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

[rvchima]

What's Left To Do After 320 Hours and 115 Days

 

The guns finished off my last piece of laser-cut plywood and my 5th sheet of PE brass. I must be nearly done, right?

 

Wrong! I still have several sheets of brass to go and countless sprues of plastic parts. Looks like I'll be busy for awhile.

[hof00]

1 hour ago, rvchima said:

Small Parts

 

The six small guns are made up just like the four large ones - complicated honeycomb framework made of thin plywood skinned with brass. Those are the plastic periscopes on the sides of two of the guns. The barrels are aluminum tube painted black but weren't installed yet for the photos.

 

 

 

The watchtower is made up of dozens of tiny brass parts. Attaching brass to existing structures is relatively easy, but building structures completely out of brass is a pain.

 

Started on the main mast today. Still lots to do on it.

Hi Rod,

Really nice work on the Watchtower/Aft Signal Station!!

Agree, The totally PE sub-assemblies are definitely a pain....  

 

Cheers....HOF.

[rvchima]

Main Mast Completed

 

The main mast has a lot of fiddly parts to cut, shape, fold, and bend. It was one of the harder pieces to build. The longest yard is cantilevered on a piece of PE brass. I didn't trust the folded joints so I soldered them too. That seemed to help a little.

[rvchima]

Laser Battleships?

 

No, the Germans didn't have Star Wars, but I did find a brilliant way (literally) to mark the dazzle camouflage stripes on my superstructure - I bought a laser level. You can find them under $17 USD on Amazon, but I bought a used Bosch level (ironically a German company) on eBay. It is "self leveling," which means that the laser hangs on a pendulum to try to level itself. If the tripod is not level within +/- 4 degrees the pendulum bottoms out and the laser flashes every couple of seconds to let you know. My camouflage stripes are steeply angled so the laser flashed continuously. That was pretty annoying and I almost returned the level, but I found that I could work around it. Other lasers can be locked and used at any angle. Tracing the laser beam with a pencil was awkward, but sticking masking tape along the beam was easy and just required some burnishing when I was done.

 

Here's my setup and a closeup. I just pointed the crossed beams at the corner of the stripes already painted on the hull and tipped the beam to hit a good point near the top. The beams are finer in person than they appear in the photos.  And just slide the model 1" to get the next line.

 

 

Here's where everything stands today.

Edited February 14, 2022 by rvchima
added 1 photo

[hof00]

10 hours ago, rvchima said:

Main Mast Completed

 

The main mast has a lot of fiddly parts to cut, shape, fold, and bend. It was one of the harder pieces to build. The longest yard is cantilevered on a piece of PE brass. I didn't trust the folded joints so I soldered them too. That seemed to help a little.

Looks really good!!

 

Cheers....HOF.

[rvchima]

Second Stripe Painted

 

I put in a crazy long day today and got the second camouflage stripe painted. That's the longest and hardest one. I have some travel coming up in March and would like to get the camouflage painting done before I leave.

 

The superstructure still breaks apart into multiple layers. That helps with painting a lot. I still wish that I had kept a couple more layers separate.

 

Here's a side view of the first two stripes. I like the way that the one white stripe extends across the gun.

 

My dog really needs to go out. I'd better call it a day.

[rvchima]

Small Parts

 

The catapults are fairly complicated PE construction but by now I'm getting pretty good at that.

 

The cranes are mostly plastic. The instructions say to put them away for now, but about 20 pages later they are attached. The bottoms look like there should be some kind of mounting pedestal but I can't find anything. I guess I'll wait a while and glue them to the hull.

 

Instruction no. 818 for the cranes shows a pair of tiny pulleys, parts 1337, attached to the top of the crane beam. The instructions don't say anything about them but I cut them out and attached them. On the next page instruction no. 825 has you making two operating pulleys using parts 1337. But they were all used earlier. I had to break them off the beam and reuse them for the later step.

 

Today I made 15 hose reels with either 2 or 3 legs in 3 sizes. I thought it would be tedious but they were pretty easy. After painting they will have cord wrapped around them to simulate hoses.

 

I will be traveling next month so I won't be posting for a while, but I will plan to keep up with other builds.

[hof00]

Hi Rod,

Looking really good!!

(I'm still painting the Hull, looking forward to getting back to some Superstructure stuff....🙂)

 

Cheers....HOF.

[pietkm]

Rod,

You are correct about the pulleys, there is only 4 while there should be 8.

