Revell 1/350 Bismarck WIP

Off to a nice start on her. I heard that this is the best on the market today. Did the kit come with any PE?

Thanks. The fit on the superstructure components is nice, doubt I'll have to use any putty. The hull on the other hand has some issues around the prop shafts but nothing a dremel and tamiya putty won't handle.

Revell included plastic hand rails and such but I opted for the Eduard Big ed kit hich includes fittings for the ship, turrets and a crew.

Didn't get to work on the kit since my posting because I had two wisdom teeth pulled and haven't been into anything but TV. Feeling better today so I'm planning on knocking out the hull defects and maybe get the waterline painted.

Managed to get the hull into the garage and the Dremel wand setup, I didn't do any further work here though since my mouth is still bothering me. Luckily I won't need to get any more wisdom teeth pulled :-(, this hurts.....

I did get the work boats, captains and admirals yachts built up. I started cleaning them up and prepping for the PE parts. I also built the search lights which are only 2 parts at this point, the last part is the clear lens. The ship carried 7 and I only need 6 since one of the stack side covers will be closed, I built up all 8 and will use the best on the ship. These were kind of cool to build but needed flash clean up to look their best. I also built up the largest top mast direction/range finder and am cleaning that up in prep for the PE.

My wife thinks that the decks need a wash or antiquing to bring the deck planks and edges out. I think that I'll leave it as is because the box art doesn't show anything besides a few colors on the decks. At this scale and distance that one would be looking at the ship scale wise I think that this will be fine.

This weekend saw the hull sanding complete and the anti-fouling paint applied. I found a few spots that needed another hit of 600 grit love. I now just have to refresh those areas and give the hull another coat of anti-foul red/brown. I use Tamiya XF-64 Red-Brown. For the Bismarck I added some straight red to bring the color more reddish. I'm happy with the color as anti-foul always changed colors with sea life, debris, oil and other things floating in the ocean. The stack and superstructure seams have been tamed and I had to add some Tamiya liquid filler to some seams here and there, most notably the deflectors on the 2 deck superstructure side which are the boiler air intakes. I added these after gluing the surrounding parts in place when they probably should've gone in during deck attachment. The small boats are pretty much ready for their PE and paint.

I posted on another thread some info on how I made the blast bags for the turrets. Following paragraphs are a paste from that thread located here:/forums/t/135485.aspx?PageIndex=2. Thanks to Manstein's Revenge for starting that thread, I found some good info from his thread and hopefully returned some info for others to use.

I used Tamiya Expoy putty which was pretty simple to use. I cut off about 1/4" of each slab of material, kneaded the two parts together until the color was consistent and took a pinch off and mashed it into the gun hole in the turret. The turret was a spare from the Bismark kit but it turns out that there were no spare barrels so I just glued a bit of styrene sprue to the turret to simulate the barrel. The epoxy material looks to be about the right color as well so I might just leave it as is.

I used water to keep the epoxy from drying out and keep it soft. I just kept adding little chunks here and there until things looked right size wise then I slowly pushed the epoxy blob towards the lower portion of the barrel to simulate the extra material that hangs down below the barrel. I then intentionally left some deep finger prints here and there for the lines that occur in the canvas material and randomly scribed some deeper lines here and there. The effect came out really good and I'm pretty happy with the first shot. Now to do this on the real thing after the turret paint is done and before the PE goes on. I compared my work to the bags that come with the Dragon Scharnhorst and the color and look is right on :-)

Here are some pics:

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From Drop Box

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From Drop Box

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From Drop Box

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From Drop Box

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After I finish the hull red and it cures for a couple of days I'm going to spray the hull gray and complete the boot line. Then I start on the deck details and attaching superstructure components.

PS: The Eduard PE kit comes with a template to drill a series of U shaped holes, 3 wide on the side of the hull under the water line under the Anton turret. The instructions recommend to check your references but with all of the books and info I have on the Bismarck I can find no info. Does anyone know what there are for? I was thinking about something to do with ice since the ports can freeze up but I would assume that there would be many more if this were the case.

Thanks

After a personal dry dock period the Bismarck has finally gotten some attention.

I have been working on the hull camo so that I can line up the superstructure stripes as well.

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Bismarck stern area with camo and prep for desck swastika

Bismarck's Bow with camo and deck prep for swasticka.

Hi there,

I have read that you have resumed your build of the Bismarck? I am building the same kit and am enjoying it thoroughly. Have fun with it!

In your last post you posed a question about the u-shaped configuration of holes in the hull and what they are or do. The holes are in fact there for underwater 'hearing' purposes. The germans had very sophisticated acoustic devices to detect mechanical sounds from ship's propellers and hull-sounds, like coming from inside u-boats. So, that's where the holes are for. The holes are located on the port fore section of the ships hull, of course under the water line. I you can get a hold of the books by Joseph Kaiser on the Bismarck and his 1:100 rendition of it, you would have a great source for putting any part of the model in the right place. Hope this helps.

Best regards and happy modeling,

Jannem (The Netherlands)

Yes, she's back under way. I had hoped to make it for the anniversary of the sinking but personal matters came up.

Thanks for the info on the acoustic listening ports. It's interesting that they only installed that on the port side. Then again the way sound travels through the water I guess that's all that's necessary; I would think that stereo would be better though.

I had to strip the paint, I just wasn't happy with how things came out. The A deck wood work survived as I was pretty careful with the rubbing alcohol. I just sprayed the anti fouling on the waterline and am about to mask the for the upper gray. In the mean time I put together the secondary turrets and am about to start on the AA guns.

I have a local IPMS contest coming up on October 8th that I want to enter him into.[View:/themes/fsm/utility/

Aug 30, 2011

I really like that shade of hull red. Is it a custom mix or out of the bottle?? I ended up mixing my own for the Chih Yuen that I am working on cause nothing out of the bottle seem right to me.

Thanks. The hull color is Tamiya Hull Red with 8 drops of tamiya flat red mixed in. I diluted about 25% with Tamiya thinner and sprayed with my airbrush at 20 psi.  This is my standard hull color.

Interesting, I may have to give that combination a try on my next build!!

oh, I forgot a detail, I pour the tamiya  bottle into a larger bottle and the 8 drops and thinner all at once. it's not per session ususually i'll use enough out of the bigger bottle to be able to reuse the original bottle.

Is this your first 1/350 Bismarck? I ask in case you have built the one by Tamiya and what the differences are?

As a kid I built the lindberg Bismarck with the motor and moving turrets but i'm not so sure that one counts. From my research between the two kits the Revell kit is much more detailed and accurate. Add in the Eduard PE kit for the Revell kit and you get an awesome representation. So I chose the Revell kit for the updates and new molds and the Eduard BigEd PE set because I like their PE material better than Lionroar; even though the lionroar came with some extra deck parts that the Biged set doesn't.

Thanks.

I read where the Revell is much better than the Tamiya. Also prefer to have the critique of the builder.

I can't personally speak to that. My biggest critique of the revell kit is the hull join and shaft area. Revell could've done a better job in those areas. They become a major putty area even with carefull glueing and you end up losing the nice keel detail.

nice work so far. I am also building the Bismarck but i have Tamiya's kit 1:350. A have put it aside for the time being as i am doing a Luftwaffe Airfield diorama but will continue the Bismarck after this.

It is definatley a large project when you add in the extra details, im using Gold Medal Models photo etch and white ensign models deck plates. I am not up to painting as yet but have most of the structures built. Please let me know how you go with the rigging or what your plans are for it, im dreading that part!