Kit: ICM 350 Scale Konig

Additional Materials: WEM & Verlinden PE; BMK brass barrels; Builder's anchor chain; top masts and yards scratch built with brass

Paints: Tamiya, Vallejo, Gunze, Revell Germany

After two plus months I've decided that my rendition of ICM's 350 scale Konig is finis. This has been the largest and most complex model I've built and my second serious ship. It took me over two months to finish and I'm out of gas. I did learn a bit though.

No wish to knock other modeling genres but for me ships are the most challenging. There are times when my eye knows what it wants but the hand betrays it. There are many times that I don't know what I'm doing. Hopefully both these conditions will improve with experience but I know that I don't have the “eye” or the patience to be a good ship modeler. I'll settle for competent.

Because of the modular nature of ship building, I found that I did not always anticipate a problem before it happened and instead spent a lot of time fixing things afterward. I don't want to blame the coach, but maybe I did not chose the best large scale kit to tackle. As I understand it, Konig was ICM's first large scale offering went it came out in 2000. Panel lines were raised which, at least in airplane world, is the sign of a crude kit. Flash was all over and fit was uniformly poor. The part count of 500 wasn't bad – but nearly everything required attention which cost me a lot of time. I used a lot of Apoxie Sculpt (a product I much prefer to putty) far more often than I'd like. There was no question about the necessity of building brass masts as the plastic was soft and weak. That said driver error was always a factor.

I used the information from the “Imperial German Navy in World War I”, especially the article by Mr. Tanner for painting. I also used Gary Staff's “German Battleships 1914-1918 (2). When the two conflicted I used Tanner's data. Originally I followed some charts and used Tamiya XF-66 Light Grey for RAL 7000 and XF-20 Medium Grey for RAL 7001. The charts did agree that the only paints that fit the bill perfectly outside of WEM enamels were German Revell's Grey (RAL 7000) and Silk Grey (RAL 7001.) This brand is not available in the US but I wasn't happy with XF-20 so I bought some German Revell colors on eBay. Revell's RAL 7000 was a little lighter than the Tamiya but it wasn't worth repainting the entire hull. I did, however, repaint the superstructure with Revell RAL 7001 and that was worth the time. Excellent paints BTW – I think they hand brush as well as Vallejo - and I've since bought several.

I wanted to build my Konig as it appeared on the way back from very spirited operations in the Baltic in September – early October 1917. (Jutland was out. It was obvious from the start that project fatigue would be a factor and looking at WEM's torpedo net arrangement needed for Jutland had me running for cover. A wise move in retrospect. After Jutland the German Navy discarded torpedo nets.) After looking at scores of photos I decided to give Konig some serious weathering. I kept thinking of all of that coal (not to mention main guns which were used heavily in the Baltic) and the North Atlantic/Baltic. (Check the photo below of Konig class Kronprinz below.) I used Mr. Griffith's filter technique but added some streaking from armor land as well as some fading with pastels. I rather liked the deck which was done in four shades and enhanced with a Verithin black pencil which did wonders to the panel lines. I take full responsibility for the paint job – in this case it came out the way I wanted. No question that weathering would go better with a dio, but we'll take one step at a time.

PE is simply a mystery to duffers like yours truly. I found some of the embellishments almost comic – you could put on a PE seat inside the 88 guns mounted on deck. We're talking items the size of an infant gnat. The cranes and funnel covers were very worthwhile, although I think I could have scratch-built both. WEM railings and ladders are beautifully made but extremely easy to mangle at any step along the way. I had real trouble when putting a thumb down in the wrong place and smushing a good chunk of rail. I fixed what I could and even replaced a little. Due to a misunderstanding on WEM's rather vague instructions I ended up short some two railings. The only thing I had was some Verlinden generic 2 railings that I bought on sale. I'm sure WEM's products are superior, but the Verlinden stuff was thicker in every dimension, a snap to put on (you could bend the stuff with a pliers during construction – wouldn't want to try that with WEM ultra-fine) and nearly impervious to a misplaced thumb. And from three feet away, it's just as good. One bit of good news though. At the recommendation of someone on Phil Foley's site I got some Aleene's Tacky Glue to help set the railings. There is now a Super Tacky Allene's available at any craft store. The tack on this stuff is incredible. It was perfect for PE: if you could get just a dab of that stuff on, your railing would stay up. While it was up, I used some thinned Gator glue to slip along the length of the railings – occasionally used some CA – and the railing was on. Aleene's cures in several hours but begins to set quickly, so as soon as things were holding, I tried to remove as much as possible with a tooth pick. This stuff will help out in many a jam. Good as gold.

Rigging is likewise a mystery. Although I've found ship Meister Jim Baumann's sprue making methods a great aid in several kits, I just don't get how you can get the sprue to get sticky enough to grab using plastic cement. I found it either simply didn't work, or the plastic cement would melt it off the brass. (I think this would work nicely if you were gluing sprue to plastic, but brass has me stumped.) I did use some sprue in the aft. But if I had something to anchor the line to I had much better luck with Danville's 6/0 (70 denier) black waxed nylon fly tying thread. It's a lot thinner than 2lb mono filament but it's made to tie. Do a simple half-itch, draw the line taught and apply a mini-dab of thin CA. Nylon line does shrink under heat (as does mono) but it was straight enough that I didn't take any chances. Things didn't exactly work well, and a close exam would be worth a chuckle or three. But the rigging done at the end of the model was better than that done at the start. I'll take that as a good sign. And it looks okay from five feet.

Pics below.

Eric