rvchima

Matt, Thank you for the information about attaching the rudder. After a lot of searching online I found this photo of the rudder for the Ottar Viking ship replica in Roskilde, Denmark. It looks like you got the attachment right. I just attached my rudder and ran into the same problem that you did - once the deck is planked there is no way to attach the rudder pivot rope inside. I simply folded the rope in half, pushed it into the pivot button, and put a small nail through the button from the side to catch the rope. The third small line on your rudder would be for raising the rudder in shallow water or when beaching the ship. After removing the upper rope (leather band on the Ottar) and steering handle the rudder could be pivoted upwards. You made the right choice with the Amati kit. The Billings kit is 1:25 scale and is just too big. It's going to take up a lot of space in my house, and it doesn't have that much interesting detail for such a large model. Thanks again for the help. Rod

Hi Matt, Congratulations on a beautiful model! Did you really complete it in less than 2 months, or was that just when you posted to your log? I am building the Billings Osberg kit and your log has been a big help to me. I have really been puzzling over the attachment of the rudder. Everything I've seen shows a leather strap around the top, which would allow the rudder to turn, but a pin through the blade and hull which would prevent it from turning. You used a rope between the blade and hull, which makes sense. Did the Amati instructions show that or did you find another reference? Many thanks. Rod

Jack, I don't know if you're still out there, but I just wanted to thank you for your awesome build log on the Billings Oseberg Viking Ship. I am just starting on the same, and have gone through your log completely and taken notes on everything that I will need to address. You said that you built your model for The Admiral. My wife writes young adult fantasy novels (search for Cinda Chima on Amazon). Her next book is about Viking witches, so she definitely needs a Viking longboat. The book won't be out for a year so I have plenty of time. Thanks again for all the work that you put into your log, and congratulations on a beautiful model. Regards, Rod Chima

Fun with Photoshop Aerial view of the Prinz Eugen. Those red markings are just screaming to the Luftwaffe, "I'm German. Don't bomb me!" Dazzle camouflage in the fog. Which way is he going?

Q: What's Black and White and Red All Over? A: The Prinz Eugen in it's 1941 Baltic Camouflage! My Prinz Eugen model is complete! I've been very busy since my last post. Here's what I've done. Finished and attached all 8 ship's boats. Attached all the superstructure components. Attached dozens of smaller plastic components. Built some custom vents that go around the B turret, and found and attached a ship's bell. Rigged miles of antenna wires with EZ line. Here are some photos of the completed model. You can barely see some of the vent shafts around the second turret. Here are some of the 8 boats and the Arado 196 on the catapult. The ship's bell is hanging on the rear mast. I would not like to see this view in person! The Pontos props were worth their weight in gold. That's about how much the accessory kit cost anyway. And see, I really did install the aft anchor. The stern looks a lot like the bow. I rigged the antenna lines with EZ line. It's an elastic polymer thread that supposedly can stretch up to 7x it's original length. You can get it on Amazon but it's a lot cheaper on eBay from Burbank House of Hobbies. I bought the thick, 0.5 mm material but it still seems quite thin. I rigged the triple antennas first using tiny PE Delta-shaped fittings from the Pontos kit, but I ended up throwing out two complete antennas before I got it right. The line tends to curl so it was hard to control while gluing it to the fitting. The instructions say to use a fresh bottle of thin CA, but I had a large bottle that I'd been nursing for a couple of years. I pulled a new bottle out of my freezer and man, what a difference! I found that I if I licked the EZ line it would stick to a piece of wax paper. Then I dipped the PE part in the new CA and touched it to the line. Voila, instant attachment. The only trouble with the EZ line is that the lead wires from the antennas to the ship tend to bend the antennas. In a couple of places I used thread for the antennas to help keep them straight. I am concerned that the rigging might become brittle with age. Please let me know if you've had any long-term experience with EZ line. The Aeronaut plans were pretty worthless for rigging. One side view shows some rigging but you can't tell if you're seeing a single antenna or several side-by-side. Instead, I used The German Heavy Cruiser Prinz Eugen by Waldemar Goralski for most of the rigging. To be honest, I took some liberties with the rigging and left out a few lead wires. You'd never do this with thread rigging! I made a nice base out of quarter-sawn white oak. I bought the brass pedstals from Bluejacket Shipcrafters. The model should probably be in a case but you can only have so many big cases laying around your house. I'll probably put the model on top of a bookcase somewhere.

