rvchima

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.
 

Bob, there are lots of ways to skin a cat but if it were my project, I would paint the hull white. When dry, I would mask off the white stripe. Then paint the black and aqua color  take off the masking and you are done. Just my two cents worth. 

Hi All,
Pls see my finished photos. The model is supposed to be of the museum type i.e it exists primarily to explain what was where. Thus the weathering is very light or non-existant. Besides there are many who do that kind of thing a lot better than me - many on this site indeed - and I didn't want to spoilt her looks. I'll post a film of her underway in due course but her trim is about perfect in the water and she has power to spare. Also her funnels smoke and the guns and main director traverse. Plus the nav, steaming and stern lights work.
 


 

 



 

 
 



 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

And one more of these because I like them.
Thanks for looking.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Painted Parts

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.

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?

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.
 

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.

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.
 

A Brief History of the Prinz Eugen
(gathered from several books - maybe I can post some references later)
 
The Prinz Eugen was laid down in April, 1936, launched in August, 1938, and commissioned in August, 1940.
He took part in the first raid of the battleship Bismarck in May, 1941 when the British battleship HMS Hood was sunk and the Prince of Wales was heavily damaged. (The German navy refers to ships in the male gender.)
He spent a lot of time in various ports with boiler and engine problems.
In early February of 1942 German battle cruisers Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, various destroyers, torpedo boats, and other ships made a dash from Brest, France through the English Channel to Kiel, Germany. A massive escort was provided by the Luftwaffe. On February 22 many of the ships departed for Norway.

On February 23 the British submarine HMS Trident torpedoed Prinz Eugen. The stern of the ship was almost severed but the ship limped into Lofjord, Trondheim the next day.

A repair ship made emergency repairs by welding a blunt stern with twin rudders operated by the crew turning a capstan on deck. (This would make a cool model!)  Prinz Eugen returned to Kiel under his own power and was completely repaired by the end of October. After returning to service he served as a training ship in the Baltic, and provided artillery cover for retreating German troops.

On October 15, 1944 Prinz Eugen was returning to Gotenhafen, (Gdynia) Poland at full speed in the mist, and rammed the light cruiser Leipzig which as adrift making a routine engine coupling transfer. The ships were locked together for 14 hours. Prinz Eugen continued to Gotenhafen under his own power and had a new bow fitted in less than a month. Leipzig was towed.
 
Prinz Eugen continued to provide artillery support for ground troops, and ended up in Copenhagen at the end of the war. The ship was decommissioned and taken by the British to Wilhelmshaven, Germany for inspection by engineers from all of the Allied Powers.
 
The ship was desired by all, but the USA won her by drawing lots from a hat. In January, 1946 a crew of 40 US navy sailors and 574 German personnel sailed him to Boston and later to Philadelphia, where he was hit by a US Navy tug. The tug was severely damaged. In March he was sailed to California via the Panama canal. In May he was sailed to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and then to Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

On July 1, 1946 Prinz Eugen and a fleet of other ships were bombed in an air burst test of a "Fat Man" atomic bomb like that used on Nagasaki, Japan. Prinz Eugen was 1200 yards from the center of the blast and received only superficial damage. On July 25 it was bombed again with an underwater detonation of a second atomic bomb. Prinz Eugen was 2000 yards from the center of the blast and again received minimal damage but high radioactive contamination. Occupation of the ship would be lethal, so it was towed to Kwajalein Lagoon nearby. A small leak went unrepaired because of the radiation. By late December the ship was listing, rolled over slowly, and sank on a reef with parts of the stern out of the water. It remains there still and is no longer radioactive. Search for "Wreck of the German cruiser Prinz Eugen" in Google maps and look at the satellite view.
 
In 1974 the German Navy League requested the removal of one propeller. It is now on display as part of the Laboe Naval Memorial in Kiel, Germany.

