SMS WESPE 1876 by wefalck – 1/160 scale - Armored Gunboat of the Imperial German Navy - as first commissioned

[wefalck]

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your kind feedback !

***********************************************************

 

More Crew

 

While dispositioning the crew according to the envisages story-board - the crew undergoes some gun drill under the supervision of a petty officer, with the captain (Kapitänleutnant, but I didn’t manage to paint the two embroidered stripes on the sleeves) looks on, the first officer (Leutnant zur See, one stripe on the sleeves) takes notes, and two men man the helm - I noticed a certain emptiness and lack of activity in the other parts of the boat. So, I sifted through the Preiser-sprues in search for some additional suitable figures. Thus, more mid 20^th century German railway staff joined the 19^thcentury Imperial Navy. There will be two stokers taking a break from their arduous work, a rating on signalling duty walking back towards the mast, and a petty officer on the after deck going about his duty.

As before, jackets had to be trimmed down and breast pockets scraped off in order to represent blouses and high-waist trousers. The single-breasted railway-jacket was converted into the double-breasted one of the navy, caps or hats altered.

The painting proceeded as before, but I noted that the practices from the other figures paid off. The stokers wear the white working blouse and trousers, which seems a bit strange in a boiler-room environment full of coal-dust, soot, and sweat, but I suppose the undyed cotton stands up better to serious washing than any coloured cloth. After painting, these figures were dusted with grey pastel.

 

 

To be continued ....

Edited June 30 by wefalck

[KeithAug]

Nice to see the boiler room staff getting a little deck time. All very precise. Excellent work.

[BANYAN]

Nice 'bodging' Eberhard, the crew are looking good.  Your steady hands have come to the fore with some really well defined fine detail showing.

 

cheers

 

pat

[wefalck]

The Crew boards S.M.S. WESPE

 

With all the crew members being painted, they were place at their foreseen duty stations. They were attached with tiny drops of Vallejo acrylic matt varnish. The pictures below show their disposition.

Final touch-ups

 

In case I had to remove the model from its base for whatever reason, it had only be screwed down, but the slight gap between the hull and modelled sea had not been filled with acrylic gel yet. Now with the model almost completed, this was done.

 

I also gave it a very light weathering at certain places. For instance, the top of the smoke stack was lightly dusted with black pastel. White and grey pastel indicated the areas where the ash would have dropped out of the ash-chutes into the sea. Some grey pastel was also applied to certain parts of the hull to break somewhat the uniform black and enhance the visibility of surface structures.

 

  

 

Raising the Ensign

 

Now, being ready to go to sea, the ensign was raised, meaning the flagstaff was installed. This being extremely delicate, it was left as very last step.

 

With this the model is in principle finished after a journey of nearly 18 years. I just checked: the first photographs were taken on 1 October 2006. There have been considerable interruptions, such as the move from the Netherlands to Paris. I also built the model of the Zuiderzee-botter in between and spent considerable time on constructing workshop tools and machinery.

 

However, before screwing down the glass-case the above photographs also serve to check the model for any imperfections that can still be addressed at this point. Paint may have to be touched up etc. This is more visible on 2D images, than on the real thing. Once this is done, some ‘glamour shots’ will be taken before the glass-case makes this more difficult.

There are certainly things that I wish had turned out better. This includes the rigging, which is taught or following catena-curves as I had planned. Making things to scale-size also makes them at the chosen scale rather flimsy with limitations to adjustment possibilities. This is even more the case with ‘modern’ ships in metal and with metal parts, where parts have to be thin and small, compared to those on wooden ships of old. Sometimes, these problems also arose due to a lack of foresight on my side.

What next?

 

Well, the follow-on project is mentally already almost completed (one of several), but the workshop needs first a good tidying up, cleaning, and re-organisation. Something that had been neglected actually for several years during the drive to complete SMS WESPE. Some machinery also needs a bit TLC to be ready for the next project. There are also a couple of small tool projects that I want to undertake, but I may start those only, once I have started the new ship project.

 

[Keith Black]

 Congratulations, Eberhard. What a fantastic journey it's been following your build of the Wespe. She's neat, beautiful, gorgeous, mind blowing, and many many more adjectives describing such over the top workmanship on your part. Again, congratulations. . 

[JacquesCousteau]

Congratulations on finishing, what an amazing build! The figures really make it come to life, too.