 

Piet

[rvchima]

Digression

 

My wife and I are in Sanibel, Florida for awhile. I couldn't very well bring the Bismarck model with me, but I did bring a model of Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple that my sons gave me for Christmas. I got to tour the building in Oak Park, Illinois several years ago. The model is 1/250 scale, laser cut, and many of the pieces have peel-off adhesive on the back. I brought a minimal tool kit in a plastic bin and have been working on the model in the evenings.

 

The model is made by The Little Building Company in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. They make a series of early Australian houses, several FLW buildings, and an interesting model of the Sydney Opera House. The models are highly detailed but fairly easy to make. I am about 1/2 done with this one.

 

 

 

[yvesvidal]

Can't stop building, even when relaxing in one of the most beautiful locations on the planet.

I would be in the water, all day long....

Enjoy.

Yves

[hof00]

On 2/4/2022 at 2:15 PM, rvchima said:

Tricky Lifeboat Rack

I struggled with these photo-etched lifeboat rack for several hours today. (There are actually two symmetrical racks.) The instructions show them built up out of five pieces. Easy, right?

The triangular supports are different sizes. First I built them with their bases flat on my bench, but the platforms ended up twisted. After some deconstruction I rebuilt them by first attaching the center support to both platforms, and then attaching the end supports while keeping the platforms parallel. This ends up with flat, horizontal platforms when attached.

 

 

 

Then you have to attach the racks to the rear superstructure next to some existing ladders and vents that get in the way. I had to move two ladders. The instructions tell where the triangular supports should attach to the superstructure vents and rails. When I followed those directions the platforms ended up sloped a lot. Instead I attached the racks so that the platforms were horizontal. Here's the final result.

 

Incidentally, I thought that the construction of the ringed conduit at  top right was pretty clever. It's made from 1mm brass rod bent according to plan. The rings are 1mm eyelets glued in place with a drop of CA, then the shanks are cut off. Nice effect.

 

Hi Rod,

These "Boat" supports look "Interesting."

 

My Part-works stuff has additional strips of wood to assemble a rudimentary jig....

I wonder how that will go??

 

I also  had a good look at your Turret photos.

I'm thinking from these that you did not have any "Fitting" issues with the Barrels. (The front sloped turret Roofs, Main Turrets. are quite different from the ones I was supplied with, even the Breech parts seem to differ markedly.)

 

No wonder then that I have had problems here.... The Secondary Turrets and Breech components have fitment issues also, issues that I am still thinking about how and the best method to fix....

 

(I am now fairly convinced that the Amati/"Part-work" thing was definitely a pre-production run for Amati.

(If I wasn't so far down the track and had not invested the "Coin" I wouldn't have even attempted the Part-works version....)

 

Anyway, onwards....

 

Cheers and Regards,

 

Harry.

 

[rvchima]

On 3/13/2022 at 4:27 AM, hof00 said:

I also  had a good look at your Turret photos.

I'm thinking from these that you did not have any "Fitting" issues with the Barrels. (The front sloped turret Roofs, Main Turrets. are quite different from the ones I was supplied with, even the Breech parts seem to differ markedly.)

 

No wonder then that I have had problems here.... The Secondary Turrets and Breech components have fitment issues also, issues that I am still thinking about how and the best method to fix....

Harry,

I did have trouble fitting the plastic blast bags on the guns into the holes in the brass covering on the turrets - they were about 1 mm too wide on both both sets of guns. I sanded equal amounts of plastic off each side. I think I used my oscillating sander, but it wasn't too hard. I also had to open up the holes in the wooden turret structure with a drill bit to get the pins on the blast bags to fit. Again not too hard.

[hof00]

Thanks Rod,

 

Much appreciated.

 

Cheers....HOF.

[hof00]

On 1/26/2022 at 10:07 AM, rvchima said:

I Should Be Painting Camouflage, But ...

 

Joe100, yes I plan to paint the Baltic Stripes. I know that they didn't last long but they look so cool. And I know what a pain they will be to paint so I decided to build the big guns instead.

 

As usual, the Amati construction uses an over-complicated wooden framework

 

skinned with PE brass

 

and decorated with PE details. Each turret has two ladders about 15 mm long. There were 8 ladders on one sheet of PE that must have been left in the acid too long - the rungs were about the thickness of a spider's leg. There were 2 "spares" on another sheet that were OK so I put them on the first turret Anton. I managed to use the other ladders, but it wasn't easy. So far this is the only problem that I've had with the PE. I'll complain about the plastic parts in another post.

 

Here are the finished turrets with guns and incomplete bases.

