Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee - WIP
Comments
1 28 August 2016, 12:31
Wesley De Braekeleirnice ship! looking forward for the rest of the build! if your interested i'm building the bismarck 1/200. come take a look!
28 August 2016, 18:19
Christian BruerHi Ingmar, glad to see you start another ship. I will be watching with interest!
Feel free to take a look to the Graf Spee building blog made by my buddy Guido:
Youtube Video
Cheers, Christian
29 August 2016, 06:02
Udo BrowarczikDie Neugier plagt mich, ich habe den Grafen auch noch im Schrank....... Thumbs up! Do it!
29 August 2016, 12:09
Ingmar StöhrThank you all for your support and interest! That's really motivating. Christian I will take a look at the video for sure!
Today I finished the reworking of the anchor pocket at the stern. Not as problematic as I first thought. Most time of the last days was spent on the water (pictures and description will follow at some point). The waves turned out quiet well. Today I was a bit impatient. After several layers of color it looked right and I wanted to add a layer off still water effect before going to bed. It turned out, that by applying the gloss coat I managed to rub of the paint from some wave tops. Grrr. Lesson learned. Be more patient 😉 I guess I have to redo the whole paint job - well...
29 August 2016, 20:29
Christian BruerVery nice work and modification. Looking forward to your tutorial - Ingmars goes making water🙂
29 August 2016, 20:53
Ingmar StöhrYou can have my water as It won't fit this ship. I was thinking about how to make the water for month now. I tried some things and in the end I'm very pleased. The painting mishap would have been easy to fix. But on top of that I just noticed, that the waterline option in the trumpeter kit is not cut at the waterline at all. At least according to the Kagero plans the top of the boot stripe should be 2-3 mm below where the trumpeter hull ends.... But that's what the whole base was made for. Now I have to decide if I proceed and live with a ship way to deep in the water or if I add the lower hull and then cut it of a the the real waterline and rework the base or take the full hull and make a new base that has room for the lower hull.... But then I'll get problems with the height of the showcase which I already ordered. Oh well, looks as if I need to sleep over it for a few nights. And all this right after the start of this project.
29 August 2016, 21:17
Ingmar StöhrThis morning I compared the plans to some historical pictures and it seems that both might be right. Maybe the plans show the planned waterline. There are pictures from the launch, where the waterline seems to match the drawings. If I look at later pictures of the commissioned ship they compare better to what the trumpeter kit shows than what the drawings say. I think I'll proceed with the trumpeter waterline option and just repair the paint job on the water.
30 August 2016, 05:28
Christian BruerHi Ingmar, don't worry about the waterline. If the hull is to deep in the water you can add some flat styrene, in this case the 2-3mm. mentioned I did the same with my HMS Cleopatra:
H.M.S. Cleopatra | Album by Christian Bruer (1:350)
Cheers, Christian
30 August 2016, 09:00
Torben KeHi Ingmar, don´t worry. I agree with Christian. The differences in pictures of the real ship and plans could result from different states of overall displacement. When a ship is launched there are no fittings or guns in place, no crew onboard and no stores. In peace time operations the ship is usually lighter then in wartimes which will result in different draughts. Much room for some artistic impressions.
30 August 2016, 11:43
Ingmar StöhrThank you for your supportive words! I think it's exactly what Torben said. The plans show the waterline as the designers calculated it to comply to any treaties. In reality it's something different and as I wrote, the trumpeter waterline option seems to match the pictures after commissioning, even in peacetime. So all worries gone. 🙂
30 August 2016, 16:21
Ingmar StöhrI added two pictures of the water that I created. I'm quiet happy with the color. A green-brownish something. Originally I did not plan on painting spray or foam on top of the waves as I was aiming for a calm summer day. But they cover some flaws in the paint job. I think I'll keep it like that for now. I can always change my mind and redo the paint job later in the build.
30 August 2016, 20:48
Christian BruerHi Ingmar, the water looks very clear and reflects perfectly along the hull lines. Would be great you explain your method of making water😉
About the colour of the water. That depends on so many facts, depth, sunny or cloudy sky and so on. If I know where the location will be I often look at Google Maps how the colour of the water really is. My Buddies and I used this method of research when we build our Liverpool Harbour diorama. We know we kept it right due to the feedbacks we got in 2008 in Telford by some visitors from Liverpool. They mentioned we kept the colour of the River Mersey very well🙂
By the way, you should remove the rain gutters, they look much prominent. I made them new on my HMS Belfast from 0.1 or 0.2mm brass rod.