Rough Superstructure
Superstructure parts for the kit are made from sheets of limewood either 10 mm or 12 mm thick, plenty high enough for a 1/200 scale sailor to walk under. The parts are stamped about 0.25 mm deep, but you have to cut them out with a scroll saw, and then sand, sand, sand.

The superstructure layers are sandwiched between sheets of 1 mm 3-ply that constitute the decks. In some places the deck is flush with the structure below, and in other places it overhangs, often to hold a gun. The ply pieces are warped so it's hard to hold the sandwich together to sand the flush edges. I started gluing each layer to it's upper deck after this photo was taken.
 
 

Painting the Hull and Deck
The Prinz Eugen was painted with 20 different paint schemes over its 6 year lifespan. This web site has drawings of all of them.
http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=470#p10532
I chose the dazzle camouflage scheme used in the Baltic in May of 1941. You can see it in the photo below.
 
I carefully chose all of my colors and went searching for paints online. Between the worldwide pandemic and the fact that there are few hobby shops left in the US, I had a terrible time finding what I wanted. After several disappointments with online shops I walked to my local hardware store and bought four rattle cans of Rustoleum - Colonial red, granite gray, black, and white.
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I painted the red and then the gray. Here I'm masking off for the white parts of the camouflage. Painting the superstructure is going to be a b****.

I planked the deck using long strips of 4 mm lime (bass) wood left over from another model. That's still 5x too wide for scale but it looks much better than the stuff that came with the kit. I glued down long strips with CA, and then notched the strips every 30 mm with a chisel to show individual planks. I sealed the surface with Timbermate wood filler, sanded, wiped off a quick coat of dark stain, and airbrushed everything with 4 coats of orange shellac. Much of this was not exactly planned, but it came out pretty good in the end.
 
The ship had big swastikas painted on a red field on the deck for identification. I printed the swastikas on an ink jet printer, sprayed them with clear, and pasted them on.
 

Rigging Cargo Booms - Hatch Nr 1
 
Well it’s finally time to start rigging this pig. I’m going to start with Hatch Nr1, which since it will be shown secured for sea it will be the easiest.
 
The forestay for the foremast goes on first. I thought it would be some simple work with tweezers to attach the upper end but I ended up using needle nose pliers and tweezers from a lot of angles so I decided to attach the upper ends of all the shrouds and stays now while the area is free of other rigging so there is some spaghetti hanging from all the masts:

The 2 5-ton booms where rigged up next. Since the booms will be in the stowed position the blocks normally used on the vangs have been left off and the wire rope pendants are just lashed to the booms.

On my first post for this log I mentioned that one of the things that caught my attention about Liberty Ships was the use of large chains on the masts:
 

I came to learn that they are call “bull chains” and they are a clever solution to a problem. The topping lift on a boom is used to raise and lower the outer end of the boom and it also supports the boom and whatever load is is lifting so they are made of wire rope for strength. The topping lift is taken to power on one of the capstan heads on the boom’s winch. The problem comes in that you can’t wrap wire rope around a capstan because it won’t
“grip” it and you can’t have manila rope as part of the lift because it is too weak to support lifting a cargo load. They solved the problem by having the end of the wire topping lift attach to the top of a triangular plate, the bottom of the plate was connected to both a length of manila rope and a length of chain. The rope was wrapped around a capstan head and taken to power. When the topping lift was in the desired position, the chain next to it was shackled to the deck using whatever chain link was closest to the deck eye, the rope was then slacked off and the weight of the boom and load was now carried by the wire rope connected to the chain. By having a long length of chain they could position the boom anywhere from horizontal to vertical and still have a strong topping lift. Pretty neat. They could get away with this because these booms were fixed in position and were not swung or raised or lowered while in use (I’ll explain how that worked when I rig one of the “working” hatches).

