Shotlocker

I will add some positions with a traditional match.  

1:200 Prinz Eugen
OcCre
Catalogue # 16000
Available from OcCre for €499.99
 

 
 
 
Prinz Eugen was an Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser, the third of a class of five vessels. She served with Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The ship was laid down in April 1936, launched in August 1938, and entered service after the outbreak of war, in August 1940. She was named after Prince Eugene of Savoy, an 18th-century general in the service of Austria. She was armed with a main battery of eight 20.3 cm (8 in) guns and, although nominally under the 10,000-long-ton (10,160 t) limit set by the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, actually displaced over 16,000 long tons (16,257 t).

(USS) Prinz Eugen during Atomic bomb tests
 
Prinz Eugen saw action during Operation Rheinübung, an attempted breakout into the Atlantic Ocean with the battleship Bismarck in May 1941. The two ships destroyed the British battlecruiser Hood and moderately damaged the battleship Prince of Wales in the Battle of the Denmark Strait. Prinz Eugen was detached from Bismarck during the operation to raid Allied merchant shipping, but this was cut short due to engine troubles. After putting into occupied France and undergoing repairs, the ship participated in Operation Cerberus, a daring daylight dash through the English Channel back to Germany. In February 1942, Prinz Eugen was deployed to Norway, although her time stationed there was curtailed when she was torpedoed by the British submarine Trident days after arriving in Norwegian waters. The torpedo severely damaged the ship's stern, which necessitated repairs in Germany.
 
Upon returning to active service, the ship spent several months training officer cadets in the Baltic before serving as artillery support for the retreating German Army on the Eastern Front. After the German collapse in May 1945, she was surrendered to the British Royal Navy before being transferred to the US Navy as a war prize. After examining the ship in the United States, the US Navy assigned the cruiser to the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll. Having survived the atomic blasts, Prinz Eugen was towed to Kwajalein Atoll, where she ultimately capsized and sank in December 1946. The wreck remains partially visible above the water approximately two miles northwest of Bucholz Army Airfield, on the edge of Enubuj. One of her screw propellers was salvaged and is on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial in Germany.
From Wikipedia
 
The kit

 
Prinz Eugen is a brand new release from OcCre, hot on the heals of Amati’s recent Bismarck, both in the same popular 1:200 scale. The kit itself occupies a reasonably large but quite heavy generic box which has the specific kit artwork printed in colour and attached to the box lid. As is custom with OcCre, there’s a cut-out in the lid so the fittings box can be seen. Actually, that’s only one of two fittings boxes that are supplied with this release. The whole kit is also cellophaned too, to protect it further. The box is quite sturdy and lifting the lid off reveals that the contents are stored within a compartmentalised structure which is folded to separate the strip material from the sheets and plans etc. 

 
The first fittings box has a staggering number of metal parts and is quite heavy. The metal looks like a zinc alloy and the parts are all very sharply cast with nothing in the way of flash present. You will find ship’s boats etc. here amongst others. I still recommend that any cast parts are washed in soapy water first and then primed with a metal etching primer before you use them. Also in this box are pins for planking, turned wooden parts, eyelets, glass beads and chain etc.






 
The fittings container is first removed to that the rest of the pack can be split apart. When you remove the box, there is a paint reference chart supplied.


 
Inside the box main compartment are the numerous sheet materials, all bound in tough, shrink-wrap film. These materials consist of different colours (grades?) of MDF and also numerous sheets of ply. All are cleanly laser-cut with no real evidence of scorching. Parts aren’t numbered, so you will need to refer to the parts plans that are included. This is very common as engraving numbers everywhere can very much increase production time. The packing is very good, and none of the various MDF or ply sheets appear to have any warping.









 
Hidden amongst the flat sheets are EIGHT sheets of photo-etch brass, protected by wraps of tissue paper. Production quality is excellent, with small retaining tabs for parts and nicely produced multi-layer etching for the various part reliefs. There is only one small area which has an etch stain, but they can be common on larger sheets. These sheets include rails, deck structure sheathing etc.

 


 
Always a very good start. Also in this compartment is a Jiffy-bag containing a second clear box of fittings, identical in size to the one on display through the box lid. This box contains a vast number of cast parts which are all very crisp and clean. With this being a brand-new release, the moulds will be in A1 condition. The box also contains rigging cord and some turned wooden parts.





 
A cardboard tube also contains two long, full size glossy sheets which depict Prinz Eugen in both side elevations and also a view down until the decks.



 
The instructions for this kit are actually very good, being driven in photo-format. The sequences are split into an alphabetical format, so A, B, C etc. with the kit parts for each individual and extensive section, given an alphabetical prefix eg. Part W49 for build section ‘W’ etc. It’s a nice, simple way to approach thing and will help the builder locate parts far more easily too. These are printed in colour over many folded A3 sheets, and if you wanted to access them elsewhere, the whole set of instructions are available for download from OcCre, here. If you would like some very visual to guide you, then OcCre have their own YouTube channel where the whole model can be viewed at every stage of construction. Here HERE for that. 





