Marco1965 Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 (edited) Some more advances, started working on the Admirals Pinnaces and on the 8 meter row boats. The row boats as provided in the kit are ok, the only thing that I did to them was open the slots where the rows fit when in use, five on each side of the boat. To the left, a boat without the slots, to the right, already with the row slots. Although before the start of the war, several pictures show the Graf Spee with at least four 8-meter row boats, the pictures around the time of the Battle of the River Plate only show two of them. I modified 5 just for the sake of trying to chose the best ones (the kit offers like twelve of these thingies, don´t know why so many). Then I added some scratchbuilt railing and and others to the Admirals Pinnaces (Shapeways), using copper wire. Let´s see how they look when finished. To the right the non-modified pinnace, to the left the one with added details. Notice that the 3D printing will need some sanding on the hull sides. And some other work on PE parts like ladders and the wave breakers on each side of the forward superstructure, hope to paint and glue them in place soon. Marco Edited January 23, 2019 by Marco1965 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 (edited) 4 hours ago, Marco1965 said: Notice that the 3D printing will need some sanding on the hull sides. I have recently got a 3D boat for a build and like it needs a little sanding but mine was a little too delicate to do much with. Good luck with the clean up. Stuart Edited January 23, 2019 by Courageous 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfsup Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 You have done some beautiful work on this Kit.....Cheers mark 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nils Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 A true beauty. Well done! Nice to see you guys have implemented 3D printing in your models. Should make detailing doing a major leap forward for those lucky enough to have access to one... and the software of course, 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted November 19, 2019 Author Share Posted November 19, 2019 Giving a try to simulating water, I painted the surface of the sea with a mix of acrylic paint, following some reference pictures of the real thing. I think that I need to add some more "white water" to the wake on the sides of the bow. Marco 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted December 21, 2019 Author Share Posted December 21, 2019 I continued installing the subassemblies, like the torpedo launchers. Added some more detail to the boat booms. It looks as if the booms forward were removed during operations, and only the stern booms were retained. I issued the additional poles with stretched sprue according to references. And started working on the masts. I used the main mast from the kit as it has a conical shape that would be difficult to issue using metal tube, and the one provided in the kit does not look bad. The rear one is another story, the one in the kit lacks detail and is not accurate. I issued a new one using metal tubing and wire, adding the PE parts. In place (rear one, funnel nor forecastle are glued in place yet, and some other support parts still missing) they look nice. Time for rigging now! Yo can see in the pictures, too, that I painted the antiskid dark gray on the frame that supports the boats amidships (far from having references for that, they show some hint in the Kagero publications) Oh I forgot about the main cranes. Cranes were camouflaged during the campaign, and they were painted antiskid dark gray on the upper surfaces, so it was tricky masking and painting them, but I think that the result was good. Marco 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 Nice work Marco. Can you explain in a little more detail, how you made the mast with tubing, wire and PE? Stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mick Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 great work 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted December 22, 2019 Author Share Posted December 22, 2019 4 hours ago, Courageous said: Nice work Marco. Can you explain in a little more detail, how you made the mast with tubing, wire and PE? Stuart Hi Stuart, yes of course. You can purchase metal tubing in different diameters. I checked blueprints from Kagero for the correct diameters (for example, the cross poles of the rear mast are provided in the kit in the same diameter as the main mast, which in incorrect of course). After cutting the tubes (I bought the tube cutter for that, cuts cleaner), you can feel that they are not so rigid as you would expect and I was afraid that they would bend with the rigging (these are aluminum, quite easy to bend), therefore I inserted steel wire into each tube to make them more rigid (glued inside with CA). I leveraged on the steel wire inside the main mast to issue the upper tip of the mast, which is quite thinner than the lower part of the mast. The cross pole of the rear mast in the Graf Spee is supported by a structure that keeps it separated from the main mast (completely wrong in the part provided in the kit), and this is quite noticeable. I issued that part with plastic sheet and glued with CA. In the picture below you can see the aluminum tubing, in the right upper quadrant of the picture you can see the steel wire protruding from the aluminum "main mast", in the center of the picture the structure supporting the cross pole, and the cross pole itself made of thinner diameter tubing. Once you have the main structure, basically a cross, firmly glued, I proceeded to add the PE parts provided by Eduard, basically the one that you see in the picture below: two support arms for the cross pole, the rope hanging from the cross pole, the upper tiny cross pole, and the ladder. It is a work of patience, mostly waiting for the cross pole-mast joint, I manipulated it too early like thrice… I hope that I was able to explain the process in a clearer way, Stuart. Marco 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-FAAWAFU Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 She’s looking great; nice job. Did you get anywhere with cleaning up the printing marks in those Shapeways boats? [I have similar issues with numerous boats for my Ark Royal 3, and just wondered whether you have any tips born from experience!] 