Bismarck by rvchima - FINISHED - Amati - Scale 1:200 - WWII German Battleship

[rvchima]

9 hours ago, ted99 said:

Love the sharpness of your camo stripes--mine are a mess.

Ted,

 

I am using the 10mm Tamiya tape that you had problems with. My only "trick" is to burnish the edge A LOT with the round barrel of a Sharpie pen. I used 3/4" Scotch masking tape for the false bow & stern waves. I didn't bother with the templates supplied with the kit.

 

To be honest, my stripes required 2 iterations. I did the white first, then tried to selectively remove tape and paper, and re-tape the black areas.  When I was done painting black I removed the masks and discovered 3 black stripes over top of white. I had to re-tape all the white and re-paint. In technical terms, it  takes a ZILLION coats of white to cover over black.

[rvchima]

On 1/3/2022 at 4:23 PM, hof00 said:

Just something that comes to mind regarding the Forward Superstructure are the PE parts for the AA Platforms.

Unsure if this is addressed with your version is that once these are on, you will end up with a 0.38mm "Step" between the Deck and platforms.

Harry,

 

Thanks for the "heads up" but I'm not sure what area you're referring to. Would it be possible for you to post a photo of that area?

 

Rod

[hof00]

7 hours ago, rvchima said:

Harry,

 

Thanks for the "heads up" but I'm not sure what area you're referring to. Would it be possible for you to post a photo of that area?

 

Rod

Hi Rod,

Have a look at the URL below:

 

Build the Bismarck - The Model

 

Go to The model week by week

Go to #72 for the reasoning

Go to 79 on the left and select #79

 

Cheers....HOF.

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by hof00

[rvchima]

On 1/5/2022 at 4:19 AM, hof00 said:

Hi Rod,

Have a look at the URL below:

 

Build the Bismarck - The Model

 

Go to The model week by week

Go to #72 for the reasoning

Go to 79 on the left and select #79

 

Cheers....HOF.

Harry,

 

Thanks for the links. Coincidentally I just finished that section a couple of days ago. I did look ahead to see what deck areas get brass, print wood, or left as plywood. I thought that I might need to seal the plywood areas, but the wood is already very smooth and it gets painted a dark gray. I think it will look fine without the plastic card.

 

Rod

[hof00]

Hi Rod,

Pleased that this will be o.k.

 

It was something that I thought I should let you know about. 🙂

 

Cheers....HOF.

[rvchima]

Prinz Eugen + Bismarck (in progress)

 

My Prinz Eugen and the Bismarck are the same 1/200 scale and I've been dying to see them side-by-side. Here they are. I had forgotten how much STUFF there is on the Prinz Eugen. The Bismarck will be worse.

 

On the Bismarck I finished the printed decks with several coats of Minwax satin Polycrylic spray. I taped and sprayed the red stripes before installing the decks. I had made swastikas in Photoshop for the Prinz Eugen, so I scaled them up for the Bismarck, printed them on self-adhesive mailing labels, cut out the white circles and stuck them on, then sprayed everything with Minwax again. I attached the decks with 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. You only get one chance with that glue but I've used it for many projects and got it right again.

 

The Prinz Eugen came with a terrible printed deck so I planked my own with 5 mm basswood and finished it with orange shellac. It looks nice but the actual planks would be a meter across at 1/200 scale. That was the first of many deviations from scale on that model. The Prinz Eugen is what's known as "drive-by scale." It looks good from a car driving by slowly.

 

 

[hof00]

Hi Rod,

Looking really good.

I like your "Drive-By" definition 🙂

 

Regarding your Decks, are they flush with the sides of the Hull or is there a slight space?

 

Your Hull came out very nice indeed, crisp and clean. (I must get mine finished one day in the not too distant future.)

Unsure if I'll do the Air Recognition markings.

 

Cheers....HOF..

 

[rvchima]

18 hours ago, hof00 said:

Regarding your Decks, are they flush with the sides of the Hull or is there a slight space?

 

Harry,

 

There is a slight space between the printed deck and the sides of the hull. It is not too uniform - it ranges from 1 - 3 mm around the perimeter. I had to remove a little from parts of the printed deck amidships to get a gap. I have not drilled holes for 170 stanchions yet (ugh), but I photocopied the printed pieces to make sure that I didn't lose the locations.

 

Rod

[hof00]

Thanks Rod,

Since my Printed Decks are flush with the Hull sides, I am in two minds whether I shave off a tad or just leave....

