Ships of the German Flag GB 2020

Dodgy,

Nerves are fine and alcohol intake is excellent.

Making good progress with installing the strips, though I seem to get carried away on the amount of strips I been laying down between coats.

Mongoose,

You could put down a layer of sightly crumpble foil and white paint to simulate wave action and work from there with gels to blend in and final details.

Marcus

Agree with Marcus.

Another Idea would be pouring resin. You would have to remove the foam since the resin would melt it.

Been a few weeks but finally got an update. In my last one i said that i was almost ready to primer the tower. I then made the mistake of checking my referances again and realised it needed some fixing.

Unfortunatly photo's of the inside of towers are tricky to find. It seems that Revell mat have based theirs on U-995 which is on display at ladoe. But this is a late style tower. At the top front of the tower was a shelf which went full width and stuck out to far. This was chopped in half and sanded back. The Eduard PE set has a compass face which goes on this shelf, but that should be on a frame which i will have to build. At the bottom of the tower was another shelf which went right round the sides. Oddly this is where Revell place the voice pipe and compass repeater, almost at floor level. I trimmed this leaveing just a step on either side and built up the front and then put the voice pipe onto the higher shelf. I still have a bit of work to do, including the fitting for the crew to attach their saftey harness to.

I then spent over 2 weeks working on the starboard side of the hull.

I sanded through to far at the rear, so i need to repair that area.

The centre is done.

At the front i still need to fit the new parts around the torpedo doors.

So, after 7 weeks, i'm going to put this to one side to build a couple of aircraft and an armour kit before the year is out. Will be back to this soon.

Bish, that's some awesome work mate.

I added some oil canning to mine and added a few more weeks 

Yes the Revell kit is based on U-995. Finding good pics of U boat towers is tough. Have you checked out Uboat.net? I'm sure you found it but there's usually some excellent reference and history to the particular boat you want to build.

I am planning on some oil canning, was thinking i would do that once the hulls are together.

I have been looking at u-boat.net. The U-552 is an intersting boat for a few reasons. It's the boat that sank the USS Reuban james. It also survived until the end of the war, being scutteled on 2nd May 45. Given the u-boat losses, thats some achievment.

 I found a couple of good pics in one of my books, U-Boat in camera. Its of the U-86, a Type VIIB. A properganda team had rigged a camera above the rear deck to get footage of a u-boat diving. But one image looks straight into the rear of the tower. The periscopes obscure some of it, bt you get enough of an idea. So between that and the kagero book, i am quite pleased with how its come out.

The SMS Kronprinz decks are painted and washed, only thing left is to put the final coat of Future on for protection.

Here is what the decks looked like with all colors layed down with the strips of tape removed.

Here is the same deck with a top coat of Buff mixed with black and white paint and then a dusting of white paint.

And here is what they look like with a coat wash was added and excess removed.

Now with the decks finished I can get on with painting the hull and adding detail to the deck hatches, etc.. Until next post.

Marcus

That deck is insane, I could never do something like that.

Marcus that deck is insane.great outcome!

Hi Bish. I have the old Squadron/Signal book U boats in Action and it has a couple of nice tower pics in it. I also have Lothar Gunther Bucheim's U Boats at War and U Boats in the Atlantic by Beaver. Do you have these references? If not do you want me to copy some of the pics and send them to you?

Rob F

Marcus those decks look stunning.

Rob F

Marcus, I agree, that is some insane work. I was wondering where you were going with that as it was very striking, this adding the greys and such to tone it down really made it look like subdued or distressed worn wood. Where did you learn/see/find that technique or was that something you thought of?

Bish, I used a #10 blade on each section between the bulkheads and srtingers. I may have gone too far but it was my first try. I felt the results turned out OK. Hopefully you can find an eaiser and faster way.

Dodgy, Mongoose, Ikar01 and Steve,

Thank you for kind remarks, much appreciated.

Steve, I learned this technique from watching a videos of a Graf Spee build by a modeler named Guido Hopp.  His site is still up on You-Tube if you like to see how its done. 

