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Steven Van Dyck
For a review on the aftermarket products shown see shipmodels.info/mws_..p;p=1027734#p1027734

Matti Thomaes
Wauw Steven, already a new mahousive project , looking forward to the build, 👍

Ingmar Stöhr
Oh wow! Following!

Gary Victory
Enjoy the Build Steven.

Treehugger
What is the significance, or the meaning of the name 'Jacobsen' on that coin in photo 13? Anyone know? 'Jacobsen' is a more or less common surname.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks for the interest. For Jacobsen see fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famille_Jacobsen , it's apparently a family of infamous corsairs also related to Jean Bart. It even mentions the medal at the end.

Steven Van Dyck
Both medals have now arrived. These will be useful as nameplates on the base. One had the description "paquebot Strasbourg", translated as cargo ship, and would be cast in 1950. I started with sanding the hulls to remove the casting traces, these are apparently broken off the sprue leaving two scabs. I noticed one difference, Strasbourg got a degaussing cable. I removed one breakwater from the front deck, taking care not to remove the detail around it. The drilling locations are not very clear, indicator lines passing multiple holes. I started removing Dunkerques sloop rails as I noticed that in the Strasbourg Woodhunter deck there are some PE ones, but now I notice that Shipyard wasn't planning on replacing the plastic rails in their wooden deck. And these rails are lying on the wooden deck, so they're very thin. I'll have to compare very well.

Steven Van Dyck
I wanted to fix Dunkerque's deck. The hull is a bit narrow so I introduced a fitting piece of sprue before I glued the deck in. So there are no unnecessary tensions on the deck. The Shipyard watertight doors are replacing the kit ones, that are actually as detailed as the PE but I saw on pictures that these doors are all placed open. Some drilling is done to open up the doorways. The front of the conning tower should not have much of armour contrary to the rest of it, because only the internal communication channel is armoured. I therefore did not simply glue the PE plating on it, but removed the thick plastic first.

Ingmar Stöhr
You are putting a lot of effort into these! Great work so far!!!

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks, Ingmar. Now the deck of Strasbourg is fixed, but the Bigblueboy set has some extra requirements. The doors now have a backside structure, though not the correct one I suspect. I found a rectangular profile in stead of their diamond pattern. They also request to open up the airplane hangar in two levels. Then the atlantic bow deck is completely covered with a large PE plate sporting the correct anti-slip pattern. It's so nice I rue that it won't be available for Dunkerque, that has got a bland chequered pattern from Hobbyboss.

Steven Van Dyck
The Strasbourg deck is further elaborated. The front splash guard has 32 triangular teeth, but you get 2 spares for each of the instances. So you can lose an entire set without stalling the project. You also get some 2D bitts that I rather changed to 3D, using PE rings and wire. The front deck house is replaced with PE, but it has 8 windows so I painted the inside black. The airplane hangar is a complicated design but it has a fully functional elevator.

Jörg Schäfer
A real Steven Van Dyck, I'll stay on board. 😁
As always, excellent precision.

Ingmar Stöhr
I always like it, if you get some spares for the tiniest parts! As long as there is space on the fret, it doesn't cost the manufacturer anything and it helps calm your nerves.