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

[robdurant]

8 hours ago, BANYAN said:

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

My sentiments exactly.

[Jim Lad]

Very professional looking launches, Danny

 

John

[Dan Vadas]

Thanks guys .

 

There are 6 large Row Boats and 3 small ones. These don't have any sort of framing, so I made my own after a bit of trial-and-error :

 

There are extra thwarts which gives them a little more depth than plain printed decks. I glued these to the decks before cutting out :

 

Some of my framing was a little bit out - I'm talking fractions of a millimetre here. The slots in the hull sides were not worked out very well at all, resulting in some largish gaps. The ones nearest the stern were completely unnecessary and finished up the worst of them :

 

As a result of the bad fit I needed to use a bit of filler. I painted the whole hulls rather than attempting to touch them up. They turned out OK :

 

  Danny

[Dan Vadas]

Time for another Progress pic or six. I've finished both superstructures to the stage where I can fit them to the main deck. I won't do this just yet in case there is a problem with any further sub-assemblies. Here's the aft superstructure :

 

And the fore :

 

  Danny

[Jim Lad]

That really looks first class, Danny.  You've certainly got the art of card building down pat!

 

John

[BANYAN]

Great progress Danny; looking really good. Its a pity the top card layer (thwarts, bottom planks etc) was not a two-piece set to give a sense of depth inside the boats; other than that they look really good.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Reg]

The small boats look great!

 

Greg

[mtaylor]

Looking at this, who'd even think it was paper/card.  Expletives fail me.

[Dan Vadas]

Thanks for the compliments once again John, Pat, Reg and Mark.

 

There are two Arado 196 Floatplanes on Bismarck. These took me three days to make. Once AGAIN the Instructions were pretty woeful - luckily I found a couple of good pics of the "real thing" online. Here's the best one :

 

The parts for both planes :

 

Fitting the engine cowling edge piece :

 

The major pieces of the fuselage, wings and tail rolled, folded and glued :

 

The parts for the floats :

 

And some pics of the finished planes. The float supports were not easy to cut and fit :

 

  Danny

[popeye the sailor]

planes look great.......must have really been tough to make.   is there a rear section to the canopy?

[Walter Biles]

Dan, I am wondering what the T pipe behind the bridge boat storage might be.  The only thing I have come up with might be some sort of detection device. 

Walt

[hof00]

Hi Chap,

Your work is absolutely First Grade!!

(I've been following....)

 

If I can reminiss when I was a young Lad, (A couple of years ago), my Mother used to wrap me up in "Cotton Wool" with the excuse that I was Anaemic, I don't think that I ever was, God rest her soul.

 

Anyway, in the time that I had to stay at home, I used to cut out pictures of aircraft/ships/cars from magazines, I just couldn't understand at the time, why they could not be something solid, something that I couldn't hold, something 3D.... The Picture's that I cut out that is....))

 

I guess that I now strive to do this, 3D that is.

What you are doing in Card just resonates so much with my youth.

Fantastic Sir....

 

Awesome!!

 

Cheers...HOF.

Edited February 10, 2018 by hof00

[Dan Vadas]

16 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

is there a rear section to the canopy?

Not in this kit Popeye - what is fitted is all you get. I think the rear section slides in under the main part to open it for the tail gunner - maybe?

 

13 hours ago, Walter Biles said:

I am wondering what the T pipe behind the bridge boat storage might be.

I have no idea Walt .

 

Thanks Hof .

 

BTW - after posting the pics above I realised I'd forgotten to fit the radio antenna. I've corrected that omission now. The antenna itself is some ridiculously thin (0.01mm) elastic thread, and the wire part is 0.2mm nickel-silver wire :

 

  Danny

[Mirabell61]

fantastic modeling in card Danny,

 

Nils

[Jim Lad]

Lovely little aircraft, Danny.  Do they fly? 

 

John

[Dan Vadas]

1 hour ago, Jim Lad said:

Do they fly?

No. I think there's a problem with the ignition .

 

  Danny

[cog]

you could switch to the rubber band engine ...

very nice result on the plane, couldn't have equalled the feat ... does the other one look the same

[Paul Jarman]

Coming along brilliantly Danny,

Nice planes.

Paul

[Dan Vadas]

On 11/02/2018 at 10:28 PM, cog said:

does the other one look the same

Yes . Thanks Carl and Paul.

 

Two Cranes are used for (among other things) recovering the floatplanes. These took me two days to make. They were very fragile until everything came together :

 

The finished articles, ready to fit to the deck. The "cables" are "Fine" EZ-line elastic (black). The keen-eyed among you will note the temporary brass wires keeping the hooks from tangling until the cranes are fitted :

 

  Danny

[amateur]

Nice work on the cranes and planes!

(planes are very convincing, even in the extreme close-up)

btw: as far as the photographic evidence goes: the canopy has norear end. Al pics of the plane show the canopy open (and with a visible gun)

 

Jan

Edited February 13, 2018 by amateur

[Dan Vadas]

15 minutes ago, amateur said:

All pics of the plane show the canopy open (and with a visible gun)

I agree Jan. Unfortunately I don't have any spare guns to fit one in each plane. I'll think about scratch-building a couple. They were actually twin 7.92mm machine guns. See HERE.

 

  Danny

[maaaslo]

On 28/01/2018 at 10:54 PM, Dan Vadas said:

... Pav, if you read this and can still add some to your next order from them it would be greatly appreciated .

 

  Danny

I havent placed any orders recently. Waiting for something new from Shipyard... but can order something small and add yours to it. Just let me know what and how much.

[Dan Vadas]

I think it's OK Pav, I found some leftovers from Amatsukaze. Thanks anyway.

 

  Danny

[BANYAN]

Those cranes are very neat with good edges etc for card - i don't think PE could do that much better!  Nice work Danny.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Jim Lad]

That looks amazing, Danny!  It's hard to believe that those cranes are card.

 

John

[Dan Vadas]

Thanks Pat and John .

 

I've finally got to the stage where both Superstructures need to be fitted to the deck. I hadn't been looking forward to this stage much, as I wasn't sure if they were going to fit properly. I needn't have worried - there were only two slight mis-calculations (one each side) where the side walls didn't quite line up with the marks :

 

Before gluing anything down I dry-fitted both assemblies and checked out the fit. Then I ran around the white edges of the deck with a grey PITT pen in case any white showed after gluing (I learnt this lesson from Amatsukaze, where I had to do a bit of rather difficult touch-up after installing the superstructure ). Next I taped a couple of stops to the deck to make perfect alignment easier, and only THEN reached for the glue bottle. I'm more than happy with the result :

 

With both assemblies now fitted I could finish off the rigging. First came the two Forestays for the main mast, which ended on either side of the funnel in two "turnbuckles" made from 0.2mm wire which I'd fitted earlier :

 

Then the rest of the antennae between the two masts. Four of these were a doubled line with a spacer at each end to keep them apart. There's probably a name for this arrangement, but I don't know it :

 

To set up these antennae I first separated the wires using a short length of 2.5mm square wood. I made the spacers from 2.5mm lengths if 0.3mm wire, which was glued to the lines with a tiny dab of PVA at each end. When these dried sufficiently I applied a tiny drop of CA to each joint. These will be painted black :

 

  Danny

[popeye the sailor]

amazing progress!   really coming together now    

[Jim Lad]

She's looking superb, Danny!

 

John

[Reg]

All looks fantastic!!

 

Greg

[Dan Vadas]

Thank you Popeye, John and Reg.

 

I've finished the rigging and fitted the planes and cranes. I've shown one attached to the crane and the other preparing for takeoff :

 

  Danny