Bismarck repair project
Comments
1 22 May 2014, 21:53
Christian BruerInteresting project. I guess I would have thrown it into the bin and buy a new one. But the aspect of making the best of it with additional parts and some scratch build work is an interesting subject in modelmaking. Very well done so far Steven. Looking forward to your progress.
4 February 2015, 19:26
Steven Van DyckThanks, Christian. Actually, it's a good exercise before I tackle this upcoming project: USS Princeton CVL-23 (Dragon 1055, 1:350). I bought one of the last available WEM etch sets for it.
4 February 2015, 19:31
Steven Van DyckThe deck has been primed and painted. Now I can do some weathering before I mask it.
8 February 2015, 00:21
Christian BruerSeems you need a lot of mask on this large deck. I prefer hand painting by brush for all deck sections, but never had done before such a big one. Looking forward to your progress Steven.
8 February 2015, 09:56
Steven Van DyckThanks, Christian. The problem was that I used large sections of metallic deck scratch parts. Brush painting would have been difficult. For large surfaces I will combine paper masking and Tamiya tape. Small objects may be painted after removal of the mask. Railing will have to wait too.
8 February 2015, 12:45
Steven Van DyckThe deck is filtered with AK's NATO filter, streaked in the direction of the planking.
9 February 2015, 16:30
Christian BruerSeems you've had a lot of work to do masking all the parts. Looking forward to your progress Steven.
17 February 2015, 18:38
Steven Van DyckYes Christian. It makes the job I did today look like child's play, I glued the maintenance rails to the smokestack. For this I had no PE so I used a shred of insect gauze. Slightly oversize but it has almost the right interval. Trimmed to the right size it can be fixed in concentric paths.
18 February 2015, 23:49
Steven Van DyckStriping and recognition swastikas are painted on and overpainted again. Superstructure has been faded.
13 March 2015, 21:56
Christian BruerHi Steve, the fading looks really nice and I think it match the look of Bismarck very well on her last voyage in May 1941. Do you know about John Asmussen & Eric Leon's German Naval Camouflage Vol .1 and 2?
14 March 2015, 13:14
Steven Van DyckThanks, Christian. I watched what you ment at bismarck-class.dk/bo..amouflage_vol_1.html and it surely looks a fine tool if you build a lot of Kriegsmarine. Most of my reference comes from the booklet on top of p.1 and the line drawings on bismarck-class.dk.
14 March 2015, 13:53
Steven Van DyckRailings and barbettes are nearly finished now. The anchor chain is installed.
22 March 2015, 19:05
Steven Van DyckMe too, I've had to put aside some projects to be able to finish this one. Just created the blastbags from Milliput.
23 March 2015, 22:34
Christian BruerYep outstanding work with all the scratch build details and excellent paint work!
24 March 2015, 17:20
Steven Van DyckThank you. Even more bags are added to the guns. Also the davits are scratched.
28 March 2015, 00:35
Steven Van DyckThe dinghies and boats are now being painted. I scratched the floor because an internal seamline should be covered. The main gun towers are finished now.
2 April 2015, 20:53
Steven Van DyckThe ship is now positioned on two hollow girders made of Evergreen planks, mounted on a piece of ceramic.
5 April 2015, 21:42
Steven Van DyckThanks, Donald! I just added a smack of pictures with a lot of additions to the ship. Ralings are now almost complete, what I lacked in Eduard PE I scratched out of fret pieces. I suspended an Arado from the starboard crane and I scratched most of the optic equipment on the open bridge. When al this got painted grey, i'll start rigging.
12 April 2015, 22:31
Donald MedleyOutstanding work, like the scratch work you do. Good imagination, like that🙂
13 April 2015, 10:58
Donald MedleyI made a diorama of a 107 mm cannon in Nam. Scratch built the palm trees and a troop taking a wiz along side of it. Made palm leaves out of coke can, trunk out of round sprue with a sharp hobby knife.
13 April 2015, 11:13
Steven Van DyckThanks Donald. More scratch photos added today, the ships boats have got railing out of some spare ladders.