I am truly amazed - I had no idea that kits like this existed. Your meticulous work is just perfect, and it's only taken 14 months so far. I'll follow along to see the finished model.

Toy Boats The Prinz Eugen carried 8 small boats on board, and the Aeronaut kit had ready-made plastic models of each. In fact my kit had 9 boats, but I think that one was a mistake. You should always wash plastic parts before painting to clean off any residual mold release. I think I'll just play with the boats like this for a while. So far I have completely ignored the ships boats. When I looked at the plans I found that 6 of them were on racks on deck 2, right where my railings were. So time to construct some racks and deconstruct some railings. This rack holds 2 boats. This rack holds 1 boat. The boats look pretty dirty close up. That was another good reason to wash them. Those racks are duplicated on each side, accounting for 6/8 boats. The remaining 2 boats hang from davits. As usual, there is nothing in the kit for the davits so I soldered a pair up out of brass. Spent a few hours today painting toy boats.

Railings The Aeronaut kit came with 14 pieces of prefab railings, each 250 mm long. I knew that would not be enough but I wasn't sure how much I would need, so I avoided using it for miscellaneous railings. The 14 pieces circled the 1st deck completely and finished the second deck with inches to spare. One deck to go. A couple of stores in England sell the prefab railings but I was in a hurry, so I made my own using the brass stanchions and music wire included in the kit. I decided to use a shorter double railing on the 3rd deck, so I cut the 3-hole stanchions down a notch and sanded them smooth. I made this jig to solder the railings together.

Dazzling I bit the bullet and painted the dazzle camouflage. It took a full day to mask and paint each of the diagonal stripes. I stacked all the components with 3-M double-sided tape to hold them in alignment. I made a skinny pencil by gluing a bit of pencil lead in a 1mm brass tube. Then I used a thin ruler and my skinny pencil to mark the diagonal. Very difficult to keep the pencil perpendicular to the ruler as it stepped over each layer of the superstructure. Lots of Tamiya masking tape and several hours later I was ready to paint each stripe - by hand. I also painted the tops of the turrets red. They were painted red briefly for recognition by German aircraft. I didn't realize that this overview photo was so grainy until now. I'll try to get a better image later. Here are some other shots that look better. Forward superstructure Funnel Aft superstructure and mast Aft end with painted turrets All the components are stacked temporarily in position. I have been adding railings to the second and third levels. More on that in the next post.

Hi Yves, Welcome to the build log. It's a little short on detail but I wanted to get some information out there about the Aeronaut kits. And thank you for the the welcome to Asheville. Our son lives in Apex so I am very familiar with the Raleigh area. I am always interested in finding new shops, shows, or museums related to aircraft or ships. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. Rod

Oops, I Put the Platform on Backwards I've been standing the mast on top of the plans for a month and just realized that I installed the lower platform backwards. So how to fix it? I broke off 3 triangular gussets on the bottom, then gently twisted the platform until it broke loose. Cleaned up the glue, rotated the platform, glued everything back together, and touched up the paint. 15 minutes tops. And while I was fixing things I installed the rear anchor. Well, you can't see the anchor, but it's there.

Catapult and Arado 196 Floatplane I spent a full day building the brass aircraft stand that comes with the Pontos detail kit. They actually give you enough parts to build 4 of them although you only need 1. Good thing because I screwed up 2 1/2 of them before I settled on this one. Then I built the catapult (from scratch) and the Arado 196 floatplane (came with the Aeronaut kit). Hey! what happened to my aircraft stand? The real catapult rail is about 15 m long and the catapult launch speed is 130 km/hr. I did some quick calculations that show that the pilot would pull 4.3 g's at takeoff, about the same as an F-18 pilot on a modern carrier. Must have been quite a ride!