(What do you reckon? I guess I'm asking due to the fact that you have already affixed your Deck and might have some useful insights.)

 

Cheers....HOF.

[rvchima]

On 1/9/2022 at 2:46 AM, hof00 said:

Since my Printed Decks are flush with the Hull sides, I am in two minds whether I shave off a tad or just leave....

(What do you reckon? I guess I'm asking due to the fact that you have already affixed your Deck and might have some useful insights.)

Harry,

 

My instructions say that "The shapes of the planks must be slightly smaller than the decks leaving a border all around it which will later be used for the assembly of the handrail stanchions." It does not say how big the gap should be.

 

Here's a photo of the Bismarck fore deck from "Anatomy of the Ship The Battleship Bismarck" by Stefan Draminski. It pretty clearly shows a gap between the planks and the edge of the deck, with handrails in the gap. My guess that the gap is 9 inches wide, or about 1.1 mm at our scale. So I'd say to shave a tad off your decks.

 

That said, my gap varies from 1-3 mm around the edge. I haven't looked at the stanchions yet and don't know how deep I'll have to drill, so I hope that they don't poke through if they're too close to the edge.

[mikegr]

On 1/5/2022 at 3:47 AM, rvchima said:

Ted,

 

, it  takes a ZILLION coats of white to cover over black.

i guess a coat of primer would have helped a lot on this.

[hof00]

6 hours ago, rvchima said:

Harry,

 

My instructions say that "The shapes of the planks must be slightly smaller than the decks leaving a border all around it which will later be used for the assembly of the handrail stanchions." It does not say how big the gap should be.

 

Here's a photo of the Bismarck fore deck from "Anatomy of the Ship The Battleship Bismarck" by Stefan Draminski. It pretty clearly shows a gap between the planks and the edge of the deck, with handrails in the gap. My guess that the gap is 9 inches wide, or about 1.1 mm at our scale. So I'd say to shave a tad off your decks.

 

That said, my gap varies from 1-3 mm around the edge. I haven't looked at the stanchions yet and don't know how deep I'll have to drill, so I hope that they don't poke through if they're too close to the edge.

Hi Rod,

Thank you tor your considered reply.

I'll have a think and how to approach the task.

 

(I still have the luxury of time at the mo.... 🙂)

 

Cheers and Regards,

 

Harry.

[rvchima]

Plastic Glue Questions

I am currently building the funnel, which is all plastic with PE details. I don't have much experience with plastic modeling and could use some advice from Old Collingwood or another plastic modeling expert.

 

I am finding that my usual CA glue doesn't work very well with the plastic supplied with this kit. On the plastic the CA takes much longer to harden than it does for brass or wood. Plastic-to-brass is very slow - 20 seconds after application the parts are still sliding around, although they do set up eventually. I hate to spritz these tiny parts with a big blast of CA accelerator.

 

Should I be using a different kind of glue for PE on plastic? What about large plastic-to-plastic joints like the sides of the funnel?

 

[yvesvidal]

Definitely use a plastic cement such as Ambroid, Tamiya, Testors, UHU or Faller. The best are the liquid ones with needle applicator.

 

Yves

[ted99]

13 hours ago, rvchima said:

Harry,

 

My instructions say that "The shapes of the planks must be slightly smaller than the decks leaving a border all around it which will later be used for the assembly of the handrail stanchions." It does not say how big the gap should be.

 

Here's a photo of the Bismarck fore deck from "Anatomy of the Ship The Battleship Bismarck" by Stefan Draminski. It pretty clearly shows a gap between the planks and the edge of the deck, with handrails in the gap. My guess that the gap is 9 inches wide, or about 1.1 mm at our scale. So I'd say to shave a tad off your decks.

 

That said, my gap varies from 1-3 mm around the edge. I haven't looked at the stanchions yet and don't know how deep I'll have to drill, so I hope that they don't poke through if they're too close to the edge.

I saw a picture in one of the references that showed a metal edge around the perimeter of the teak deck about 4" (100mm) inside the hull/deck edge.  The handrail stanchion "sockets" were welded to the outside of the band.  The teak was hard fast to the inside of the steel band.  My model has a 1mm gap around most of the model, widening to about 2mm after the bow and stern flares and a little wider than that at the extreme bow and stern.  It looks to me like the model stanchions should go about the same depth into the hull as the ladder rungs in the bow and stern PE pieces--not too deep.  I intend to drill my .7mm stanchion holes in the hull hard against the deck edge.  This is like the actual ship and will give the handrails a little support, as well.

