Bismarck by Dan Vadas - FINISHED - GPM - 1:200 - CARD and PE

[Papa]

Dan,

your work is simply amazing.

[Dan Vadas]

Thanks again guys .

 

On 12/01/2018 at 1:21 AM, popeye the sailor said:

neat that you can flip it over and see the inner workings.......of course, it won't be seen when cemented in place {it will be totally shielded}

Popeye, they're partially visible on these four.

 

Continuing with the other three 105mm guns :

 

Aligning the axles for the gun barrels and gluing the shields together :

 

The four guns finished :

 

You may remember that I'd lost one of the shields and had to cut a new one. Of course, now that I've done that I found it . A bit the worse for wear so it went in the bin :

 

I've also made and fitted two winches from PE :

 

  Danny

[Jim Lad]

Catching up after a few days away, Danny - she's looking very impressive.

 

John

[Dan Vadas]

Thanks John.

 

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've achieved a fair bit of mostly small fiddly stuff. My aim was to get the 2nd Aft deck finished and ready to install on the hull. Apart from two 37mm guns on the 1st deck I'm about there .

 

There were seven small boxes to make. Here are a couple of pics of the process :

 

I also had two 37mm guns and two 20mm guns as well as one more winch to make. Here's one side of the deck with all parts fitted :

 

Before fitting the whole assembly I thought it would be a lot easier later if I did as much of the rigging as I could. There are a couple more lines to fit, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow. First there are a few pics of fitting two eyebolts made from 0.2mm brass wire :

 

And here's the rigging I've done so far. The line is a fine elastic :

 

  Danny

 

[Jim Lad]

Very nice, Danny.  It must be a bit of a temptation to just give one more pull on some of those lines! 

 

John

[popeye the sailor]

Danny brought out his trained spiders!   had to have been tedious     very nicely done....so cool!

[BANYAN]

Very nice details Danny

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Dan Vadas]

Thank you John, Popeye and Pat.

 

I'm working on the four 105mm guns for the aft superstructure. These are as much of a pain to make as the fore ones were, especially as some of the laser cutting was awful . Here are a couple of examples - note the big step in the middles of some of the edges, and also the missing bit on one of the semi-circular parts :

 

The only way to fix the problem was by gluing some scrap into the missing bits, and then trimming them to size :

 

Here's the body of the first one, and all four done to that stage :

 

  Danny

[cog]

Well spotted, well corrected ...

[Mirabell61]

Wunderbar Danny,

 

an awesome build, fantastic fitting out...

 

Nils

[popeye the sailor]

well done on the problem recovery so far....looking good!   

[Dan Vadas]

Thank you again Carl, Nils and Popeye.

 

I've made all the Breeches and Hoods, and assembled them :

 

The breeches and conical support fitted. These supports are weird, they pivot the wrong way in my opinion and I don't really see a need for them at all. If anything they should swivel as there is no provision for that, and I'm not about to modify them to do so :

 

The four guns ready for the barrels and final bits and pieces :

 

Barrels fitted. Prior to fitting them I wicked some thin CA into all the seams and filed out any irregularities with a diamond file :

 

And with a coat of grey primer. I'll paint them Mid-grey before fitting to the deck :

 

  Danny

[Reg]

Great looking guns!

 

Greg

[CDW]

Those secondary guns look great, Dan.

Somewhere, I was reading a Polish gentleman's build log for a paper ship model, where he was saying contest rules for paper ship models required that paint not be used. I was shocked by that statement and cannot imagine how they assemble their models so that they needed no touch up paint. Those are some pretty tough contest rules. 

[Dan Vadas]

6 hours ago, CDW said:

Those secondary guns look great, Dan.

Somewhere, I was reading a Polish gentleman's build log for a paper ship model, where he was saying contest rules for paper ship models required that paint not be used. I was shocked by that statement and cannot imagine how they assemble their models so that they needed no touch up paint. Those are some pretty tough contest rules. 

I had to paint these guns, as they were raw grey card not printed . I agree about the contest rules - those guys are crazy .

 

  Danny

[popeye the sailor]

I didn't see that you repaired the rounded part,  but apparently,  I guess you did....so that was good    they look really nice .