15 April 2015, 22:21
Donald MedleyJust keep up on the scratch building. To me, that's why modeling is so relaxing imagination, imagination🙂
16 April 2015, 03:30
Steven Van DyckToday I fixed the boats and did some airbrushing to the deck and superstructure. Next will be a coat of Vallejo Polyurethane varnish.
16 April 2015, 20:21
Steven Van DyckI buy them at Artobi, a large hobbyshop near my place. They're handy for painting the finishing layers, you can get the right dosage from the elastic bottles. Almost everybody in the Benelux area sells them now.
19 April 2015, 18:19
Steven Van DyckCool, I once built BB-63 that got it's name from your place. But then I knew little about photo etch... @Peter, thanks! In the mean time I rigged half the ship already, using fishing wire and Uschi Van Der Rosten's Rig That Thing!
20 April 2015, 17:49
Steven Van DyckI'm from Belgium, yes. I see you like to build old planes also? I have a 1/24 FW190D on hold now.
21 April 2015, 17:40
Clifford KeeslerLooks really amaning.@Donald, where in MO.are you. I'm near STL.
24 April 2015, 01:09
Steven Van DyckThanks, Clifford. The ship is ready but for the ship's bell now, tomorrow you'll get the finishing pictures. This update shows the making of glass panes with Crystal Klear glue.
25 April 2015, 20:40
Steven Van DyckBismarck is ready for commissioning. I also included pictures comparing the model to an earlier built Tirpitz model and some customized images. One is a converted picture of the colorized image of Bismarck anchored at Kiel, mirrored and with my model inserted. The other one is an "x-ray" image that shows the diiferent materials in use. Blue is scratch Evergreen and metal foil, pink is Eduard PE, green is Trumpeter, red is Aber and cyan is Academy. A protective glass cover has been ordered and I will consider a scratch name tag. Finally I can divert my attention to other projects, like a Chinese ZLC APC and another large project concerning AFV's Churchill Mk IV.
27 April 2015, 19:27
Steven Van DyckThanks, Donald. Bismarck won its first medal today, a silve one. I went on to maken some rigging pictures.
3 May 2015, 20:43
Steven Van DyckHi Donald, I'm currently planning to visit a carpentry business to have a baseplate made for the glass screen I bought. The ship is finished like this, I'll be doing some AFV's now.
18 May 2015, 04:43
Steven Van DyckI hope so too, Donald. Would that it earned me my first gold, maybe...
18 May 2015, 14:24
Steven Van DyckDoing some painstaking work to have the ship's name appear under the model.
27 June 2015, 21:44
Steven Van DyckAll of the lettering has been cut now, it's just plying and closing off now, like it has been done already with the letter I.
1 August 2015, 22:09
Steven Van DyckNow the sides have been glued and some putty is applied. By sunday this model will enter the Scaleforce competition at KMK Mol.
11 September 2015, 21:25
Steven Van DyckI cleaned the letters, repainted them and drilled holes for placement.
12 September 2015, 23:06
Steven Van DyckThe setting is finally finished and won a bronze medal at KMK Mol 2015.
13 September 2015, 21:35
Donald Medleycongratulations' on your silver! Probably deserved a gold but nothing wrong with second. It's the hard work that you put into your work that hurts but you have the self satisfaction of knowing you did your best and will only get better as your projects progress. 🙂
14 September 2015, 12:19
Steven Van DyckThank you, guys. It got silver and bronze once, now one color is still missing...
14 September 2015, 20:58
Album info
This model was severely damaged by its former owner. He entrusted it to me to finish it, although many parts were missing, like the most of the bridge, some of the guns, propulsion parts and masts. Detail was minimal but accuracy was not so bad. I bought a basic PE set and got the propulsion elements from a colleague builder. I bought Trumpeter's Arado seaplanes. I replaced all the barrels by ABER and covered glue-stained deck parts with aluminium foil. I scratched the entire upper bridge part and fire control system. By now I've finally come up to paint the hull and get to finish detailing the upper parts; soon I can paint the decks. It' s been great fun but the challenges keep on coming...