[ted99]

10 hours ago, mikegr said:

i guess a coat of primer would have helped a lot on this.

Thanks--I did use a primer before the Tamiya flat white, but I had bleed thru from grey's at the edges after stripping the masking tape (before I used the technique of sealing the tape edges with clear acrylic), so I used a brush with Tamiya flat white from the bottle to touch up.  I discovered that the Tamiya paint would only allow ONE stoke of the brush before looking like crap.  I'll remask the hull at some point and use Rust-Oleum flat white over all the Tamiya white before I seal the hull with a flat clear spray and start on "decorating" the deck.  Tamiya paint and I are quits!

[ted99]

1 hour ago, rvchima said:

Plastic Glue Questions

I am currently building the funnel, which is all plastic with PE details. I don't have much experience with plastic modeling and could use some advice from Old Collingwood or another plastic modeling expert.

 

I am finding that my usual CA glue doesn't work very well with the plastic supplied with this kit. On the plastic the CA takes much longer to harden than it does for brass or wood. Plastic-to-brass is very slow - 20 seconds after application the parts are still sliding around, although they do set up eventually. I hate to spritz these tiny parts with a big blast of CA accelerator.

 

Should I be using a different kind of glue for PE on plastic? What about large plastic-to-plastic joints like the sides of the funnel?

 

I agree with yvesvidal on the plastic cement for plastic-to-plastic joins.  I've been having VERY good results with the "Flexy 5K" CA.  The "for PE" bottle does a very good job for attaching the brass to plastic, plastic to wood, and plastic to brass.  I've been using the "slow" for attaching the brass sides to the wood superstructure.  The Flexy did not work well for the ladder rungs because I needed a harder set, where regular "medium" CA did well.  The flexy 5K comes from a guy in Poland.  One technique I use is when the droplet is a little too large and some excess squeezes out, I blot the piece with a paper towel.  The brass has already bonded to the substrate, but the excess is still liquid and completely blots up in the paper towel.  Learned this after some messy joins.

[hof00]

Hi Rod,

Just assembled the Funnel and used Tamiya Thin cement. (Brush applicator.)

One the Pieces were together for a few minutes I "Wicked" in the cement along the seams.

(Yup, the plastic components are a little "Strange." CA to Plastic/Brass seems to work o9.k.)

 

Cheers.... HOF.

 

 

[rvchima]

Gentlemen,

 

Thank you for all the tips on plastic cement. I tried to glue my funnel halves together with Tamiya liquid cement but the glue evaporated before I could paint the entire perimeter. I switched to Testors liquid, which worked better due mostly to the bigger applicator brush. I had to clamp the halves together for a couple of hours to get a solid joint but hated to wait. I am too used to the instant gratification of CA.

 

I did find a workaround for using CA on the plastic. Now I swab one of the pieces with CA accelerator using one of those disposable micro paint brushes, then paint the second piece with CA from a toothpick and apply quickly. Seems to work well.

[yvesvidal]

With liquid plastic glue, you don't even have to put glue on the parts. Do that instead: 

- Clamp the parts together

- Using the brush, applicator or needle, cover the seam between parts with liquid glue.

- Wait a minute or two....

et voila. Clean, perfect welding between the parts.

 

Yves

[rvchima]

Admiral's Bridge & Hangars

I've been very busy building forward superstructure, funnel, and hangars. Here's the start of the Admiral's bridge.

 

Yesterday I started on the hangars. They were bigger than I expected, but also much harder than I expected. The framework is a mix of thick ply, thin ply, and particle board. I thought that I could just CA the pieces together while holding them against a square block of wood, but the joints are all loose because of the laser cut. My first hangar came out square but didn't sit flat. I had to break it apart and start over.

 

The tops and one side of the hangars are thin ply with tiny cuts for brass inserts that must all be aligned. I got the first one reversed and had to break it apart and start over.

 

Then I started to add the PE, but the thin ply sucks up the CA before you can get the brass in place. Last night I went to bed very disappointed with my first hangar.

 

Today I remembered an old trick and wiped hangar number 2 with shellac. I just used a paper towel and it was dry in a few minutes. The shellac seals the ply and makes the CA stick much better. After that everything went together easily.