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted December 23, 2019 Author Share Posted December 23, 2019 On 12/22/2019 at 1:38 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said: She’s looking great; nice job. Did you get anywhere with cleaning up the printing marks in those Shapeways boats? [I have similar issues with numerous boats for my Ark Royal 3, and just wondered whether you have any tips born from experience!] Oh yes I did clean them but nothing innovative came out of the process! I simply persisted on sanding, until the irregularities were gone. Then I had issues cleaning the boats for painting. Normally I prepare for painting either rinsing with ethanol, or washing with detergent. In this case, neither worked… the first time I tried to paint the boats, paint (Hobby Color and Model Master) wouldn´t stick. I literally rinsed them in Lacquer thinner, stripping the paint as well. And then it did work! This is the result: Marco 7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted February 19, 2020 Author Share Posted February 19, 2020 I was subconsciously delaying the rigging phase… not anymore. I had bought black lycra 0.004" (0.1mm) for rigging, and after couple tests using cyanoacrylate, started working on the real thing. I made some mistakes, had to replace some loose lines, but after a while I felt pretty confident about the process. I followed both Kagero rigging blueprints and available pictures as references. Almost all of the lines were tensed using a jig with a light weight enough to keep the tension while the CA dried. This is as far as I can go with the rigging before gluing the forecastle and the funnel to the deck, crew and AAs have to be added, too.. Marco 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nils Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 Very nice 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted March 10, 2020 Author Share Posted March 10, 2020 I substituted the 20mm and 37mm Flak batteries with Veteran Models Aftermarkets, a significant improvement. The kits consist of resin and PE parts, veeeeery tiny. I finished assembling them but will keep the cannon separate from the support until after painting them. It is interesting, the Graf Spee had 14 "potential" 20mm Flak positions, but during WWII, it looks like the bow, stern and 2 positions on the main deck on each side of the bridge were not used, and the positions easily identified by a dark gray circle on the deck. There were 10 remaining positions easily identified in pictures as "active", or at least with the supports in place, according to the following scheme (Red "X" are not used positions, yellow "0" are active positions). It can be found somewhere that the Graf Spee transferred 2 of their 20mm flaks to the Altmark early in the war, but who knows what the end result was. In the end, as Veteran Models provides 8 complete units, I will for the remaining 2 the supports provided in the kit covered in "canvas", as can be seen in some pictures at Montevideo, after the Battle of the River Plate. And started assembling the 37mm Flaks, of which the Graf Spee hat four batteries. Parts are as tiny as the 20mm kit, but up to now, I would say it has been easier to put them together (or maybe it is just practice!). I am still thinking about "seating" some figures on the flak batteries, but seems to be pretty difficult to match them together, we´ll see. Marco 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agriamodeling Posted March 15, 2020 Share Posted March 15, 2020 Amazing work in all details! The torpedo launchers look like some Star Wars props from the Death Star AA batteries when the Rebels attacked them in pt IV “A New Hope”. Comgrats! Tamás 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted March 17, 2020 Author Share Posted March 17, 2020 It is amazing how much detail Veteran Models managed to put into the 37mm Flak batteries (and more amazing that I managed to put it all together, HA!). After assembling all the parts, but before gluing the cannons to the supports, I painted the supports Dunkelgrau 2 and the cannons black. I know that most instructions show the supports painted in light gray, but checking the few available pictures showing these AAs at Montevideo, they look dark to me. Compared to the ones provided in Trumpeter´s kit... no comments. I assembled two of them with the cannons elevated, and two in horizontal position, just for the sake of having them in different positions. I used Gators Grip acrylic glue to glue the cannons in place, it gave me much better control than CA to position them properly with enough time (I used CA for the rest of the parts). Really satisfied with these, they really look intricate for the scale. I had to buy a set of jewelry tweezers, good investment, to assemble them, but it was worth of, big improvement for my Graf Spee. Marco 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beefy66 Posted March 17, 2020 Share Posted March 17, 2020 You could be a micro surgeon with the size of those things beefy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted March 17, 2020 Author Share Posted March 17, 2020 2 minutes ago, beefy66 said: You could be a micro surgeon with the size of those things beefy Not kidding! And the 20mm are proving to be more challenging! Specially that silly basket where the spend cases were collected, I have broken those like 25 times! HA! Marco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted March 18, 2020 Author Share Posted March 18, 2020 The 20mm... gluing the cannons in place. Gunsights pending. Marco 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chewbacca Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 That last photo has the mounting so close to the end of the tweezers I can just see the next action - ping! And off into oblivion! Or is that just me...? 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve5 Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 The carpet monster was hungry . 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted March 19, 2020 Author Share Posted March 19, 2020 Carpet monster was disappointed, no tiny parts to chew on this time! I did not have any "ping!" case, but I took my precautions… working area was covered in white paper, aaaaall of it. When painting, I had white paper and a fine screen to catch any tiny part that could detach under the airbrush airflow pressure (which happened, once). Final count: Carpet Monster "0", Graf Spee 16 finished flaks! Marco 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chewbacca Posted March 19, 2020 Share Posted March 19, 2020 There speaks one who has been caught out before! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco1965 Posted March 25, 2020 Author Share Posted March 25, 2020 I found up that I had screwed up biiiiiig assembling the radar, big leagues screw up... I don´t know why, I understood the instructions backwards, HA! A good buddy made me see my mistake, and thanks God managed to correct it. Let me share with you what I did wrong: 1. These are the instructions for the PE FuMO22. Kind of intuitive, and I ended up assembling some things wrong... My Graf Spee´s radar looked like this, HA! Maybe it was too late at night, or I was taking the wall support for my TV as a guide, thing is that I ended up assembling both the radar "grill" AND the supports backwards, AND the grill was tilting downwards, AND the whole thing was located too low in front of the turret… : But as the only thing that can´t be fixed in life, is death, I took the challenge to fix it! I detached the radar from the tower, rinsed it in thinner ro remove the paint, applied some acetone to soften the SuperGlue, and dissembled the whole thing. Reassembled hopefully correctly this time, repainted, and reattached to the tower, now I think it looks better!!! Still think that the instructions are messy, but maybe that is to recover some of my self-esteem. Marco 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArnoldAmbrose Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Gidday Marco, you're not the first to attach things backwards - I once glued the entire shelter-deck of the Prinz Eugen backwards. I couldn't figure out why I had bare deck where I was sure I painted, and painted deck where I was sure I left bare. Then the penny dropped! Fortunately the glue hadn't set and I was able to rectify the error, or it would have made for a rather unusual model. Your recovery and repair is very good, it does you great credit, as does the model as a whole. Regards, Jeff. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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