 
The smaller compartment contains the various wooden strips, such as lime for hull planking. There is also some metal strip included here as well as block balsa! This is the first time I’ve seen this in a kit, and the idea is that you chop this up to exact size blocks and then sit between the lower bulkhead areas to add rigidity and also to help shape a solid, lower hull. I personally don’t feel these are needed, but they are there if you need the material. 


Perhaps one aspect of Prinz Eugen that I’m not very keen on is the planked deck. At 1:200, the supplied materials are grossly overscale, and this is why Amati decided to go for laser-engraved deck sections for their Bismarck. I wish OcCre had done the same for this kit too. My suggestion with Prinz Eugen is to cut up the strips so they are a lot narrower (or buy narrower strip material) and use that instead, instantly improving the overall appearance of the completed model.
 
Conclusion
This is actually a very nice, beautifully presented kit that shouldn’t prove too difficult to the average modeller. Construction is straightforward and very well illustrated. All parts are mapped so they are easy to find, and the kit castings (love castings, or loathe them) are sharply made with excellent definition. As already stated, the only thing Prinz Eugen needs is to do the deck planking differently. Yes, it will take longer, but the finished result will be far more rewarding. You’ll need some space to display the finished ship too, with her being 1077mm long when complete! Prinz Eugen is definitely worth your consideration if you hanker to build something without masts or sails, but don’t want to be unfaithful to your hobby of building ships in wood!



 
 
 
 
 
 
Prinz Eugen Paint Set
OcCre
Catalogue # 90506
Available from OcCre for €59.99

 
OcCre have also made available a custom acrylic paint set for Prinz Eugen, consisting of eleven acrylic paints and one large bottle of acrylic satin varnish. The paint bottles are the fairly standard white-capped plastic type, but each of these contains 30ml of paint, with the larger varnish bottle being 100ml. The bottles don’t state whether the paints could be thinned for airbrushing, and I get the feeling that they may be brush applied.




 
 
Our sincere thanks to OcCre for providing the products you see reviewed here on MSW. To purchase directly, click the links in the title for each item.
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

GB,
 
Nice looking vessel you've built! I've also not heard of an MSB even though I was a radioman operator onboard three different
MSO's on the east coast. One comment about the cable on the reel - the cables on board our ships all had segmented floats on
them. The photo is the stern of the USS Alacrity, 1969, as an example. Sure don't know if those river boats had them tho'.
 
Gary
 
 

One tip concerning silica gel - once saturated, it can be restored by popping the packet into a microwave for a period of time,
depending upon the size of the packet. It works, I've done it, just keep an eye on the thing while it's being zapped. Heating it
in an oven also works.

One tip concerning silica gel - once saturated, it can be restored by popping the packet into a microwave for a period of time,
depending upon the size of the packet. It works, I've done it, just keep an eye on the thing while it's being zapped. Heating it
in an oven also works.

...and next to a small hand.    

One tip concerning silica gel - once saturated, it can be restored by popping the packet into a microwave for a period of time,
depending upon the size of the packet. It works, I've done it, just keep an eye on the thing while it's being zapped. Heating it
in an oven also works.

Hello, hope you are all well!
 
Its taken me a lot longer than i thought but I've been slowly working on her.
Sorry I've not continued with the build log but there were a few disasters in the build and I had to just leave it and come back to it when i was ready.
First one was when the shelf it was being kept on fell over during the night and it fell over 1.5m to the ground and across the room, many hours in the carpet finding as many parts as I could and was quite disheartening... it sat in a sad state for awhile. Then I slowly repaired it and continued with the build and was going pretty well, painted the superstructures and was doing the weathering and instead of using white spirits to remove excess and blend for some unknown reason I used Isopropyl alcohol!! and not just a little bit because when i first started to notice the paint being stripped right off I for some unknown reason thought the washes were causing the damage and decided in a hurry to clean the wash off everything as fast as I could to reduce further damage of course using the Isopropyl so everything (apart from the hull which was already complete) was totally stripped back to the primer or worse... so it kinda feels like I've built the ship twice. had a few other mishaps but none as bad as the 2 major ones. So it wasn't touched for most of the last year until I was back in the mindset to continue.
After all it is a hobby so meant to be a fun and enjoyable in the whole right.
So here She is all complete. I did enjoy the build a lot and thanks again to you all for the help and advise, in a way you guys helped me get back on the horse and keep going.
 










 
 
 
 
 

She's finished!  A gallery of photos is at 
 
 
 

Progress Update:
 
I lost myself when modelling the F3F and now I feel like I've put far to much detail into it now for this scale. I may print it out slightly bigger just for a laugh. Things that I can see that need adding would be some more overt panel lining on the larger surfaces, especially the wings, and the forward landing gear as I've been lazy and just done the wheels.  
 
I have it in my had now to have the deck full of extras re-arming the planes for another sortie. Any feed back on anything else that might be worth adding into the model or extra props to place along side it would be great.
 

 

 

 
Regards,
Ryan

Just waiting for the 48 star U.S. flag I ordered to come in the mail from Canada....
 