My first time using a after market wood deck for my Dreadnought build I didn't really like how thick it was and how it reduced the height of hatches and deck detail.  You couldn't even see the covers for the coal scuttles unless you were looking straight down at the deck.  It is a lot of work and time but I feel its worth it, even did a deck at 700th scale.  That was a lot of fun and .3mm tape!

Marcus

I like that technique, MM. I use a simplified version where I use a short and heavy straightedge and "rule the segments of color with a toothpick dipped in paint. I have to say that about 1/3 in, you had me feeling pretty skeptical, but it weathered out nicely.

I've used wood pre cut decks on a few models like pre-dreadnaughts when there's a lot of deck, but most of my ships have painted decks so it's not important to me.

Bill

Bill,

I will have to give your method a test, sounds interesting.

I have several kits that came with the wood decking and I plan on using them but I won't be buying any aftermarket ones.

Marcus

Steve, from what i have read, that seems to be the standard way of doing it. I don't think its somthing that can be rushed. I just need to get myself some No 10 blades.

Thanks Rob, i have a whole host of u-boat books, including a couple of those. Don't think i have Beavers, going to have to look for that one. I do have a few of his others.

Marcus, thats some impressive and pain stakeing work there, very nice.

Bish,

Thank you.

Marcus

Steve that oilcaning work is just awsome! The model looks fantastic and the oilcan work lifts it to another level entirely.

Rob F

You guys almost make me want to build a sub, but too many things already in my stash!

Making steady progress here. Was traveling for a week so time to get back to it. While I'm doing layer after layer of gesso I'm working on all the finishing touches. Thebig job today is the Flory wash. Here's a few shots to wet your appetite!

what do you guys think of the blast bags? My 1st time doing this. All comments welcome :-)

and here's the stern deck all done

Looks like she's been sitting at anchor for a while

modelcrazy

Looks like she's been sitting at anchor for a while

 

hmmm, maybe too long. it does seem a bit much for the short time they were in the Fjord during June July timeframe. I'm going for just blending the camo together. Off for a little more water and a paper towel to lick me thinks 

(if you've seen Flory's tutorial you'll get that lol ) 

Nice paint work on the stern.  

The blastbags are looking a little rough and uneven and should be smoother and more uniform.  The one on D turret looks good, the one on C turret is looking petty rough.  For a first attempt they look good standing five feet away which for me is acceptable if I was doing it.

Enjoying your build.

Marcus

To bring things up to date after my last entry:

The side railings need to be attached.  Normally this would not be to hard but with the way some are numbered, the main problem is that I have no instruction page for this part of the build.  I'll have to fake it.  After thast the only things left are the propellers, side ladders, its scout aircraft, and flag.

Looking great. Some lovely work in there.

Fine looking ship.  It always seems that you have to wing it when doing railings.  When using GMM PE they only give you a tier number as to which railing you could use  on this deck or that deck.  Making them fit is your problem, but then again I have come quite proficent over time  with installing them.

Marcus

Nice job on the Spee and I agree with Marcus, that is something you'll just have to play by ear.

Ikar01 here is a link to the instructions If that helps? Didn't see if those railings were aftermarket tho so if this is useless my apologies - 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10094293/70/8

these guys often have kit instructions loaded so it's a cool, free resource.

The P.E. I've been using are from Eduard and their instructions don't cover everything in their set.  I have several parts that I have no idea what to do with them so they will go into the spares box for some future project.  The kit supplied its own set of P.E. but they don't show much  in the way of placment either

Thanks for the instructions link.  I did notice a couple things that I missed on my sheets and will be taking care of thes oversites soon.

Quick updated on the SMS Kronprinz.

I removed the molded on grab handles from the secondary gun barbettes and replaced them with a PE set from 'Very Fire'.  At 1/350 scale the replacement handles are very, very tiny.  The set came with templates to align the drill holes which if you don't secure it to superstructure really good they will pop off when removing the drill bit.  Which makes it very hard to realign the template with the existing holes already made.

The handles were easy to install.  I used extra thin CA glue and a glue looper with the small looper attachment. 

The photos are not very good but they do look better live and with a coat of paint will really add detail to that section of the ship.

Finished painting the hull and deck this morning and will post pictures tomorrow if everything looks good after removing all of the protecting tape.

Marcus