Wood deck questions

One of the numerous FUBARs of that Operation was that she sailed with a complement of prize crews. I forget how many but they were hand picked sailors, lifers in the Imperial Navy/ Reichsmarine/ Kreigsmarine. Maybe 100 or so officers and hands.

Those guys of course all went to the Locker with everyone else, an irreplaceable loss.

GMorrison

Where's Capn Mac when we need him;

Today, it was CA work on $30 million worth of projects trying to go vertical.  Sigh.

If I remember rightly, Bismark was, to use an aircraft term, a bit of a "hanger queen."  She sortied, but never for very long, and wound up tied to a pier afterwards for nearly the same amount of time she was at sea.

Which is plenty of time to chip rust, reprime and repaint. And, pierside, even the hull can be looked after.  On top of being the prize of the fleet and the personal pet of el hefe himself.  While surface Reichsmarine officers were often aristocrats, the surface sailors considered themselves no mere menschen, but superior sailors, and took great pride in their ships.  Not the sort to wait until the Unteroffizier organized a painting party.

It's also early in the war, so the quality of materials had not begun to slack off. 

Now, she was a tad nortorious as a "wet" ship with her low bows.  So, the bows ought to be darkening, grimed up a bit with some salt crusting.  But, actual rust, visible at 1/350 scale sorts of viewing distance is highly unlikely. 

Grime washes would probaly be entirely appropriate.  Heavier on hull and foredeck.  Much lighter trending up the super structure.  Really, a person could actually apply a 'white' wash (think inverted grime wash) to the uppermost surfaces.

The bunker fuel oil available was still high-quality, too.  So, stack grime is going to be very minimal.  All of the armament was cleaned after firing, so, no muzzle grime, either.

Oh dear, I fear I've rather rained on the weathering parade here.  But dot washes on the hull would be appropos.  I'd be inclined towards some unique hues--purple & green and the like to wash in, to give a good "been to the north Atlantic" feel to things.

Well, that that a well worn-out 2¢

I'm interested to see if the decal idea works. Assuming the area is a rectangle, if it was my model I would mask the area and clear coat it, sand it and clear coat it until it had a smooth finish. Then it should be fine.

Don, thats a good idea. I'll see if there is a piece I can try it out on. As far as the weathering comments. It's not about aging the ship, it's putting a wash on the deck to bring out the plank lines similar to an aircraft panel line.

But I will agree with some others, she would still show some suttle weathering affects in her short life span.

Westpalm

I am putting a Pontos Deck on a 1/350 Tamiya Bismarck. A few questions:

1) I special ordered marking decals for the deck bow and stern. Can they even be put on a wood deck or will I have to paint the markings on?

2) Can you put a weathering wash on the wood deck or will that just mess it up?

Depending on answers here, I may just opt to get the White Ensign deck plates instead before I get going.

 

You might get some silvering of the deck decal in the small area in the gaps between planks.  You might be able to eliminate this by slitting the decal in these spots during application.  Your dilemma may be whether this is needed or not. 

You might try a test.  Does the deck have any punch out areas that will be scrap.  Try to find a small decal in your parts stash that you don't want.  Seal the deck piece, apply the decal without slitting and see how it looks.  This may help you decide what to do before applying real decal to the actual deck piece to be used.

Modelling anything is a snap shot in time. If you model the subject as it was on June 30th there will be subtile differences if you model the same subject a week later.

In the case of the Bismark do you portray her in the condition she was when she left Germany? As she was when she sank the Hood? Or as she was when she was sunk by the British?

Not sure how much weathering would have taken place in a week at sea. Since there was a large crew with time on their hands, how much time was spent correcting weathering on the topsides? If you are going to weather the model are you going to also depict battle damage?

As you can see this is not an easy question to answer.

Where's Capn Mac when we need him; but even two weeks in the Northern Atlantic renders all kinds of rust spots. 

There's a really good book written by the senior surviving member of Operation Rheinubung:

• von Müllenheim-Rechberg, Burkhard (1980). Battleship Bismarck, A Survivor's Story. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-096-9.

All kinds of insight into the state of the ship during that week or so.

Bismarck was commissioned in late August 1940 and sunk in late May 1941, so she had a service life of around 9 months. Plenty of sailing in the Baltic until her Atlantic sortie and final destiny.

Not the Channel, but the coast of Sweden and Norway.

As far as teh Bismark goes, what weathering would be needed?  Once she hit the open ocean, or should I say English Channel and maybe a bit beyond, she didn't last long enough to show much wear and tear.   She was only fully active forwhat, a wek before she ws sunk?

First she engaged the couple ships that were trailing her, sinking one, then a few days later she sank teh Hood, encountered torpedo planes which managed to damage her steering system, making her go into a wide turn away from land and the safety cover she needed, then the Briish pounded her to peices.  She wasn't around long enough to show much rust at sea and I think the ship would have been kept looking new until then.  She was the pride of the German fleet.

ven now you at 15,000 feet, can see the Swastika flag on her forward deck.

Decals and wash weathering can be applied to a well-sealed wooden deck. Airbrush several LIGHT, WELL THINNED coats of a good solvent based clear.  A hardware store lacquer might be appropriate here.   Be sure to cover BOTH sides and ALL edges.  The goal is to minimize water seepage into the wood grain whic causes warping.  

When it comes time to apply the decals do not flood with water and/ or microsol 

weathering -  similar approach,  remember less is more