 
 
 

Starting work on the mast, which was made out of a sanded-down and tapered bamboo skewer.  A small sliver of turned basswood was used for the cross-tree, and inserted through a hole drilled in the mast.  To strengthen the cross-tree and its junction with the mast, it was saturated in very thin CA glue.  

Further research of the Number 6 boat showed I had to change some things around.  The pilot house spotlight had to be elevated by the railing and a small air vent was situated in its old position near the center of the roof.  You can see how the windows are masked with "Silly Putty" to protect the "glass" from future gloss-coat and dull-coat paint applications.  The gloss-coat will be applied to facilitate decal application, and before the mast and rigging are installed.  The dull-coat application will be last, to finish off the model.  You will also notice the model railroad bell I installed earlier, but forgot to mention...

Besides the mast and rigging, the last structures to complete were the racks for the oropesa floats.  These were made from plastic sheet.  I built them on a plastic sheet base, and the cut them out later...

Here are the floats mounted on their racks.  The flags are made from paper...

 
After a little light dry-brushing, I think she's ready for the gloss-coat and decals!

GB,
 
Nice looking vessel you've built! I've also not heard of an MSB even though I was a radioman operator onboard three different
MSO's on the east coast. One comment about the cable on the reel - the cables on board our ships all had segmented floats on
them. The photo is the stern of the USS Alacrity, 1969, as an example. Sure don't know if those river boats had them tho'.
 
Gary
 
 

I got everyone together. Gods and heroes, beasts and monsters. Figureheads of sailing ships.

Bill,
 
That must have been quite a pleasant surprise to discover a forgotten ship model kit hidden away! As to build or not to build,
I think you should construct it - it'd be a great addition to display. Off topic, have you finished the Mary Celeste yet?
 
Gary

Bill,
 
That must have been quite a pleasant surprise to discover a forgotten ship model kit hidden away! As to build or not to build,
I think you should construct it - it'd be a great addition to display. Off topic, have you finished the Mary Celeste yet?
 
Gary

Quite a few years ago I did some work on the Destroyer Escort kit. I designed and made the patterns for the hedgehogs and other accessories. I took some of their ship model kits in return; one being the Seguin. When we moved the kit ended up on a very high shelf in a closet. I just discovered it last week.  I am not sure what to do with the kit; build it, sell it or trade.  Discussions and suggestions welcome.
 
Bill

GB,
 
Nice looking vessel you've built! I've also not heard of an MSB even though I was a radioman operator onboard three different
MSO's on the east coast. One comment about the cable on the reel - the cables on board our ships all had segmented floats on
them. The photo is the stern of the USS Alacrity, 1969, as an example. Sure don't know if those river boats had them tho'.
 
Gary
 
 

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 🙂

You're welcome. During General Quarters, my battle station was in the radio shack, so I never got to see actual sweeping operations,
although I'm certain those cables floated. We never had to sweep live mines on my tour, just dummies, but I'll always remember the
40mm cannon on the bow shaking the entire ship when it was fired at one (at least I think it was a 40mm). Also, I always kept in my
mind the image of a giant photo in the Minelant headquarters building in Charleston of a South Korean minesweeper being blown
to bits after hitting one.

GB,
 
Nice looking vessel you've built! I've also not heard of an MSB even though I was a radioman operator onboard three different
MSO's on the east coast. One comment about the cable on the reel - the cables on board our ships all had segmented floats on
them. The photo is the stern of the USS Alacrity, 1969, as an example. Sure don't know if those river boats had them tho'.
 
Gary
 
 

You're welcome. During General Quarters, my battle station was in the radio shack, so I never got to see actual sweeping operations,
although I'm certain those cables floated. We never had to sweep live mines on my tour, just dummies, but I'll always remember the
40mm cannon on the bow shaking the entire ship when it was fired at one (at least I think it was a 40mm). Also, I always kept in my
mind the image of a giant photo in the Minelant headquarters building in Charleston of a South Korean minesweeper being blown
to bits after hitting one.

You're welcome. During General Quarters, my battle station was in the radio shack, so I never got to see actual sweeping operations,
although I'm certain those cables floated. We never had to sweep live mines on my tour, just dummies, but I'll always remember the
40mm cannon on the bow shaking the entire ship when it was fired at one (at least I think it was a 40mm). Also, I always kept in my
mind the image of a giant photo in the Minelant headquarters building in Charleston of a South Korean minesweeper being blown
to bits after hitting one.

GB,
 
Nice looking vessel you've built! I've also not heard of an MSB even though I was a radioman operator onboard three different
MSO's on the east coast. One comment about the cable on the reel - the cables on board our ships all had segmented floats on
them. The photo is the stern of the USS Alacrity, 1969, as an example. Sure don't know if those river boats had them tho'.
 
Gary
 
 

GB,
 
Nice looking vessel you've built! I've also not heard of an MSB even though I was a radioman operator onboard three different
MSO's on the east coast. One comment about the cable on the reel - the cables on board our ships all had segmented floats on
them. The photo is the stern of the USS Alacrity, 1969, as an example. Sure don't know if those river boats had them tho'.
 
Gary