Tirpitz, lonely Queen of the North: update July 4th, Finished

Hi Tigerman, thanks for the kind words. Us ship guys are easily recognized by the thick glasses we wear and the tiny fingers we have  in combination with very pronounced nervous ticks around the eyes

cheers,

Julian

Fantastic job. That is some real solid work. Whew, I don't know how you ship guys do it.

         Julian, whatever decision you make on your next model to construct, please keep your modeling fans on the Forum up to date with photos of your modeling progress. Good luck.

                 Montani semper liberi !          Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                                                   Crackers                    

Thank you very much Anthony. I have been following your Jagdtiger build over on the dark side. That is a beautiful cat and your light/dark brown ambush scheme is fantastic !

cheers,

Julian

I have not followed this one,but that is one beautiful project,looks great.

Mark, B17Pilot: thanks guys, glad you like the results It turned out to be a longer build than I expected due to the photo etch adventures. (btw Mark, is that a Japanese ship in your avatar?).

Crackers: thanks for the kind remarks. Ina snwer to your question regarding La Reale; I am not sure what the next ship build will be. First I am going to build a 1/24th scale Jagdpanther that has been in my stash since before Christmas. This will be a nice change of pace after the Tirpitz and give me a chance to try out some camo effects with my new Badger Velocity Raptor ( SE Black edition ). After that I am considering one of the following builds:

1/350 Fujimi IJN Haruna with after market PE and barrels.

1/350 Zvezda Borodino with after market PE and barrels

1/350 Tamiya IJN Yamato with after market PE and barrels

The Heller La Reale de France, ( your remarks had me climb up to the attic to take a peek in the stash and this is a very nice looking model).

That is planning now Crackers, but I am not sure which it will turn out to be.

Regards,

Julian

WOW! She's beautiful! Been following your build and thoroughly enjoying the process. Just one critique - NOT ENOUGH PHOTOS!!! 

Great job dude!

Mark

That is one great looking battleship!! 

  Julian, now that you have finished the TIRPITZ, would you ever consider building the galley, LA REALE DE FRANCE ? This is such a beautiful model. You do such exquisite work. I would be pleased to see a your completed galley.

            Montani semper liberi !          Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                                            Crackers             

All things come to an end and I am calling the Tirpitz finished. Here are some photos of the finished article:

It has been an enjoyable build but now for a change of pace before I proceed with the next ship.

Hope I didn't bore you gentlemen out there too much,

regards,

JUlian

Sspeedy04: thank you very much for the kind remarks. I am very happy with how far I have come with this build.

B17pilot: a nice offer but at the moment no thank you After 6 months of Tirpitz build I am not sure what the next model I pull out of the stack will be. I am sort of undecided between the Bronco 1/350th Ting Yuen turret ship or the Fujimi 1/350th battleship Haruna.

cheers,

Julian

Looking really good!  Want to do my Bismarck? 

I'm new to the forum, but I have been building for almost 25 yrs and I have to say that this is a beautiful ship.  I have seen many a model of the Tirpitz, but not many that are this well done.  This is what I hope to achieve with my latest build.  Thank you for a beautiful example of a nice kit.

I didn't get much done the last two weeks. Last weekend I spent writing a review of Bronco's 1/350th Ting Yuen battleship, very nice model, ( http://modelshipwrights.kitmaker.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=5232 ). I have now just fitted Tirpitz's mainmast with the very prominent backstays. At the moment spray painting the main turrets. Just a quick few photo's before I head off to the barbecue:

Cheers,

Julian

Heading into the final laps now on my Tirpitz build. I have added the foremast with it's signal halyards and ran into the Eduard scale problem: the yard is to weak to support signal lines without strengthening, ( or you could use stretched sprue I suppose). I chose to strengthen the yards with thin brass tubing. The radar scanners have been painted now. I am in the process of adding the bridge wings at the moment. One last point is the stand for the Tirpitz. I like the monument in Norway to mark where the Tirpitz once lay at anchor: A rusty piece of armour plating on a stone mount. I decided to make the name plate look like this rusty piece of steel and also slightly weathered the stand to give a bashed up metal look. I like the end result . Here are some pictures:

Thanks for looking in,

cheers,

Julian

Sorry double posted here.

Julian

Update May 16th 2010: Nearly a month since the last update mainly because I got sidetracked with a visit to the dark side I saw this little guy in the local model shop and couldn't resist building it:

I have been working on the Tirpitz although I must admit looking at the following photos there seems to be a lot of details that need touching up and cleaning. I have nearly reached the highest point on the superstructure and all radars are now fitted, (top radars still need to be painted). The rigging has started as well although I managed to mangle the PE signal stations and the antenna holders around the bridge needed strengthening with streched sprue before I could add lines. Here are the photos:

Thank you all for letting me bore you with my build again,

cheers,

Julian

Another update to the Tirpitz build. The port crane has been added  along with a number of crewmen to give an idea of the size of the ship. I have also scratched breech bags for turret "Cesar" and painted on the camo. I must admit the jury is still out on this part of the build and any feedback on the bags would be appreciated .