Cheers, Christian
31 August 2016, 06:36
Holger KranichDas Wasser sieht aus wie die Nordsee... Bräunlich, gräulich, kalt... Mag ich!🙂
31 August 2016, 07:25
Ingmar StöhrRegarding the color: My own experience from our Scalemates meeting with direct view on the north sea is that the color of the water will change within minutes depending on lighting conditions. It can be green, blue, grey, brown.... For sure out on the open ocean the water probably won't look brown, but in the north sea with all that mud and sand this might as well be the case. I'm still happy with the look. Next time I'll probably try harder to pronounce the 3D effect of the waves by color modulation.
I read some great articles about making water surface with water color paper. I really wanted to try that out, but I was not able to get a peace large enough. I feared that a seam would be very hard to hide. So I looked for alternatives - there are a lot! I experimented with magic sculp but found that to hard. Then I tried some kind of clay. I rolled out a thin and smooth surface and then wit the round back of a screwdriver I made small indents. For me that looked really convincing for a calm sea. But I hat a lot of small scratches and little "holes". This would have looked unnatural. So I switched to some acrylic modeling paste. Really looked like white toothpaste. I thinned it down with water an then stippled it on the base. The thinned consistency helped that it smoothed out a bit but kept the waves in general. After the base had dried I still had a lot of wrinkles and air bubbles in it. So i thinned the paste down even further and gave the base another cost. that helped to fill a lot of imperfections and smoothed out the surface even more. To get rid of the last holes from air bubbles I put on a very generous coat of Vallejo Still Water. This finally did the trick. I now had a smooth but wavy surface which was ready for painting. If you use the acrylic paste with less water you'll be able to get a more coarse look for a surface with more wind. It's really hard to describe this process and I can only recommend to experiment on some small scrap peaces - practice makes perfect....
31 August 2016, 18:38
Ingmar Stöhr@ Christian: Thank you for your opinion on the rain gutters. I'll have to sleep a night over this decision!
An thank you also for the tip with the build log from Guido. Most interesting! Will you be at ISSC Heiden? I'm still undecided. If it wasn't a 7 hours drive....
31 August 2016, 18:41
Torben KeIngmar, a very well done seabase. I like your approach and the colour matches perfect from what I remember of my trips on the North Sea. The relatively dark water will give a good constrast to the light grey ship.
31 August 2016, 19:04
Christian BruerHi Ingmar, you're welcome!
Interesting technique to use thinned acrylic medium. What do you use as a basis – Styrofoam?
About Heiden, yep I will be there next week together with all my shipmates. Let me know if you'll give it a try. I can highly recommend the show and it would be fine to meet you there 🙂
Cheers, Christian
31 August 2016, 19:25
Ingmar Stöhr🙂 That's exactly the reason why I'm really thinking about taking this long journey on me!
The base is MDF. I guess even better would be a peace of good plywood or something glued together from smaller wood peaces as the MDF could warp.
31 August 2016, 19:33
Christian BruerLately I prefer 40mm thick Styrofoam board as a basis. To form waves I use a brass scratch brush in a drilling machine. That worked very well for rough and calm water. The only disadvantage is a lot of dust. Once finished I insert the Styrofoam board into a wooden framework.
Previously I use 10mm plastic coated MDF. Some of these bases are now 3 to 4 years old and no warping occurred.
From my point view there is an advantage for the Styrofoam. It is easy to cut and form, it will not warp or bend and you can insert full hull models without to much work to do.
31 August 2016, 19:51
Ingmar StöhrYeah, I saw that and think it's very useful! But you can only try one method at a time 😉 And as I'm not building like 10 ships a year.... 😉
31 August 2016, 20:07
Moritz FentzahnHey Ingmar, your build and especially your base are looking good so far. In case that you want to depict the fleet review in spithead, you may get some impressions here. wettringer-modellbau..p;highlight=Spithead
Good Luck
31 August 2016, 20:53
Ingmar StöhrOh cool, will have a look at those. I think I'm only showing her in a similar frame. Calm sea, some boats in the water.... For Spithead I would at least have to find a Heinkel 60 plane don't know which additional changes would be necessary. I think I will not depict any particular event. Timeframe will be before the war without any comouflage, at anchor somewhere.
