Luftkreuzer (1/700 skyship)

[Will Vale]

Hi all,

Now that the Wessex is out of the way, what better time to start something new rather than finish off any number of old projects?

I saw this fantastic thread on another forum where someone was building 1/1200 skyships for a board game, and I was able to get a load of Trumpeter 1/700 ships for a bargain price recently, so I thought I'd have a go. This started as Admiral Hipper, and I've removed a couple of inches from the length and flipped the hull upside down.

Clicken = Embiggen

The underside (which was the top) is capped off with slices of the waterline plate, and the upper side (which was the bottom!) has the original deck, with a slice removed from the middle. I had to reshape the prow quite a bit to fit it into the section of the hull at what was the waterline, and of course the stern deck stuck out over sides. What I've done there is fill in the gap with Miliput, then added a new lip (the white styrene) to the deck and blended that down to the waistline with filler. Lots of cleanup still to do in that area.

For the prow, I cut the original bow vertically straight and added a sort of keel plate underneath as a guide, then built it up from more Miliput, sanded to shape and reinforced in spots with CA.

To shorten everything I cut it up with a razor saw and mitre box (oo technical!) and fitted it back together. Rescribing the deck planking across the join was fiddly but quite fun. Oh, and the red stuff on the superstructure is blood where I stabbed myself (twice!) while paring away some of the superstructure locating blocks from the deck. I opted to shorten because Admiral Hipper was very long and thin, and I think something with a slightly fatter section will look a bit more archaic.

What I'm thinking is that there'll be a triple-tube engine at the back, and some kind of lift mechanism underneath in two rows pointing about 20' outward rather than straight down. I'll probably add a skirt of armour plates extending from the waist to about 5mm below the bottom to give the hull a bit more presence, and use some of the spare details from the shortened deck to build a Yamato-style third bridge underneath. If I can find room I'd like to add some launch/recovery racks for the spotter plane

At the moment the idea is to play this fairly straight. I'm not sure if I should backdate it to WW1, or go full Luft '46? And if it works out well I really want to do a sky-whaler

Cheers,

Will

Edited September 30, 2013 by Will Vale

[Will Vale]

Not much happening the last week or so since work is crazy at the moment - release dates beckon and all that. I did find time for some more sanding and filling and sanding though:

I'm pretty pleased with the bow, the stern needs more work but it's a lot more difficult - I've had to scribe along both sides of the rib to try and redefine it since there was no way to keep it perfectly clear of filler. I'm not going to make it perfectly clean which gives me some scope for scruffy work, but it's also very small scale which gives the opposite.

I didn't think to photograph it, but the join across the deck with the re-scribed planks came out great.

Cheers,

Will