Bob, 1. Put a coat of primer on everything. Sand and touch up as necessary. 2. Paint the white stripe at the waterline. When it's good and dry, mask it off with high quality modelers masking tape. I like the Tamiya brand. Rub the edges thoroughly with a toothpick, then paint both edges of the tape with white to seal it. 3. Mask off above the waterline and paint the green below. If you're very confident of your airbrush skills you could skip the masking part, but I wouldn't. 4. Mask off the green, remove the tape above the water line, and paint the black. 5. Say a little prayer and remove the tape. Rod

Nelson, Could you post a photo of your porthole? I'd love to see it. Rod

References Since the Aeronaut plans show very little detail, I've searched online for anything I could find on the Prinz Eugen. Ironically, the main thing that comes up is this scantly-clad anime character named Prinz Eugen, from a side-scrolling shoot-em-up game called Azur Lane. It's set in an alternate timeline of WWII where the characters are anthropomorphic versions of WWII warships. Enough said about that. The German Heavy Cruiser Prinz Eugen by Waldemar Goralski is the best reference I could find for the model builder. It has 27 pages of detailed B&W line drawings of every part of the ship. The Heavy Cruiser Prinz Eugen, also by Waldemar Goralski, has an eight-page history of the ship and about 80 pages of color images of various parts of the ship. Mr. Goralski must have an amazing CAD model of the ship. It takes a while to find the view that you need, but the images can be very helpful. The last 8-10 pages are 3-D images that require Red-Blue glasses. They're fun but less useful for reference. Admiral Hipper Class Cruisers by Steve Backer has a little bit of everything - history, B&W photos, reviews of plastic models, photos of completed models, and camouflage patterns for 5 ships. 64 pages. This is the book that got me searching for a photo-etched detail kit. Warship Pictorial Kriegsmarine Prinz Eugen by Steve Wiper has a brief history of the ship and 74 pages of interesting B&W photos. Heavy Cruisers of the Admiral Hipper Class by Gerhard Koop and Klaus-Peter Schmolke is more of a reference book. At 205 pages it has a chapter on each of the five Admiral Hipper class ships, with technical specs, photos, and a few detail drawings.

Not at all! The photos are fascinating. Is that you sitting between the props?

I have also been away for too long. I am so pleased to see your completed Endeavour model. It is absolutely beautiful! Your attention to every little detail make for an outstanding model. Congratulations. Last November and early December my wife and I took a cruise down the east coast of New Zealand and over to Tasmania, Melbourne, and Sydney. I was so hoping to see the Endeavour replica in Sydney harbor, but I learned that it was on a tour of New Zealand for the 250th anniversary of Cook's voyage. Our cruise ship and the Endeavour replica were in the same ports on almost the same days. We probably passed each other one night, but I never saw her. However, I got to talking to a young man in the San Francisco airport who had just sailed on a leg of the Endeavour's tour. He had hundreds of photos on his phone and I saw them all.

I just got back to MSW after a long absence. Your Perseverance model is beautiful! I love the natural wood. Keep up the good work.

Painted Parts

Funnel The funnel is laminated from two pieces of 12 mm limewood carved to shape, with lots of little pieces added later. The Pontos detail kit had a brass ring and about 45 individual pipes in three diameters for the top of the funnel. The detail kit is made for the Bismarck but it fit the Prinz Eugen perfectly. Whew! Various books show many handrails around the funnel. I only added three - enough to give the impression of detail while keeping my sanity. The Pontos box shows a complicated brass grid across the top of the funnel, but the kit does not seem to have those parts. I made a simpler grid from thin wood strips. The view in this photo is odd and my grid is actually aligned with the funnel.

Doors & Louvers I added the doors and louvers from the Pontos detail kit. The louvers were very difficult to make. They comprise a backing plate about the size of your little fingernail, tiny sawtooth rails that have to be bent 90 degrees, and 9 individual slats. They look sloppy here but I got pretty good at them by the last one. The heavy grid came with the kit in a long strip. I don't know what it's supposed to be but it resembles the drawings.

Deck & Rails I glued the deck into the hull using E6000 cement. It's smells like a dry cleaning shop but it has a fairly long working time and makes a strong bond. It took a lot of clamps to hold everything together. Isn't my workbench colorful? Then I attached those railings and anchor chains that I blackened earlier. There was a tiny gap, < 1mm, between the deck and hull in most places so I just put a spot of epoxy on the railing stanchions and pushed them into the gap. The railing conveniently hides the gap. Pure luck. The kit came with some oval shaped eyelets (grommets?) for the anchor chains, but the chain wouldn't fit. I used some black eyelets instead. I made the breakwater on the bow from scraps. Mid deck with cranes temporarily in place. Aft deck. After the Prinz Eugen was torpedoed, a blunt stern was welded with twin rudders operated by the crew turning a capstan on deck. Capstan? Oh no, I forgot the aft anchor! I wondered why the kit had an extra capstan and anchor. I'll have to add those later.