Here’s the topping lift/bull chain in place:

And here is the completed hatch after some touch-up painting. The booms are shown stowed in the horizontal position. If there was over size cargo stowed on to of the hatch, like a tank, crated aircraft, PT Boat, etc then the booms would be stowed in the vertical position when at sea.  The 2 additional  fore stays where only rigged when the Jumbo Boom on the aft side of this mast was in use, it will be on this build hence the stays are rigged. Although they partially block the hatch opening it wasn't an issue because all the winches for both Nr1 and Nr2 hatches all had to be used to work the Jumbo Boom which I will show when I get to Nr2 hatch:


1 hatch down, 4 to go.
 
 

Warping Engine
 
The Lib ships had a steam-powered engine on the after deck that was used to drive two capstan heads which were used to take the slack out of mooring lines or even to pull the ship into a pier if no tugs were available (the same thing could be done by the anchor windlass up forward). It was a simple two-step reduction gearing. Interesting feature was that there was no crankshaft - the piston rods were connected to the outer edges of two discs on the outside of the bedplate.

The kit provides a simple drum winch of britannia metal to serve as the warping engine. It is a little under scale for height and I thought I might be able to scratch build something more realistic. Here is the the kit and what I started out with:

 
 
Here’s after the gears (from a bag of old watch parts) , guards and shaft have been added:

And the finished product with the shaft supports. The capstans are after market from the Bluejacket catalog. The kit provided slightly smaller ones which I had planned to use but then I got careless while sanding them and squeezed one out of round too badly to repair, I forgot just how soft britannia can be.

Here it is installed on the model with the canted fairleads in place:

.50 Cal Machine Guns
 
Once the Liberty production line got into full swing by late 1942 their light anti-aircraft weapon suite consisted of 6-8 of the excellent 20mm Oerlikon guns:

The kit provides very nice cast Oerlikons:

Like everything else weapon-related, the Stephen Hopkins was built too early in 1942 to get the good stuff, her light AA guns were water-cooled .50 cal machine guns from the USN which had plenty laying around since they were rapidly abandoning them in favor of the Oerlikons. When I saw the kit’s 20mm guns I thought it would be easy to convert them to .50 cals by thickening the barrel to represent the water jacket, replacing the cylindrical ammo magazine with the “tombstone” one which was unique to the .50 cals and changing the shoulder rests to the 50 cal grips that looked like bicycle handlebars. The only problem was that I was unable to find any photo evidence that shipboard .50 cals were ever mounted with a shield (unlike today where virtually every USN ship has multiple .50 cals with shields). All of the .50 cal mounts in early 1942 were variations of the “Tora Tora Tora” mounts that were on the battleships during the Pearl Harbor attack, they looked like this:


 
So I needed to scratch build them. I made the pedestals and “C” shaped mounts from strip and rod:

The details like the cooling water hoses, water tank, magazine, elevation crank were wire, wood and plastic, the gunsights are Northstar PE valve hand wheels:

 
And the finished product after painting ( I decided to paint the mounts Navy Gray since that is how they would have been shipped and, like any shipyard, they would not have been repainted if it wasn't spelled out in the contract):

Radio Antennas and Flags
 
 
I found a 48-star flag and the house flag for the Luckenbach Steamship Co online and copied them to my graphics program, adjusted their size, copied them and flipped one copy, backed each half together and printed them out.

In order to get the paper to hold furls I used a trick I found on some modeling site. I cut a piece of aluminum foil slightly smaller than one half of the flag. I glued it in place using rubber cement because white glue has too much water in it and it will make the printer ink run. I then placed a length of halyard rope along the fold point, folded the flags and glued them together, once again using rubber cement. The furls were made by folding the paper around a pin, alternating directions.
 


The antennas are made from some metallic thread provided in the kit, it simulates bare wire nicely.  Both antennas run between the main and mizzen masts and are connected to the coupler tower on the flying bridge. The insulators near the ends of the antennas are just small blobs of white glue built up over several repetitions.
 


The last thing left to add is the guns and then the big job comes - cleaning and dusting the model prior to casing it.