 

Hi Rod,

Interesting regarding the Turret Ladders,

I had six on one PE Fret and two on another.

The Fret with six had significantly less material on the Rungs, but, not as extreme as your "Thin" examples.

I used mine and they look o.k. after a bit of a spray. 🙂

 

Something not picked up in the kit release perhaps?

 

Cheers....HOF.

Edited March 18, 2022 by hof00

[rvchima]

On 3/18/2022 at 5:17 AM, hof00 said:

Interesting regarding the Turret Ladders,

I had six on one PE Fret and two on another.

The Fret with six had significantly less material on the Rungs, but, not as extreme as your "Thin" examples.

I used mine and they look o.k. after a bit of a spray. 

Mine were laid out the same. There must be a problem with the image for the photo etch. I'm glad that yours are OK.

[hof00]

2 hours ago, rvchima said:

Mine were laid out the same. There must be a problem with the image for the photo etch. I'm glad that yours are OK.

Thanks Rod,

Challenges indeed!!

 

Finishing up the Service Boats, today hopefully.... 🙂

(Even though these items won't be going on the ship for a while, it'll be good to have them out of the way.)

 

Cheers and Regards,

 

Harry.

[hof00]

Hi Rod,

I know that somewhere in your thread that you mentioned that you had been drilling holes for the Deck Stanchions, however, I thought I'd ask you what size bit was suitable for the Stanchions.

 

I think that I'll have to order some Drills.

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

Cheers and Regards,

 

Harry.

[Joe100]

I’m really enjoying following this thread, a fantastic build! Extremely involved and the way you did the Baltic stripes is genius. 
 

I did notice that Amati didn’t include the S-Anlage active sonar array. It’s censored on almost every photo of the ship though, which is understandable in the end. It’s a very obscure detail but it does change the bow profile pretty significantly.  The oscillators were located at the stem and about 30’ back just above the keel, a little behind the anchor cluses. It’s a different setup to the GHG microphone arrays, which were for passive listening. 
 

[rvchima]

On 3/31/2022 at 8:01 PM, hof00 said:

I know that somewhere in your thread that you mentioned that you had been drilling holes for the Deck Stanchions, however, I thought I'd ask you what size bit was suitable for the Stanchions.

Harry,

I just measured a stanchion and it came out at 0.52 mm. I probably used a nominal 0.5 mm bit.

Do you have a digital caliper? They are quite inexpensive and I use mine constantly. I bought a huge set of Chinese metric drill bits from Amazon. They came all jumbled together in the package. I measured them all and sorted them by approximate size. They were not at all what they were supposed to be, but I can usually find something close. I also have a set of precision bits that I use when the cheap ones don't fit.

Rod

 

[rvchima]

Frank Lloyd Wright Unity  Temple

I just returned from a month in beautiful Sanibel, Florida. While I was there I completed this model of Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois. It Is a beautiful little kit and kept me busy for a few weeks. It would fit on the deck of my Bismarck (sans base.)

 

[rvchima]

Fiddly Bits

I spent the last couple of days building a LOT of miscellaneous deck fittings. I believe that the Brits call them "fiddley bits," which I think is a most appropriate term. Please correct my English if I am wrong.

• 8  3.7 cm AA guns
• 5   random hatches
• 10 2 cm AA guns
• 3   vents
• 9   lockers
• 12 vents
• 14 life rings (wire rings painted white)
• 2   breakwaters
• 3   accommodation ladders
• 8   spare gun barrels

I just sprayed everything. Tomorrow I get to glue all this stuff on the deck

Edited April 6, 2022 by rvchima

[hof00]

19 hours ago, rvchima said:

Harry,

I just measured a stanchion and it came out at 0.52 mm. I probably used a nominal 0.5 mm bit.

Do you have a digital caliper? They are quite inexpensive and I use mine constantly. I bought a huge set of Chinese metric drill bits from Amazon. They came all jumbled together in the package. I measured them all and sorted them by approximate size. They were not at all what they were supposed to be, but I can usually find something close. I also have a set of precision bits that I use when the cheap ones don't fit.

Rod

 

Thanks Rod,

I do have a set of digital calipers, I guess I was just being lazy in asking the question in the first place....🙂

 

Cheers and Regards,

 

Harry.

[hof00]

19 hours ago, rvchima said:

Fiddly Bits

I spent the last couple of days building a LOT of miscellaneous deck fittings. I believe that the Brits call them "fiddley bits," which I think is a most appropriate term. Please correct my English if I am wrong.