[KeithAug]

Wonderful Eberhard. I liked the crew pictures so much I even made my wife look at them. Even she was impressed. 

[Javelin]

Very impressive build. Echoing the above, the crew really brings it to life. 

The sharpness of your construction keeps amazing me! Splendid work! 

[Bedford]

Congratulations, a very long project with incredible attention to detail. A masterpiece!

What's next I wonder...

[druxey]

Unglaublich, Eberhard! Congratulations on miniature masterpiece. An amazing accomplishment.

[Ras Ambrioso]

Words are not enough Wefalk. 

[BANYAN]

A stunning model Eberhard; those figurines really set it off.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[GrandpaPhil]

Eberhardt,

 

Excellent work on Wespe!  Congratulations!

[Rick310]

Fantastic!!  Your attention to detail has to be seen to be believed!!

Rick

[FriedClams]

Congratulations on finishing this wonderful model masterpiece!  This log has been a real tour de force in miniature modeling techniques, so thanks for demonstrating these and the unique materials that you used such papers, etc.  A beautiful model display and I look forward to the "glamor shots."

 

Gary

[mbp521]

Congratulations Eberhard, what an outstanding build. 18 years, wow!  It has been a fantastic adventure following along and can’t wait to jump on board the next one. 
 

-Brian

[Tony Hunt]

Congratulations on your focus and tenacity across such a long build. The finished model looks superb. All the more impressive that it's been achieved at 1/160 scale.

[mtaylor]

Congratulations.  This model is a masterpiece by any definition.  It's amazing to me how much detail you can put into such a small scale model. 

[yvesvidal]

On 6/5/2022 at 10:43 AM, wefalck said:

Oh my gosh...that must hurt !!!

 

Yves

[wefalck]

While I am trying to source a suitable background paper for the ‘glamour-shots’ of the completed S.M.S. WESPE, I started a new project, a model of single-masted Baltic trader from northern Germany: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/37083-pomerian-rahschlup-1846-by-wefalck-–-1160-scale-–-single-masted-baltic-trading-vessel/#comment-1061266

 

[ccoyle]

I missed the finish of your project. It's a great model and a fantastic presentation! Well done!

[wefalck]

A few glamour-shots of S.M.S. WESPE

Finally, I managed to go into town to buy a suitable paper as backdrop for the glamour-shots of the whole model. Here they are without further comments:

 

And also two shots in black & white:

[ERS Rich]

Beautiful, and inspirational, thank you for posting.

[KeithAug]

Eberhard - Wonderful and the black and white shot of the gun looks almost real. I think if it was a little more grainy and a bit out of focus everyone would mistake it for the real thing.

[Keith Black]

30 minutes ago, KeithAug said:

Eberhard - Wonderful and the black and white shot of the gun looks almost real. I think if it was a little more grainy and a bit out of focus everyone would mistake it for the real thing.

 My thoughts exactly. 

 

 Great photos, Eberhard. It's such a neat little model, are you putting her under glass and displaying her at your home?

[GrandpaPhil]

Eberhard,

  Simply excellent!

[mcb]

Congratulations for completing this outstanding model.

I must thank you for introducing new methods, materials and knowledge to consider in my own future efforts.

She looks good in the water with figures and flag.

 

Thanks for posting,

mcb

[BANYAN]

An exquisite model Eberhard.  It really is a showcase for your skills and attention to detail.  I very much enjoyed the journey of the build.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[wefalck]

Thank you very much again, gentlemen, for your kind comments!

 

Keith, I am not sure that photos in the 1870s would have been more grainy and less focused. At that time photographers still had to use large-format glass-plate negatives, even wet collodium plates. Given their size of nearly A4, they and the care taken when focusing on the ground glass-plate before inserting the actual photographic plate, they images tend to be extremely well focused and also with a great depth of field. We tend to see such pictures in printed form in books etc., where much of the original image quality is lost.

 

For the fun of it I superimposed the very first photograph of S.M.S. WESPE, an engraving that obviously was based on this photograph, and a somewhat ‘photoshopped’ shot of the model (without spending to much time on that)::

 

 

 

… perhaps I shouldn’t have done this, as I no discover things that could have been done better 🫣

[BANYAN]

I think you may be a little harsh on your build efforts Eberhard; from my perspective I don't think there is much you could improve on.

 

cheers

 

Pat