiny. They turned out to be surprisingly easy, once I de-laminated the card into about 1/3 thickness. I used my pointed taper tool :

 
Ready to mount, after I make the support brackets from 0.2mm wire. The overly dark Pitt Pen touch-up will fade to a lighter grey in time :

 
  Danny
 

Thanks guys .
 
Well, after all that extra work designing the pieces for the barrel boots ..... I discovered they were on the last Part Sheet WITHOUT PART NUMBERS. So naturally I missed them. They also weren't shown in the (almost) useless construction diagrams .
 
Here's another one of many examples of the lack of thought that went into the design of this kit. The overlapping sections on the needlessly double-thickness parts are so close together that it's very difficult to separate them without distorting or otherwise damaging the pieces. Of course, there was at least 20mm of blank paper between them and surrounding pieces on the sheet. Thank God that I'm nearly finished - I'm really starting to HATE this kit :
 

 
Anyway, rant over .
 
If you've been wondering where I've been for the last few days - here's the answer. Making heaps of small detail parts to finish off the main deck before permanently installing the main guns. A lot of these parts would be more difficult to fit later on :




 
I think these are Water Cannons?


 
The four Anchors. These again were laid out in similar fashion to the parts above - almost touching in fact. They were also single-thickness paper in the kit - I tripled them in thickness prior to cutting them out :

 
Here's a handy tip for picking up parts that are too small and/or fiddly for fingers or even tweezers. Cut an angle on the end of a toothpick, lick it and stick it :

 
I had to roll a lot of small tubes for the Bollards. These were of a diameter where none of my brass or plastic tubing was the right size ID to hold them until the glue dried. I solved the problem by using an undersized piece of PVC tubing, cutting a slot down the length, squeezing it onto the correct size Number Drill and applying heat with my heat gun. The tubing stayed at the right diameter, and making the pieces was a piece of cake :



 
I still have quite a few more small pieces to make, including four more 50mm PE guns, so I'll be back when I have more progress to show.
 
  Danny

Thanks very much Popeye, Bernie (welcome back ) and Yves. Much appreciated. Yves, I'll take a pic of me holding Bismarck a bit later.
 
Construction of the Main Guns begins with the usual inadequate kit-supplied framing, to which I've added a lot of extra card :


 
One of the turrets skinned. I've modified these to swivel as well :

 
There are 12 vents of varying widths that fit to the two higher turret bases. Here are a few pics of there construction :




 
The vents fitted to one of the bases :

 
One of the turrets with the gun barrels fitted :

 
I've made "boots" in a similar fashion to the ones I made for the 150mm guns :


 
Turret "Caesar" temporarily sitting in position on the deck. I've also painted the boots :

 
  Danny

Hull faired. Yes, the work goes quickly because it is such a small model. None of that knocking together a 1st rate POF hull over a course of years, no siree!
 

No plywood, that's the colour of the 1mm card. There is also laser-cut 0.5mm card in the kit for things like the decks and superstructure.
 
Hope you have fun with your Bismarck. I also hope they fixed the issue I had with the mis-matched colours of the main decks.
 
If you didn't get the laser-cut options I would STRONGLY recommend that you put the model on hold and order them.
 
Danny

I had planned to make the roof removable to show off the interior, but it turns out I can't. So I decided to make the four hatches with working hinges so some of the interior will be visible. Here are the first two - they work perfectly :





 
Danny

I had planned to make the roof removable to show off the interior, but it turns out I can't. So I decided to make the four hatches with working hinges so some of the interior will be visible. Here are the first two - they work perfectly :





 
Danny

I had planned to make the roof removable to show off the interior, but it turns out I can't. So I decided to make the four hatches with working hinges so some of the interior will be visible. Here are the first two - they work perfectly :





 
Danny

I had planned to make the roof removable to show off the interior, but it turns out I can't. So I decided to make the four hatches with working hinges so some of the interior will be visible. Here are the first two - they work perfectly :





 
Danny

I had planned to make the roof removable to show off the interior, but it turns out I can't. So I decided to make the four hatches with working hinges so some of the interior will be visible. Here are the first two - they work perfectly :





 
Danny

I had planned to make the roof removable to show off the interior, but it turns out I can't. So I decided to make the four hatches with working hinges so some of the interior will be visible. Here are the first two - they work perfectly :





 
Danny

I had planned to make the roof removable to show off the interior, but it turns out I can't. So I decided to make the four hatches with working hinges so some of the interior will be visible. Here are the first two - they work perfectly :





 
Danny