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Graf Spee Trumpeter 1/350 Battle of the River Plate


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I haven't assembled a warship since my youth, and I will not tell that this was looooooong time ago.  But the Admiral Graf Spee and all the story and myths surrounding the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939 has always attracted me, so I decided to leave my airplane models to rest for a while, and assemble the Trumpeter 1/350 Graf Spee.  I got the Eduard PE set as well and Master Models metal cannon barrels for the main and secondary cannons, and for the 105mm AA,  really beautiful.  I want to represent the ship as it would have been right before the battle, with the Dark Gray camo.  I haven't decided yet if I will assemble the Ar196 non-operational (w/o engine, wings folded, as it was in the morning of the battle after it's second engine broke down the day before, or maybe complete it with the disguised markings as it was couple days before the battle, will see).  Apart from the stern anchor recess being in the wrong direction, I haven'r really found any issue with the kit.  There are some really big rivets on the main cannon towers and secondary cannons, but you can fis this easily with careful sanding (would have loved to get the correct boat types for 1939, but ok, nothing is perfect).  

   I have started assembling as per instructions the armament, cranes and boats.  Substituted already all the plastic cannons for the metal ones, a big improvement, only thing is that the metal ones are very prone to scratches while manipulating them.  Some scratchbuilding as required, but the kit is excellent, really enjoying this change!

 

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  The rear opening of the secondary armament turrets required correction of the shape, it comes a a square opening and should have rounded upper corners.  Eduard PE doors were sanded narrower as well.

 

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   With the metal cannons replacing the plastic ones, the turrets look impressive! (it is a pitty that you have to paint them, HA!)

 

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Marco

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  • 2 weeks later...

Further advances (after holidays, kind of slowly...).  The main and secondary armament turrets have been painted, and some shadowing/weathering added to the 150mm & 105mm turrets and torpedo launchers.  Starting with the hull, and before anything else, I had to correct a mistake in the kit, the stern anchor recess.  As most of you might already know, Trumpeter molded the stern anchor recess wrong, oriented to the back around 45°, while it should be at around 45° to the FRONT.  I have seen several recommendations on how to correct this issue, but I decided to cut the whole recess as not to damage it, glue it in the correct position and fill the mess with super glue and Tamiya putty.  It turned out good and I call it done (with minor scratches showing up when I applied the Mr. Surfacer, nothing that a good sanding can't get rid of).

 

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Anchor recess as provided in the kit:

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Moment of truth...:

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Reconstruction of the area:

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Result after sanding and appying Mr. Surfacer to check small defects:

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Marco

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  • 5 weeks later...

Some more advances, slower after vacations, but here we go.  

 

a)Finished painting and assembling the secondary armament, AAs and torpedo tubes.  I really like the turrets to be able to rotate, and the kit does not provide that option.  Thus I extended and enlarged the pins that go into the deck using Evergreen plastic rod, fitting notches that will keep them in place after inserting and turning them into position.  I followed original pictures as camouflage references, as Trumpeter instructions are totally generic regarding turret patterns.

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b ) I removed the stern and bow molded chains, and rescribed the decks.  The stern anchor chain was not used in standard operations, so I will not replace it.

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c ) Some additional details needed on this rear wall, evidently the white structure (I don't know what it was, but it was notorious) was missing in the kit, I scratchbuilt it.  The windows are located in the wrong position, but I realized this too late (and they are so tiny...)

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d ) Drilled the chimney openings, but I didn't like the emptiness that could be seen down through the holes.  I issued chimney tubes from straws, painted black and glued with superglue.  Enough to give a good impression.  Glued in place the PE "L" shaped supports.

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e ) Glued the mid and front deck, some issues there as the hull sides are pretty tight, nothing that a couple rubber bands can't fix.  

 

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f ) Looking at the stern, there was something missing from the kit, and it was that massive metal "lip" that protects the stern eagle from damage of the ropes coming out of the deck through the stern end.  The metal "lip" was a massive piece of cast iron, protruding I guess like 0.5 meters on top of the eagle head, like a roof, and having been black, it is kind of noticeable.  I scratchbuilt it, and modified the base of the stern flagstaff for a more realistic appearance (the flag staff is gone, no use during combat).

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Aaand this is for now.

 

Marco

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  • 2 weeks later...

Working on the PE parts of the bow, nice improvement over the plastic parts.  WI will wait to glue most of them to the deck after I finish with the weathering.

 

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Marco

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  • 2 weeks later...

Advancing with the superstructure, I replaced the armored windows shuts and one door with Eduard PE (prefer to leave most doors closed, and it is better to leave the moded doors in place if you are showing them closed).   The plastic supports for the boats were removed and will be replaced with PE parts.  The PE radar antenna is a quantum leap vs the plastic part.  Used some Tamiya Gray putty in some areas, still needing some sanding.

 

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Marco

Edited by Marco1965
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  • 3 weeks later...