1 September 2016, 05:05
Ingmar StöhrToday I was in the mood for some microscopic scratchbuilding. I prepared the swinging booms and the corresponding fittings. Two of them will be deployed (on port side) and the two on starboard will be in the stowed position.
4 September 2016, 16:53
Ingmar StöhrOnly a small progress. Added some tiny parts and some ladders that where missing. Have to do the same in three more times.
6 September 2016, 19:58
Ingmar StöhrHolger, the fittings (white) are from evergreen very thin plastic sheet. The ladders are made from copper wire. Thinned white glue works great for those.
7 September 2016, 12:42
Ingmar StöhrDuring the last week I managed to nearly complete the funnel and main mast. The mast was scratch build from mainly brass tube. The funnel was cleared of most details and then everything was build up from PE or scratch. Added the two steam pipes or foghorns. Some hatches were added and the placement of the ladders is according to drawings and pictures and different from the kit and the PE instructions. I also made the lockers for the 2cm ready ammunition. They will be added after painting. Strangely Trumpeter and Academy as well as Eduard and MK1 overlooked the small platform on the aft which hold a small searchlight for morse communication. The mast sill misses some ladders and other small detail.
17 September 2016, 14:02
Torben KeHi Ingmar, great and very impressive progress! Very accurate and with a focus on small details. 👍
17 September 2016, 18:04
Ingmar StöhrThank you Torben! There are some inaccuracies but I won't tell you where 😉
17 September 2016, 19:50
Torben KeNo inaccuracies but artistic freedom! That´s what makes an interesting 1:1 ship look even better in 1:350 scale. 😉
18 September 2016, 10:20
Sven SchönyanIch sehe Du hast es geschafft die Handläufe/Tritte am Schornstein anzubringen! Sehr schönes Ergebnis bislang. Weiter so!
18 September 2016, 12:21
Christian BruerExcellent work and detail 👍 Looking forward to the next steps🙂
18 September 2016, 16:57
Ingmar StöhrManaged to paint the funnel. Also finished the main artillery. Still have to figure out how I'm going to replicate the "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" emblems on the turrets.
21 September 2016, 11:34
Holger KranichOne stupid but (for me) necessary question: Did you paint it by brush or airbrush? If with the brush: Was your paint enamel?
21 September 2016, 11:41
Moritz FentzahnHello Ingmar, very accurate and clean build so far. Thumps up. For the turret emblems check out the peddinghaus decal sheet EP 1953 scalemates.com/kits/1007406-..ls-ep-1953-admiral-graf-spee
The emblems seem to be the right ones.
21 September 2016, 11:43
Ingmar Stöhr@Moritz: Thank you for the link. That is very helpful! There is so much after market stuff out there that it's hard to keep track of it 😉
@Holger: It's all acrylics (except for washes). I sprayed the main color (Hellgrau AK732) and brush painted the rest.
21 September 2016, 14:07
Ingmar StöhrProgress on the Graf Spee was very slow during the last weeks. But I managed to complete the medium artillery. They are also painted by now but I still have to get pictures of that. I removed all the rivets that Trumpeter tried to replicate but that were way out of scale in my opinion. Also did some work on the aft superstructure and the aft rangefinder.
6 December 2016, 20:44
Ingmar StöhrThanks Marc. I'm looking forward to a few days off after Christmas. That should speed up progress a lot.
21 December 2016, 06:08
Marc A.Hi Ingmar, well mate. I that we all are in bussy times looking forward for for some free time to expend in our projects. I will keep looking at you work, so enjoy this days and bring us more advances. Merry Christmas!!
21 December 2016, 11:51
Holger KranichIngmar, please tell me, what do you take as reference? The Kagero books?
21 December 2016, 18:09
Ingmar StöhrThank you mates!
@Holger: yes I use the Kagero books a lot. But you also need every picture you can find. To me it seems the Kagero books are not 100% correct in every aspect. But they are often the most complete reference because they cover every angle. So it's very convenient to take them as main reference. In my case the book shows a later outfit of the ship. But still extremely helpful, especially if no other reference shows the part in question.
21 December 2016, 19:40
Christian BruerGood to see you back in the saddle Ingmar! Nice detail and progress on your Graf Spee. The details on the rangefinders are well executed. I much like these little details made of some styrene and brass. That's what makes your model unique.
Wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Cheers, Christian
22 December 2016, 15:59
Ingmar StöhrThank you! And a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too! Hope you'll get more modelling time than this year!
