rvchima
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Everything posted by rvchima
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You need to hide a little treasure inside for some conservator to find 200 years hence. -
I have been making my own pick-up-sticks using 3-M double-sided tape and whatever size wood sticks I need. I cut off a sliver of tape, attach it to a stick, say 1/16" x 1/8" or 1/8" square, and use that to position pieces. The tape only lasts for 3-4 pieces but it only takes a few seconds to replace it. I've been using the same roll for years.
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Harry, I've been away from home for 10 days or so, and I got behind on your log. First of all I am so sorry to hear that you had to deal with Covid. I thought that NZ handled the pandemic much better than we did here, and am surprised that you ran into it. I hope that you are OK. Second, beautiful work on the cladding! I really struggled fitting the PE into those round gun ports. Some of my doors in the PE don't line up with the doors in the plastic. Yours look perfect. Rod
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Upper Fore-deck Bits and Pieces I've been away from home for about 10 days but am back to the Bismarck. The instructions have you adding all the fiddley bits one deck at a time, and I just finished the upper fore-decks. Here's a photo of the miscellaneous bits after painting. The PE flying bridges were a bit of work to make, and many of the tiny plastic pieces have a couple of even smaller PE pieces to attach. Here's where they all go: and here's the same view after everything is attached:
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Harry, I epoxied my boats in place, then lashed them with 0.4 mm waxed black thread left over from a sailing ship. That thread pulls easily through wood blocks but is quite difficult to pull through PE with its sharp edges. You might try a slightly smaller diameter. My kit came with a large spool of very thin black monofilament line. I attached a couple of pieces to the rear mast earlier as per the instructions. The line is so "springy" that it was very difficult to tie, but I think it will be perfect for main deck railings. The jury is still out on all the antennas and other upper rigging. EZline worked well on my Prinz Eugen but I am concerned that it will be brittle in a few years. Does anyone out there have experience with it long-term?
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Thanks Joe. That box seems too small for the 16" shells. Would it be for other ammunition? There was another device called an ammunition elevator on an upper deck, probably for AA guns. I commented on it on ted99's log because it was a pain to build.
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Very interesting! It's too late for me but it might help someone else if you could post a drawing for the jig.
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Breakage Ratio 0.36 It's so frustrating. While carefully lashing down the boats I'd hear "boink," as a part that I installed weeks ago fell to the deck. All-in-all I installed 11 boats and broke off 2 rails, one gun barrel, and the entire platform holding the rear mast. Breakage ratio = 4/11 = 0.36. I have to be more careful. Now that everything is repaired, here are the boats in place. I installed the cranes too by gluing a piece of aluminum tubing over a pin on the bottom, and fitting that to a hole in the deck. They can be turned and removed. While I was fixing things I also resized the part that interfered with Bruno turret. I sanded about half of the thickness off the back with a disk sander, reattached and repainted it. Now Bruno turns as he should.
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Ship's boats, 395 hours, 174 days I looked ahead in the instructions and there are about 12 more pages of fiddly bits to go 🤪. Harry (hof00) seemed to enjoy building the ship's boats so I decided to jump ahead and give them a go. There are 11 boats, all one-piece molded plastic with lots of PE. Lots of spraying, masking, spraying, masking, hand painting, attaching tiny parts, more hand painting, and touch up. Here's the whole lot. There are three basic designs, 3 motor/officer's launches. Note that each boat has a tiny wheel and a prop. The prop is about 2 mm in diameter and has a hole about the size of a human hair. The instructions say to "enlarge the hole in the centre of the propeller if necessary." The holes have to be enlarged to about .45 mm. Luckily I thought to drill them before removing them from the fret, because I don't know how I could have held them otherwise. Four "connection" motor boats. I don't know what that means. Four simple boats stacked in 2 pairs. Plastic hulls and PE painted separately. These were easy. I have all the lifeboat racks built so I will install the lifeboats next.