I was waiting to show some relevant advances, Ok, here we go (and thank you for your interest, Andy!).  I finished assembling and painting the bridge area.  The fitting between the lateral observation platforms and the main bridge body was a pain in the neck, such a bad fitting needed putty everywhere!  And there are still couple spots there that I need to retouch, evidently.  Anyway, I airbrushed the whole thing Light Ghost Gray, then brush painted the Medium Gray and Dark Gray 2 camo pattern.  PE doors were added to the lower part of the superstructure (and started locating the first crew figures, as a test only).

 

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All the PE bits were added to the funnel, pretty impressive.

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Railings are not glued yet, decided to paint the whole think first.

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Secondary rangefinders ready for painting (some sanding still needed).

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Now, everything was running smoothly, started assembling the rear superstructure when I noticed some discrepancies between the kit and reference pictures & Kagero drawings, basically in three areas:  1. the kit does not have upper deck in front and sides of the catapult base, while Kagero does show it  2. There are two "ears" on the sides of the superstructure, missing from the kit  3. The rear castle is kind of wrong (very), according to references it should be an open structure, the kit provides it as an enclosed structure.

 

Now you see the upper deck around the catapult base...

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Now you don't!

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I started by adding the missing upper deck around the catapult base.  Instead of rescribing plastic sheet, I cut a "graft" from the deck that will be hidden under the superstructure and used it to issue the missing area.  It has the same planking pattern so no rescribing nor nothing.

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Instead of making a hole through the deck, it was easier to cut the catapult base in upper and lower halves.

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And this is the final result (before filling, sanding and gluing)

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Next came the "ears" which were issued with plastic sheet following Kagero's scale drawings.

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And finally came the most complicated fix, the rear castle observation deck.  When seen from above, Trumpeter got it right, only thing is that the rearmost part of the structure should be an open space surrounded by 5' height walls.  

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As I had already assembled the structure, I had to get rid of the wrong parts simply cutting and sanding them off.  I added some plastic parts and putty to correctly shape the  rangefinder oval base, and then used the "roof" of the observation area to issue the new "floor", upon which I will build up the metal walls surrounding the area.

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This is the basic shape that I wanted to get: Oval rangefinder base, observation platform floor to the right, and small aircraft maintenance platform to the left (need to get rid of the chunk of plastic beneath the platform, shouldn't be there).  The kind of hexagonal shape of the floor will be used to build up the observation platform walls.

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And this is how the whole thing with the three corrections looks like so far.  I hope to complete the observation platform, puttying and sanding during the weekend and go on with the rest of the assembly.

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And it is never bad to imagine the end results!!!

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Marco

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Thank you all.  Andy, to your question about the decks.  I painted the deck "Teak" (Colourcoats), then applied a gloss coat (I use Tamiya acrylic), then a wash of brownish-black using water colors, let dry a bit, then clean with damp cloth.  Then using very diluted water color brown, brow-black, gray I paint individual planks at random, trying to distribute the different colors on the deck.  If you feel that you applied too much, clean and try again.   That is it, I guess that I am learning how to do it as well, lots of patience.

 

   This is how the rear castle correction looks like currently.  The walls surrounding the open platform are glued in place, need to fill and sand still, thin them a bit, some observation equipment should be added in to the interior, guess it will be scratch, copying some of the equipment seen in the forecastle.

 

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And started working on the mantainance platrorm that is missing from the Arado catapult.  Kagero provides a drawing that I am afraid in this case is wrong, or at least not appropriate for the time.  They show it as a rectangular platform, when references of the real thing show  an irregular asymetrical shape.  I am currently issuing it with plastic sheet (white below in the picture, VERY crude still).

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Marco

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  • 2 weeks later...

I hadn't realized that the stern ancho chain capstan was so poorly molded in the kit.  This is how the capstan should look like:

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And this is the one from the kit, a "peg" instead of a capstan:

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As I did not have any capstan available, I decided to fix the "peg". I sanded it shorter, issued the strips from Evergreen plastic strips, and glued a cap.  It looks reasonable now:

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And after masking the main deck, started painting the hull sides:

 

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Marco

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It's funny. I kind of know that none of the individual changes you've made to the kit are beyond my abilities as a modeller, but I seriously doubt I could "project-manage" such a comprehensive and keenly observed improvement to a kit like this. It's very impressive stuff!!

 

Will

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I have been eagerly waiting to get to this part, painting the white "waves" on the side of the hull. The waves were painted I don't know exactly how many days before the Battle of the River Plate, but not really that long before, the Graf Spee can be seen with the fake second turret and funnel without and with painted waves. Crudely painted while on high seas, the waves were not symmetric, and the water significantly deteriorated the lower part of the front waves, evident in all the pictures taken at Montevideo. And I wanted to simulate that deterioration. 

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I masked the profile of the waves using thin strips of Tamiya's yellow masking tape, following the openings on the hull as reference for size and proportions (they follow moooore or less the real spacing, but I don't have a better reference). Then I "chopped" a thin strip of masking tape until the edge was irregular, and masked the bottom part of the waves, little bit above the black (anthracite) flotation line.

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 I then airbrushed white (later while weathering I will tone it down), and voila! I am quite satisfied with the results!

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Marco

 

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