Shipyard Closing Down
Well for a time being to refurbish the Entertainment Room for the Display Case to reside.
And to explain, the Admiral, as my next project wants me to repaint a room and refurnish appropriately with a side bench_table for the display case to reside on.
 
A few pictures of the Endeavour taking centre spot in the display case. Queensland Western Red Cedar Base with a Acrylic Case over.


 
 

 

I learnt so, so much over the 5 year period constructing the H.M.B. Endeavour.
I must say thanks to all those who followed the build, those who I/we shared information, and the general encouragement during the period. It would be a lonely life constructing a model without this fantastic Web Site "The NRG Model Ship World" and the members on it.
To those other fellas currently constructing the H.M.B. Endeavour, good luck with the rest of build. Enjoy the final home run as I did.
 
That's all Folks....

Shipyard Update
Stern Figurines, Counter and Window Decorations.
 
I have been procrastinating about how to do these for months(probably years).
But the time came to make a decision, as my kit did not have these items included.
After an attempt to engrave a figurine(failed) I bashed 2 cast figurines I had bought a couple of years ago(basically cut the legs off)
I hand crafted from Pear Wood the Counter decorations under the figurines, and the Window Mullion Deco's.
Many hours to decide on the overall shape and cut the patterns in.
As an amateur at carving, fairly happy with the outcome. 
So how did they end up.
 

Counter decorations for under the figurines, ready for fitting.
 

 

Starboard Figurine
 

 

Port Figurine
 

Window Mullion decorations (4 off)
 
Note: I do realise the Figurines are short in height and not ideal.
The height restriction came about by the Taffarel being turned down either side(P&S) too far ?, thus shortening the height(length) for the Figurines to fit into. Now looking at it, I could of cut into the rail and raised the Figurines up. All a bit too late I'm afraid, as the shipyard is closing down on this build very soon.
 
Not much to go now to finish off what started in April 2014 as a Birthday Present.
 
 
 

Shipyard Update
Gangway Ropes
Made the Gangway Ropes off line and tied to either side, as per pictures below.
 

 

Starboard Ropes Above

Port Ropes above

Prinz Eugen, WWII German Heavy Cruiser

I am afraid that I haven't been on MSW since I finished my MS Bark Endeavour over a year ago. My wife and I moved from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, USA to Asheville, North Carolina, about 540 miles (870 km) due south. We found a beautiful old stone house in the mountains that has demanded some attention and kept me from building much. Now that we are all social distancing I have had much more free time, and have made a grand start on the Aeronaut kit of the Prinz Eugen (pronounced "Prints You-gen," pardon my German.)
 
I wanted to build a battleship model but there aren't many out there. There are lots of very detailed plastic models, and a few very large, 1:100 scale RC models. German company Aeronaut has several 1:200 scale models of German WWII battleships. They are pricey and there is almost no information about them online. I posted a query on MSW a few years ago and didn't get much information, but I decided to take a chance anyway.
 
I really wanted to build their Bismarck kit because that's the ship that everyone knows. But I had a built-in bookshelf that was 4 ft. (1220 mm) wide and the Bismarck is 1255 mm long, so I bought the Prinz Eugen at 1170 mm. And then we decided to move and leave the bookshelf behind.
 
I finally started the model back in March and am now well underway. This is not your typical MSW model so I wasn't sure if I would keep a build log, but I took some photos on the way and will try to catch up. And I promise to catch up on many of the other logs that I was enjoying in the past.

Case Completed
I built a case for my Endeavour from scratch in about 3 weeks. It came out very nice and looks good next to my Syren model. They are temporarily displayed in a basement rec room. I don't know where they'll end up when we move.
 
I forgot how hard it is to photograph anything in a plastic case. I tried all kinds of lighting and Photoshop tricks to get rid of reflections. The photo of the Endeavour alone is OK, but the photo of the two ships together is pretty bad. Oh well, I tried.
 
Rod