Academy 1/350 Graf Spee WIP-Completed 2/29, many pics

Modeling Subjects Ships
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I started building this a couple weeks ago for the “Battle of the Atlantic” Group Build here. This is my second ship kit in almost 30 years, and my first “newly tooled” ship build as well. So anyways I thought i would share some pics of my work here in the Ship forum. I am usually an Aircraft and Armor builder, so this is certainly out of my comfort zone. Anyways, any and all helpful advice is welcome and encouraged. I am building this one straight OOB and the only mods I will make are to close improve overall fit/appearance.

So I started of course with the hull. The kit gives the option of full hull or waterline, I am going with the full hull option.

I only placed the main decks on for the photos. I also built the main turrets on the first weekend. The bases had a gap at the mounting lugs that was slightly visible, so I filled those with sheet plastic and putty then sand them smooth to fill the gaps. The kit comes with hollow molded bores for the main guns. A nice touch I thought. One other correction I made was sanding off a raised chevron on the front sloping upper plate of the turrets.

I also built the basic fore and aft superstructures and then placed them on the main deck for this photo as well as the torpedo mounts.

This weekend I began painting her. First I painted the black for the boot topping then let it dry overnight. the next day I masked off the lower edge of the boot topping and painted the hull red. I also painted the wood decks a wood yellow tan color. Today I masked off the upper edge of the boot topping and painted the hull gray.

During my brief times in the week I can work on her, I have been building the smaller assemblies.

Upper forward superstructure and range finders/ gun directors.

Secondary batteries and heavy/medium FLAK guns

Cranes and catapult

Then everything placed just to see how it is gonna look

As I said before any help hints, tips, advice will be greatly appreciated. Just keep in mind this will be OOB, no After Market items on this one. I am still working up to that.

[prte]

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Looks good so far Stik,I’m an OOB guy myself,not too much advice,but I am looking foward to see it done.I got the Trumpeter version in my stash.

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I would be very interested in seeing your Trumpeter one built up. I am curious as to how they look side by side.

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Someday,It’s in the stash,but no real plans to start it,but Iwill keep you in mind.

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Looks good, keep us posted on the progress.

George

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I agree, looks good and thanks for posting. Nice job.

Scott

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Thanks guys. Hopefully this weekend I will be able to make some more progress on her. I will post pics when I do.

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really nice job so far!

if you want suggestions, here are a couple:

For ships, the one item of PE/AM that you may want to ebetually add to your ship builds are the rails. Sort of engine grills for armor, or seatbelts/buckles for A/c. Ships just look a lot better with rails, and plastic molds of rails are way off scale (thick).

Ships have so much “grey”, it is hard to break up the color monotone of the build. Weathering won’t help you there, since most (if not all) weather decks (no pun intended!) were always kept clean/painted, except for a few ships at the end of long trips. You may want to give the decks a light wash to bring up some of the details. You can drybrush some areas of the turrets (as an example), to simulate some sun fading. You can add some rust-weathering to the anchor region.

My apologies if this is all well known to you : ) I have both the Shipcraft and Osprey volumes on German pocket battleships, let me know if you need any specific info or pic scans. I am in the planning stages for building the other two of the class, maybe I should check out the BoA GB!

Look forward to the rest of your build, cheers!

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Thanks Jmart! I had considered a wash for added depth to the decks, but not the sun fading on the turrets. Good idea! As I said, any and all suggestions are welcome. I am all new to serious ship building and am taking it one step at a time here. I do plan on adding PE rails to other kits I Have in the stash, because I do see your point about the thick railings. I think the skid marking on deck plates nd planking it out of scale as well, but I am on baby steps here. My basic intent is to have her looking as she did on the morning before joining battle off the River Plate. At this point I am not overly pleased with the Deck Tan shade I have. Any suggestions for a “Teak” in the Testors, Humbrol, or Tamiya lines?

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The skid markings are at best over scale, and at worst a fabrication.

Be careful with washes; I see a lot of guys slop it on and call it good; the true intent with a wash is to replicate the affect light has on real objects in a smaller scale.

Here’s a technique for wood decks you might want to consider:

http://www.steelnavy.com/wood deck.htm

http://www.rollmodels.net/nworkbench/onlinebuild/arizona/arizona3.php

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Thank you for the links. I will be coming up with something to try along those lines for the wood decking. I have been plugging away at this kit a little at a time.Today I removed all masking and touched up the wooden planks for an even base color. I also applied some dark gray to the appropriate areas on the forward superstructure.

After I took these pics, I finally glued down the main decks to the hull, but don’t have any pics yet of that.

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Cool…I disagree about not using washes on ships…I think the proper use of washes will make your decking more pleasing to the eye and break (and tone down) up some of the large swathes of grey…just be patient w/ them and don’t try to do it all at once…[Y]

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Thanks for the encouragement on the washes. I am gonna attempt some subdued washes on the decking. That is really the only way to get some detail to stand out.

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Any updates on this one stik??

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Eric, at the moment I have this build sidelined while I finish up some other builds that are near completion.

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Sounds like you are part of my 229 GB…

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I will have to look and see if I qualify for that one[;)]

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Graf Spee has been moved to the front of my build batting order now that I have completed most of those “near complete” builds from last year. After watching one of the ship experten WIPs on the Trumpeter Zerstorer I formed some ideas as to how to proceed with building and finishing this beauty. Sub assemblies of building, painting and washes before being attached to the larger compnonents…[I]

So here are some components such as the bridge area partially painted

the stack…

And forward area of the superstructure

I made some mods to the Arado float plane. I hollowed out the area of the float supports as that had been molded solid…[N] Also the raised detail lines were way too heavy so I used those a a guide, scribed in new ones, and sanded off the raised ones. I still need to attach the cowl.

and a teaser shot of all sub assemblies placed on the hull. This makes me want to finish her up…

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Stikpusher - Your pics on the first post won’t open for me for some reason - dang technology! But your second set of pics did open, and they look great! Can you repost some more pics? She’s lookin’ good and I’m waiting to see more. I personally like washes on ships to bring out the detail - in fact I think that ships, being in smaller scales than say aircraft or armor, benefit from heavier washes to highlight all the detail. I think it’s referred to as scale viewing distance? Not sure, but I notice that close up pics of my ships do look a little “dirty” from the wash - but looking at them in real life in my display case you can really see the smallest details quite clearly.

I realize that it’s really personal preference and I have to admit that after several modelers commented on my washes were too heavy (they were right) I lightened up things a bit and I am happy with the results.

Anyway, more pics please!

Mark

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I love your Graf Spee and want to scuttle him…