22 December 2016, 17:25
Ingmar StöhrManaged to upload some more progress pics. I was quiet busy on the model but a bit lazy taking foto and posting them. I got a lot more things done than the pictures show.
21 January 2017, 08:06
Christian BruerIngmar, very nice progress and level of detail. Photo no. 28 speaks for himself!
Cheers, Christian
21 January 2017, 19:44
Moritz FentzahnReally great proceedings and still a very clean and accurate work with the PE parts 👍
By the way, from which of your aftermarket-sets is the turned brass-mast?
Cheers Moritz
21 January 2017, 22:00
Ingmar StöhrThanks Moritz. The mast is 1mm brass tube, which I sanded down in my dremel tool to get the tapered shape.
22 January 2017, 08:07
Moritz FentzahnThank you Ingmar, so I have to switch on my dremel when I start to build my Spee
22 January 2017, 08:49
Ingmar StöhrI added some more progress pics. Don't worry. That was not only the last nights progress. As I said I was way behind with my pictures. So the newest ones really show her, as she looks right now. Still a lot of tiny bits to work on!
Thank you Sven! It still has a lot of things you could do better! But I have to leave room for improvements on my next ship 😉
Moritz: You'll need your dremel for more than the mast 😉
22 January 2017, 10:59
Christian BruerThe overall look is really fine, as well as the work with the cutter! By the way, you should replace the 3,7mm Flak by Flyhawk aftermarkets. This will be more suitable to all the fine details instead of the kit parts you possibly use.
scalemates.com/kits/306715-f..7cm-l183-1-5inch-sk-30-aa-mg
Cheers, Christian
22 January 2017, 18:24
Ingmar StöhrChristian you are a good observer! And you're absolutely right. The 3.7cm is very basic in comparison the the rest of the model. I have the Veteran Models sets for the 3.7 and the 2cm Flak, but I had to surrender! There are so many tiny pieces! I took a shortcut here and used the kits parts. The 2cm look ok with turned barrels and a PE handwheel. Hm... I have to see if I manage to gather enough courage to put together the 3.7cm from Veteran. At least I only need 4 pieces. Thank you for beeing my bad conscience 😉
22 January 2017, 19:34
Christian BruerIngmar you should give it a try! I forgot how many pieces the Flyhawk Pom Pom had I build for my HMS Belfast, but it worked well at the end. You will make it 👍
22 January 2017, 19:38
Ingmar StöhrThanks to Christian I had another go at the Veteran Models 3.7mm AA guns. Turned out to be easier than I would have thought. Only about one hour for one piece. Only three more to go. But now that I've figured out what goes where it should go faster.
23 January 2017, 20:53
Ingmar StöhrJep! When I decided to skip this work and go with the basic kit parts I could almost foresee we would have exactly this conversation 😉 THX again!
23 January 2017, 21:01
Christian Bruerby the way, what have you used for the clear lense of the searchlights?
23 January 2017, 21:31
Thomas Bischofflove the work on the Flak - by the way: there did you get this oversized coin from? 🙂
23 January 2017, 22:02
Ingmar StöhrThey don't have any lens. I drilled out the interior with a round burr. Then I formed the reflector with some epoxy putty and the back of an old paintbrush. I painted the interior chrome and placed the PE 'grill' over the opening. I think the next time I'll try to use a thin flat sheet of transparent material over the search light and below the PE to give the reflectance of the Glas. Or I'll cover them with some canvas as many pictures of the ships in Harbour show. Or they turned the search light 'inwards' towards the funnel - to protect them I gues.
23 January 2017, 22:08
Bart Goesaertnice flaks, the veteran models parts seems to be worth their money...
24 January 2017, 09:45
gorbySurely you must have been given some giant chocolate coins for Christmas! It doesn't seem possible to make something this detailed at this scale. Stunning work Ingmar!
24 January 2017, 17:12
Ingmar StöhrThank you mates! The last three 3.7 AA went together smoothly and now the overall look is a lot better. Even though I have to confess that I did omit some of the most tiny hand wheels.
Those Veteran Model details really do look fantastic but those four guns did cost me 15 Euro. It's ok for me, but still a lot of money!