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First of all, I love the photos with all of the PE pieces laying around on the black background. It looks like you took a fire cracker to your model like we all did when we were kids. Second, I don't know what those things are either, but they are a pain to deal with and just hang off into space on the finished tower. You could consider just gluing them down. Finally, your jig for the lifeboat racks is brilliant! I wish that you had gone first so I could copy. Now be careful not to bump those flimsy rails.
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Fiddly Bits Installed I spent a dozen tedious hours attaching all the fiddly bits described above. The model is starting to look like the Death Star from Star Wars. Turret Bruno impinges slightly on the platform behind it and won't quite turn around. I don't think I can fix it now, but other builders should keep an eye on that clearance.
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Joe100, Thank you for posting this fascinating information about the Bismarck. I think your illustrations are from the AOTS book, which I have but would never have noticed. I will add the decals for the GHG array but will not change the hull for the S-Anlage equipment. Maybe your post will catch the eye of a future builder.
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Joe, I almost overlooked your post. I'm glad that you're enjoying the build. This is such a nice kit that I am surprised that there aren't more folks building it. Amati does include a small decal set labeled Sound Locator System. It looks like an upside down U made of rows of small black dots. One of the last items in the instructions is to place these decals near the keel below the false bow wave. Would this be the GHG microphone array that you mentioned?
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Those supports on the side of the funnel are really hard. Congrats on completing that bit. Rod
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Fiddly Bits I spent the last couple of days building a LOT of miscellaneous deck fittings. I believe that the Brits call them "fiddley bits," which I think is a most appropriate term. Please correct my English if I am wrong. 8 3.7 cm AA guns 5 random hatches 10 2 cm AA guns 3 vents 9 lockers 12 vents 14 life rings (wire rings painted white) 2 breakwaters 3 accommodation ladders 8 spare gun barrels I just sprayed everything. Tomorrow I get to glue all this stuff on the deck
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Frank Lloyd Wright Unity Temple I just returned from a month in beautiful Sanibel, Florida. While I was there I completed this model of Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois. It Is a beautiful little kit and kept me busy for a few weeks. It would fit on the deck of my Bismarck (sans base.)
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Harry, I just measured a stanchion and it came out at 0.52 mm. I probably used a nominal 0.5 mm bit. Do you have a digital caliper? They are quite inexpensive and I use mine constantly. I bought a huge set of Chinese metric drill bits from Amazon. They came all jumbled together in the package. I measured them all and sorted them by approximate size. They were not at all what they were supposed to be, but I can usually find something close. I also have a set of precision bits that I use when the cheap ones don't fit. Rod
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Yves, Your coppering job on the hull is stunning. It certainly sets off that part of the model. I apologize for joining this thread a bit late, but another of my hobbies is stained glass so I have done a lot of work with copper foil. It will darken slowly with age, but probably never turn green. It may pick up fingerprints from the oils on your fingertips so be careful. You can use Lemon Pledge (or Future Floor) to protect the finish, but try it on a sample first. My Syren came with copper foil. I don't remember if it was 3M, but the 3M tape is the best. The excellent instructions by Chuck Passaro described how to make a stamping jig with a rivet pattern on it. It was difficult to make but worked perfectly. Here's a link to my post on the stamping process: I weathered my hull with a solution of vinegar and salt. I wiped it on with a rag, the copper turned green very quickly, rinsed with plain water on another rag, and wiped on Lemon Pledge. The patina has been stable for nine years. Try it on a sample and see what you think.
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Mine were laid out the same. There must be a problem with the image for the photo etch. I'm glad that yours are OK.
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Harry, The guns look just fine to me. They are parallel to the deck and to each other. When everything is painted they will look perfect. Rod
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Harry, I did have trouble fitting the plastic blast bags on the guns into the holes in the brass covering on the turrets - they were about 1 mm too wide on both both sets of guns. I sanded equal amounts of plastic off each side. I think I used my oscillating sander, but it wasn't too hard. I also had to open up the holes in the wooden turret structure with a drill bit to get the pins on the blast bags to fit. Again not too hard.
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Harry, Your paint job on the hull is excellent! It makes a huge difference in how the model looks, and, I am sure, how you feel about it.
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