Mast The Germans expected their cruisers to be way out in the Atlantic raiding convoys, so they had very tall masts and lots of antennas for communication. Instead the ships spent a lot of time in Norway where the tall masts weren't as important. The mast was fun to build. I started with a large diameter dowel, spun it in my drill press at top speed, and sanded the three sections to smaller and smaller diameters. Five minutes, tops. That's how I make masts and yards for sailing ships. The antennas are brass rod, soldered in a few places. There is a brass ladder up to the first platform. The other platforms should probably have ladders and rails too, but I think I'll just skip those details. The rectangular block is the aircraft hanger. The plane will sit on top of it. The large block was pre-cut, but the grain goes side-to side. I just painted it and the grain is too obvious, so I filled it with wood filler and will have to repaint. I probably should have sanded those X-pieces better before assembly.

Painting Little Parts I recently took a break from building and decided to paint a bunch of the plastic parts instead. Here's a photo of my work bench and about 25 plastic parts. I started with a coat of Tamiya white primer from a rattle can, then used an Iwata air brush to spray the parts with AK International acrylic, color AK734, Dunkelgrau 51. I had one 17 ml bottle of paint and had trouble finding more anywhere online. Eventually I ordered 5 bottles from 3 different companies. Now it looks like I will enough left over to paint a (real) battleship. Here are the painted parts. The kit came with 9 sets of stairs that look OK until you realize that the steps would be knee high at 1:200 scale. I had hoped that the Pontos detail kit might have some scale stairs. It has 4 sets, not nearly enough. I'm using the plastic ones. Rails & Chains As I've mentioned, the Aeronaut kit comes with 14 lengths of nicely made rails. There are 2 problems, 1. they're silver, and 2. they're as tall as person at 1:200 scale. The Pontos detail kit has lots railing stanchions that would be about chest high at scale, but the pieces are microscopic and I don't want to deal with hundreds of them. So now my deck planks, my stairs, and my railings are way off scale, but no one will ever know except you and me. The Aeronaut kit also comes with 2 sizes of brass chains for the anchors and anchor hold downs. The links are probably way off scale too but I just don't care anymore. I blackened the rails and chains using Novocan black patina for stained glass, another hobby of mine. Hard to tell, but the top 2 rails are black and the bottom 2 are silver.

Forward Superstructure & Bridge The kit came with wooden blocks to carve for the forward superstructure, but the main block was crushed. I used a balsa block and attached the various bridge pieces. The drawings show railings, doors, portholes and windows, but there is nothing in the kit to use for those things. I used thin sheet brass for the railings, eyelets for the portholes, and cut card stock for the windows. I had some photo etched brass doors left over from my Arleigh Burke build and attached them. I really wanted to see something completed so I glued everything together. Big mistake. I should have filled the balsa grain and painted everything before assembly. The kit comes with 14 very nice pieces of pre-made railings but I wasn't sure if there was enough for all the little fiddly pieces. More on that later. It also includes a bag of brass railing stanchions and I used those here. I have experimented with thread and several kinds of wire for the railings and am not totally satisfied with any of them. I primed the tower with dark gray spray paint. Here you can also see sheet brass rails on the lower deck. The drawings show lots of louvered air vents all over the ship. I tried to make some using thin balsa strips glued to card stock. Not bad but could be better. The plastic modeling industry has some beautiful battleship models with very complex add-on detail kits. I couldn't find anything for the Prinz Eugen at 1:200 scale, but Pontos Models from Korea has an accessory kit for the Bismarck at 1:200. It looked like a lot of the parts would fit my model so I took a chance and ordered the kit on eBay from https://www.bnamodelworld.com/ in Australia. Their price beat anything in the US and they shipped immediately. Then, because of the pandemic, the box sat in customs in Melbourne for almost a month. Very frustrating but I got it. Pontos 1:200 Detail kit for the Bismark The detail kit is nicely packaged - much nicer than the Aeronaut kit. The kit has five sheets of photo etched parts. Four are brass and include pipes, funnel parts, holders for the ships boats, doors, windows, and louvers. One sheet is some silver metal and includes stanchions for the railings, oars for the ships boats, and antenna pieces. The kit has a bag of parts for the funnel, another bag of parts for the paravanes, and three props. Two of the props turn one direction and one the other way. I attached the props first.