• 8  3.7 cm AA guns
• 5   random hatches
• 10 2 cm AA guns
• 3   vents
• 9   lockers
• 12 vents
• 14 life rings (wire rings painted white)
• 2   breakwaters
• 3   accommodation ladders
• 8   spare gun barrels

I just sprayed everything. Tomorrow I get to glue all this stuff on the deck

Hi Rod,

You are quite correct, "Fiddly Bits" are what we would say here also in the "Antipodes." 🙂

 

Cheers....HOF.

[rvchima]

On 4/1/2022 at 12:01 AM, Joe100 said:

I did notice that Amati didn’t include the S-Anlage active sonar array. It’s censored on almost every photo of the ship though, which is understandable in the end. It’s a very obscure detail but it does change the bow profile pretty significantly.  The oscillators were located at the stem and about 30’ back just above the keel, a little behind the anchor cluses. It’s a different setup to the GHG microphone arrays, which were for passive listening.

Joe,

 

I almost overlooked your post. I'm glad that you're enjoying the build. This is such a nice kit that I am surprised that there aren't more folks building it.

 

Amati does include a small decal set labeled Sound Locator System. It looks like an upside down U made of rows of small black dots. One of the last items in the instructions is to place these decals near the keel below the false bow wave. Would this be the GHG microphone array that you mentioned?

[Joe100]

Greetings, it’s likely too late to fit the S-Anlage equipment to your model sadly, but it’s existence wasn’t known until not too terribly recently. One thing you have to remember is most photos of Bismarck and Tirpitz were heavily censored, and a lot of critical equipment was airbrushed out, including the S-Anlage oscillators, possibly. If you look at the famous drydock photos of Bismarck you’ll see they’re nowhere to be seen, so they were either either not installed yet or brushed out, I’m writing this on the fly and my KM references are all packed up pending a move, but I think the drydock photos are pre-installation iirc. Most KM heavies had S-Anlage by late 1940 though, including Bismarck. You’ll also notice that strange circle just below the bulb of the bow and that is a piece of equipment rarely modeled called the Bugspiere. It’s shown in its retracted position, but it’s essentially a long pole that just out of the bow where the mine clearing equipment would be attached. You can also see this equipment on Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Apparently there were 2 different configurations, one for active mine clearing and another for passive mine defense. I believe this was rigged early in Rhine after she left Poland in the passive configuration while being escorted by Sperrbrecher 13.

 

Also, yes, the horseshoe shaped “holes” decals are the Gruppenhorchgerät or GHG for passive listening. Quite accurate too. The GHG was a series of 62 crystal microphones per side and was manufactured by AtlasWerke in Bremen. The exact model fitted to Bismarck was An301m. 

 

This is all really deep-dive stuff, and these are not really in many books about the ship sadly. 
 

here are some illustrations. 
 

 

[rvchima]

Joe100,

 

Thank you for posting this fascinating information about the Bismarck. I think your illustrations are from the AOTS book, which I have but would never have noticed. I will add the decals for the GHG array but will not change the hull for the S-Anlage equipment. Maybe your post will catch the eye of a future builder.

[rvchima]

Fiddly Bits Installed

I spent a dozen tedious hours attaching all the fiddly bits described above. The model is starting to look like the Death Star from Star Wars.

 

Turret Bruno impinges slightly on the platform behind it and won't quite turn around. I don't think I can fix it now, but other builders should keep an eye on that clearance.

 

[rvchima]

Ship's boats, 395 hours, 174 days

I looked ahead in the instructions and there are about 12 more pages of fiddly bits to go 🤪. Harry (hof00) seemed to enjoy building the ship's boats so I decided to jump ahead and give them a go. There are 11 boats, all one-piece molded plastic with lots of PE. Lots of spraying, masking, spraying, masking, hand painting, attaching tiny parts, more hand painting, and touch up. Here's the whole lot.

 

There are three basic designs, 3 motor/officer's launches.

Note that each boat has a tiny wheel and a prop. The prop is about 2 mm in diameter and has a hole about the size of a human hair. The instructions say to "enlarge the hole in the centre of the propeller if necessary." The holes have to be enlarged to about .45 mm. Luckily I thought to drill them before removing them from the fret, because I don't know how I could have held them otherwise.

 

 

Four "connection" motor boats. I don't know what that means.

 

Four simple boats stacked in 2 pairs. Plastic hulls and PE painted separately. These were easy.

 

I have all the lifeboat racks built so I will install the lifeboats next.

[king derelict]

The ships boats look fantastic. Congratulations

Alan