[Dan Vadas]

36 minutes ago, popeye the sailor said:

I didn't see that you repaired the rounded part,  but apparently,  I guess you did....so that was good    they look really nice .

As it turned out I had to cut that section off 8 of the quadrants anyway so that they would fit. So no harm done .

 

  Danny

[demetri]

"Admiral work", I love it.

[Dan Vadas]

Thanks Demetri .

 

I've finally made the last of the 2-barrel 37mm Guns . One of these is displayed in the raised position. There are still four 20mm guns to make, but they will be among the last things to be fitted as they are on the main deck :

 

  Danny

[CDW]

As good as those guns look, I would feel bad to have to paint them. But that would look silly on an otherwise finished Bismarck. Very neat and clean work. Kudos.

[BANYAN]

I am assuming all this PE is aftermarket Dan?   Some very fine detail in those guns and very well assembled.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[semorebutts]

Awesome!  What company are the 20mm guns from? Eduard?

[Dan Vadas]

Thanks CDW, Pat and Scott. Yes, the PE is all aftermarket from the same manufacturer as the kit (GPM).

 

I just discovered that I'm at least one card of Railings short, so I'll have to order more which is a bummer as GPM aren't easy to get things from - the postage will cost me about 5 times the value of the actual order . EDIT - close, $AU14 for 2 cards of railings plus $AU40 postage. $AU54 all up.

 

I've been as frugal as possible when cutting railings to minimize waste. GPM haven't worked out the correct quantity needed (why am I not surprised  ). Pav, if you read this and can still add some to your next order from them it would be greatly appreciated .

 

  Danny

[cog]

Thse double barrel guns look marvelous. Can't you get the railings from an Aussie shop? A pitty Greg (RGL) doesn't use your scale PE. He must have quite some railings left since he replaces them with stanchion posts ...

[Dan Vadas]

9 hours ago, cog said:

Thse double barrel guns look marvelous. Can't you get the railings from an Aussie shop? A pitty Greg (RGL) doesn't use your scale PE. He must have quite some railings left since he replaces them with stanchion posts ...

I think I might be OK with the railings, I found some leftovers from Amatsukaze that might be just enough to do the job .

 

  Danny

[Dan Vadas]

Here we go with another "Mini Tutorial" on building Ship's Boats from Card.

 

To start off the kit supplies some laser-cut formers in the shape of the hull. There are only two of these per boat - one for the vertical axis and one horizontal at the waterline. These need extra fillers, so I used the 'bread and butter' method to build up the section under the horizontal former :

 

The fore deck received some support along the edges :

 

Card can be carved with a scalpel to take off most of the excess :

 

Then a sanding stick is used to smooth the rest :

 

The deck is laminated to a piece of 0.35mm card and glued to the hull :

 

Next to fit is the transom :

 

The floor is glued in next, and some support is added to the sides under the deck to keep them in position :

 

Continued in next post ...........

[Dan Vadas]

....... continued from last post.

 

Hull skinning begins by first using a rounded stick and a piece of high-density foam to shape the sides where they are rounded :

 

Then the top edge of one side is glued to the edge of the deck :

 

And the other side is also glued along the deck edge :

 

The Keel edge at the bow is next pushed against the hull and glued to it, followed by the aft section of skin :

 

Finally the remaining sections are glued to the hull. If the hull has been shaped properly there should be no (or at least minimal) gaps :

 

Now we start fitting the cabin, starting with both sides :

 

Then the front and back :

 

And finally the roof, which in this case has a slight curvature. The white card needs to be painted to match the cabin - another poor piece of design by the manufacturer :

 

Railings and a screen are CA glued to the deck. A couple of tiny spots of PVA glue are used to position the pieces before the CA is applied :

 

Last things to fit are the rudder, prop shaft made from 0.4mm wire and a shaft support, and a PE prop :

 

  Danny

 

[cog]

Nice tutorial Dan. Looks rather smooth

[popeye the sailor]

very nice ship's boats...well done!   

[BANYAN]

Great work Danny, you make it look easy but I know you put a lot of work into that - the result speaks for itself.

 

cheers

 

Pat