Resin kits cost so much because they are so labor-intensive to make the molds, and the molds don’t last beyond about 50 kits. But, many of us have found that, with the price of a plastic kit and the cost of after-market detail sets that come routinely with the resin kits, the costs balance out. We have also found that the level of detail found in resin kits frequently far exceed that of injection-molded plastic kits, although this seems to be changing. Check the paper-card sites; the costs are far less.
Including the three completed already, Ive procured a total of 13 total kits to put together:
*Gneisenau
*Unterseeboot VII C 31
*Zerstorer Z-32
6 Schnellboots
2 Torpedoboats
1 Minesweeper
Prinz Eugen
Kits I plan to procure:
Bismarck
Tirpitz
Scharnhost
Admiral Hipper
Graf von Spee
several more Zerstorers
several of the Light Cruizers
maybe the Graf Zepplin (a planned aircraft carrier that Germany scrapped when the war turned against them)
I fully expect this to take a couple years of modelling and I think I might build a second Gneisenau with the skills I’ve learned after building all these boats.
The second stage is to fit the Capital ships with lights shining out the portholes.
The third stage will be taking the ships and placing them in interconnectable diaramas displaying them at sea.
I have found sources for all the models at the 1/400 scale but the hardest one to find will be the Admiral Hipper since Heller no longer produces it and the Prinz Eugen.
Related models that I want to build include the Swordfish biplane responsible for the rudder damage that lead to the sinking of the Bismarck.
So in totally a fleet of 25+ depending on how many variants of the Zerstorers and the Unterseeboots I decide to build.
Actually, WEM produces exquisite p/e sets for the Heller 1/400 range. Also, I hate to nit-pick, but the funnel cap on the aft funnel is on backwards. Most of us have done similar gaffs.