24 January 2017, 20:56
Kerry COXWatch maker, watch maker.............make me a watch. !!! Bloody amazing. :-O
24 January 2017, 21:17
Bart Goesaertthat hefty price-tag is what kept me from ordering their flakvierling and other guns to place on my flaklighter... 50€ of guns on a 20€ ship... I'm trying to make something of the PE-puns supplied
25 January 2017, 07:35
Joerg R.Alter Schwede ist das klein Ingmar, da bekäme ich Augenkrebs😉😉😉 Meinen allergrössten Respekt
25 January 2017, 11:12
Ingmar StöhrBart, I can understand you and as far as I saw, you're doing a great job with your AA guns!
For this project the costs for all the add on parts will be the multiple of the original kit. I see it this way: This project will keep me busy more or less a whole year. So instead of building maybe four kits for 50 Euro each, I'll do one build for 200 Euros. But that's just my way of justifying all that expensive stuff 😉
25 January 2017, 19:31
Spanjaardwe all find ways to justify those... i am not buying new models (almost), my stash is big enough. but i have not problems in buying after market sets for many of the items in the stash 😄
last picture with the AA on top of the 1cent, is amazing. incredible details you are adding.
25 January 2017, 19:34
Christian BruerHehe Ingmar you fooled my eyes with the searchlights. It looks so real on the photo - well done in any aspects! The 15 Euros for the 3,7cm Flak are well spent mate. And by the way, your fine and detailed work remind me to go back to my HMS Belfast. Yesterday I ckecked the status of work and the next steps planned. I should give it a try to finish her this year. Would be fine to see your Graf Spee and my Belfast together on a model show.
Cheers, Christian
25 January 2017, 20:12
Ingmar StöhrThank you Spanjaard!
@Christian: After so many times your progress on Belfast inspired me to get back to work on my Prinz Eugen I'm honored to return the favor 😉 And it would be great to meet you again - with - or without ship!
25 January 2017, 20:42
Ingmar StöhrAfter a pause of 2 1/2 years finally some progress on this one. Currently separating and cleaning up three packs of North Star figures. What a fun!
18 August 2019, 16:28
Christian BruerMmhh remind me on my Belfast😄
The time to spent cleaning the figures is worth it Ingmar 👍
18 August 2019, 16:38
Ingmar StöhrThank you Christian, Sven and Spanjaard!
The three sets should total up to 200 figure. But I did not and will not count them 😉
18 August 2019, 19:31
Ingmar StöhrJust put a coat of white primer on them. The level of detail is just stunning. You can't see that in the translucent stage. I'll post some close ups while painting.
18 August 2019, 19:33
Slavo HazuchaSomehow missed this before, great going, excellent big-scale shipbuilding 👍
18 August 2019, 20:40
Thomas WirschingSupernice work so far! May I ask you how you separate the figures from their base? I have big difficulties in doing this (I used a fine knife and/or PE blade saw) and the loss rate is always at least 33% due to broken extremities...
20 August 2019, 06:03
Ingmar StöhrThank you guys!
@Thomas: That's something I also struggled with at first. Micro saw, knife and my standard nipper did not work. Then I tried to cut the base plate into pieces to separate figures. This somehow worked, but often enough it broke between the legs of one figure and broke something. In the end I settled for two methods that worked well for me with only a few figures broken. I'm sorry that I can't provide pictures of this as I already cleaned up all the figures and did not think of taking pictures of the process 🙁
1) I used very pointy nippers from Tamiya. I placed them at the very base. Not placing the whole 'foot' into the nippers but only a portion right at the tip. This mostly broke the foot right of the base but did not move the figure enough to break it. This did even work for the larger groups of figures. The nippers have to be very pointy and sharp. My standard Knipex tool did not work!
2) I places a sharp blade right at the base of the figure and moved it just enough, so that it did dig into the material a tiny fraction. Not much. Maybe a hairs thickness. Then I tilted the blade in a motion as if I wanted open a bottle of beer or wanted to flick the figure off the base. Sometimes I needed a second or third try, but most times on foot of the Figure broke off the base right where the knife had cut.
I hope this lengthy explanation is somewhat understandable and does help.
20 August 2019, 14:54
Thomas WirschingDankeschön Ingmar! I will try it within my next build - HMS Exeter is waiting for me 😉
21 August 2019, 12:52
Album info
I plan to depict her as waterline model in calm sea like at Spithead 1937. It will be the first time I use a wood deck and also the first time doing such a large water surface. I also plan on using some North Star figures tho bring the scene to live.