Thanks for looking in,

cheers,

Julian

Time for another update on my  Tirpitz build. Progress has been slow due to some things from work intruding in my free time and of course due to the fact the PE takes me time to fit (old fumble fingers). Now that all the ship's tenders are constructed, painted and fitted I am rather happy with the resulting busy look around the stack and catapult. I have started adding PE  to the whaleboat davits and the Arado's are now resplendant in German warpaint. I have also added the first of about 350 1/350th scale seamen. Looks a bit like a skeleton crew now, but I hope it will busy up nicely. I first thought that fitting crewmembers was a bit OTT but I must admit I was wrong here. It gives a great idea of the scale of the ship. On a last note I just must mention the ultrasonic cleaner I bought at a model show in Zaandam last weekend. My airbrushes had reached a stage that cleaner and brushes weren't helping any more. I invested in the above mentioned cleaner and I am absolutely stunned at how clean the airbrushes came out of the tank ! I also gave all my tweezers a plunge and they came out like new as well. Just my  . Okay,  photos:

Thanks for looking in,

cheers,

Julian

After a break from doing PE parts, ( I did a quick build of a 1/72 Seehund), back to work on the Tirpitz. I have been fitting a lot of railings and triple A in different calibers. This is rather time consuming:

The supplied barrels are very much out of scale.

This is what I will be using as a replacement, not a review copy but supplied by my bank account

Remove the offending plastic barrels......................

Drill holes for the new barrels................

These are the new barrels

And here a more to scale set of 37mm mounts

Things are coming together, creating a suitably busy look to the decks. Here are some photos to give an impression of the progress so far:

That's all for now, back to the PE grindstone...............................

cheers,

Julian

Update #10, slightly later than usual, monday 15th march 2010: Have spent the last week working on the aft superstructure, including main aircraft hanger , boat stowage and aft rangefinder. I mentioned at the start of this build I would be a happy man if I managed to get the matrass radar scanners folded and fitted. Well, the folding went okay but I made a major mess of fitting things: There is a metal framework around the optical part of the rangefinder and somehow I managed to misread the instructions and fit it on top of the optical range finder. Nearly had heart failure when I read my reference book and saw my mistake. I have managed to remove and refit them by now so problem solved bar the touch up.

That's all for now, thanks for looking in,

cheers,

Julian

Oh man, that is a big compliment  Thank you very much for looking Mark and thank you for the kind remarks.

cheers,

Julian

Julian - Oh boy she is beautiful!! I've been following your build and I finally had to reply. Keep up the great work and please - MORE PICS!!!

P.S. Now I want one, too!!!

Mark

March 7th update: After much soul searching I decided to go the whole hog and order after market barrels for all the weapons on board the Tirpitz. The 20mm barrels are hideously small in 1/350th scale and by now I am wondering if this was all really a good idea The secondary armament is now PE'd, painted and added, adds to the agressive look and I am now going to slowly proceed towards the stern of the vessel before adding more height to the superstructure. Railings have been added to the superstructure in areas I won't be visiting again. I have also added the walkways to the floatplane hangers annex boat storage rails adjacent to the stack. I can't help thinking it might have been a better idea to build an all grey warship as a first try

The baggies contain 20 barrels, see the following photos to check the better scale effect they give, (even if you can't really see them any more )

That is all at the moment, cheers,

Julian

February 28th update: Added railings to first superstructure section and adding PE to the 150mm battery. Doesn't seem like a lot of progress but the PE is very time consuming to add. Here are some shots of progress so far:

That's all for now,

Cheers,

Julian

Hi Manny, thank you very much !

Hi Mikey, I checked out the Eduard website and have found the Kriegsmarine AAA set. I will stick with the Revell weapons modified with Eduard PE for this build but thank you for the tip.

cheers,

Julian

Grem56

Hi Mikey, no, didn't realise Eduard had a separate set and the WEM set looked a bit too intricate for me. I'll stick with these. Maybe when I get around to building the IJN Haruna I bought I'll have enough experience with munchkin size PE to try that as well......................................

Cheers,

Julian

I have the set and they are actually quite simple. 6 20mm Flakvierling38 with shield 6 20mm Flakvierling38 without shield 6 37mm Zweiling and quite a few single mount 20mm Flak38's. the 20mm Flakvierling38 w/shield consist of only 3 parts while the Flakvierling38 without shields only have 2 parts and the 37mm zweiling is only 2 parts. The size of the parts are pretty good sized.

Very Nice !

Hi Mikey, no, didn't realise Eduard had a separate set and the WEM set looked a bit too intricate for me. I'll stick with these. Maybe when I get around to building the IJN Haruna I bought I'll have enough experience with munchkin size PE to try that as well......................................

Cheers,

Julian