[rvchima]

Forward Superstructure

 

The forward superstructure is done to the point where I have to start painting. So of course we're expecting a major blizzard tonight and my car is safely in the garage where I'd like to paint.  Anyway, here's where things stand.

 

Overview

 

 

 

 

 

This conning deck had very weird construction. It is built with a U-shaped groove between the top pieces. A piece of curved PE is dropped into the groove, then the groove is filled in with what ever putty you have. I'm still not happy with the putty. It would be so much easier to just laminate two pieces.

 

I'm not much of a plastic modeler and don't know what's considered good moulding and what's not, but I think the plastic parts with this kit are not great. There's not much flash, but many parts have dimples where the plastic shrunk while cooling. This range turret had severe dimples that required filler. Now it looks like a little robot head on top of the Bismarck.

 

The funnel was relatively easy to build. My Prinz Eugen model came with 2 blocks of wood to carve. It didn't have any of the myraid auxiliary pipes shown here, but I bought a brass detail kit made by Pontos for some plastic 1/200 Bismarck. Every pipe was a tiny piece of turned brass, and I glued them all individually. This was a lot easier.

 

I love the details on this model. If you were Ant Man you could walk all around the decks.

 

Front view with the little robot head on top.

 

Back view. I have also finished the aircraft cranes but forgot to attach them for the photo.

 

Fairey Swordfish view of the Bismarck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by rvchima

[hof00]

Hi Rod,

That looks awesome!! 🙂

 

Cheers....HOF.

[hof00]

Hi Rod,

Could I please ask a favor? Could you measure the width of your Hangars? (Just the wooden shell, outside edge to outside edge.)

I have just fixed my Funnel orientation.... Oops.... 🙂)

 

Anyway, when my Hangers are placed on either side of the Funnel, they appear to protrude 2.0mm or so past the edge of the Forward Superstructure.

I am thinking that I may need to reduce the thickness of the "Inboard" Hangar sides.

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

Cheers and Regards,

 

Harry.

[yvesvidal]

Very nicely built. Congratulations.

 

Yves

[ted99]

Beautiful construction.  A lot of hours, there.  Looking at your work, it's clear that the funnel and hangers need to be painted when separate, then glued together on the deck.  I agree with your assessment of the "quality" of the plastic parts.  It's clear that the stack will need to be filled, and then painted before I decorate it with the PE details--remember, I'm clear-coating after all the PE is attached.  I'm using Tamiya "putty", which is a plastic/solvent mixture that hardens very quickly and can be sanded.  Agree with your judgement on that silly "gap" on the conning tower.  I suggested in my build log that the gap be filled before putting on the wrap-around brass piece, rather than the order described in the instructions.  Very messy, otherwise.  Your comment on the wicking of the CA glue on the hangers noted.  I've pre-painted mine with grey 2X primer (after gesso wood filler) in anticipation of doing the PE brass detail, so I'm not expecting a wicking problem.  I'm painting all exposed wood black or grey, prior to decoration with PE brass, but planning to just clear coat all the brass and plastic detail pieces.  From your pictures, it looks like there will be a fair amount of filling on the plastic towers, et al, necessitating a grey paint spray before PE brass application.

[rvchima]

8 hours ago, hof00 said:

Could I please ask a favor? Could you measure the width of your Hangars?

Harry,

 

My hangars are 26.3 mm wide x 58.7 mm long. It took me a while to realize that the triangular cutout in the brass ends of the hangars fits exactly against a triangular step on the funnel. If you're not against that edge the hangars might protrude a bit.

 

[rvchima]

Handrails

This morning I took a deep breath and drilled about 300 holes for the handrails. The manual calls for 0.7 mm diameter holes so I removed one stanchion and checked the fit. That was way too big but my smallest drill bit, 0.56 mm diameter, worked well.

 

My deck planking was too close to the edge in many places and I ended up trimming little slivers off.

[rvchima]

How did I get the nice pictures?

[hof00]

2 hours ago, rvchima said:

Harry,

 

My hangars are 26.3 mm wide x 58.7 mm long. It took me a while to realize that the triangular cutout in the brass ends of the hangars fits exactly against a triangular step on the funnel. If you're not against that edge the hangars might protrude a bit.

 

Hi Rod,

Thank you for your response, much appreciated.

I an now wondering if the Inboard side of the Hangars are sloped to accommodate as per the PE detail in your photo.

That would indicate why they don't fit for me. My Hanger "Substrate" is all square and vertical.

 

I'll check today.

 

Cheers and Regards,

 

Harry.