Hi All,

I have been working on my 1/128 scale Admiral Graf Spee for about a year using a Fleetscale hull and a few Fleetscale fittings. Progress quite slow but photos below illustrate the current state. My previous experience of model warship building has been through Deans Marine destroyer kits so no surprise I intend most of the construction to use Styrene plastic. The main deck and quarterdeck is fully planked using 1.5mm x 1mm x 50mm lime planks on a 3mm birch plyword support. The main turrets are scratch built as are the torpedo tube batteries and the light AA. I have Fleetscale resin mouldings of the eight secondary armament turrets, the funnel the 4,1 inch AA and main rangefinders and AA directors although most of these are still in their plastic bags. Not intending to post a day by day account of this build, just the occasional update. The intention is to produce a reasonably detailed model for occasional careful use on the water in about 2 years time.

Have made progress particularly with the main deck structures and with the secondary armament, AA and range finders. The deck structures are entirely of styrene as I find this the easiest way of doing it. Having said that styrene for all its good qualities is a bit flimsy specially for large deck houses and as I do not want to use plastic of thickness greater than 1mm for weight purposes the deckhouses etc require a lot of reinforcement to prevent the occurrance of undesirable warping in walls and decks. This is just my method derived from my Deans Marine modelling experiences and not necessarily the best way of building but it works for me. As stated above I have done a lot of work on the secondary 15cm turrets, the dual triaxially stabilised 10.5cm Flak turrets, dual 3.7mm Flak mounts and single 2cm Flak mounts but I will leave these to later on.

Forward structure – one wall attached to supporting frame.
Forward structure – both sides attached. I have also triangular styrene pieces added to force the sides to remain square to the supporting frame. The small metal blocks are type face elements which are very useful for assembling styrene parts together for bonding.

Forward structure – complete and showing the supporting arrangements.

Forward structure – the top view. The square aperture is for the smoke (mist) generator flue to pass through.

Rear structure – partly built. The aircraft catapult and aft control centre sits on this deckhouse.

Aft control centre which has the aft main armament 10.5M rangefinder included. The rangefinder used as its basis the Fleetscale resin moulded part with some enhancement such as the rangefinder optics and the rods running parallel to the arms and he access ladder rungs.

Forward SL-4 Director mounted immediately forward of the main tower. This is an Flak director for use with the heavy 10.5cm Flak guns.This uses the Fleetscale resin moulded item with enhancements.

Forward armoured control tower with 7M secondary armament rangefinder mounted on top. The control tower has curved walls presumably to deflect incoming rounds but this does make it difficult to make. I made mine using a foam former which is easy to shape then bonding 0.25mm styrene sheet to it. Hopefully the blue interior of the control tower will not be a an issue after air brushing

Happy New Year everybody. Robin

Hi Paul

Thank you for your kind words, much appreciated from a master modeller such as yourself. This model has been the most challenging I have attempted so far and is a long way from completion. Anyway one can only do one's best.

Happy New Year to yourself and Rose.

Regards

Robin

More progress on AGS. Since completing the main tower I have turned my attention onto the funnel. I had planned to use the Fleetscale fittings of the funnel including the funnel cap and the searchlight platform. After some consideration I have used just the funnel tube itself. It was usable as it was received in fact very accurately moulded but I did use some filler to straighten up one side but as I said could have used it without modification. A tricky aspect of the platform is that the designers in their wisdom decided to have flared railings on it rather than vertical, presumably to enable the area of the platform itself to be smaller? Anyway a bit of a sod to make. The funnel is covered with horizontal rails as was the tower, presumably to facilitate maintenance. The funnel has a strip mast mounted on it. I have made this from very thin walled brass tube from Albion Alloys, first class materials. I have made the funnel cap with a removable panel so that when sailing it can be removed so that the "smoke" from the mist generator can exit easily.

Flared railings being made on a jig. The small block care old printer type which were used as a height gauge for soldering, in this instance the middle of three rails.

Railings and ladders. From 0.2mm and 0.35mm diameter tinned copper wire.

Funnel cap added.

Funnel cap with removable panel. Tubes are 12mm diameter styrene.

Completed funnel with mast. Things that need to be added are 4 searchlights and 2 single 20mm AA guns plus a small signal lamp on the small platform under the rear of the main platform.

I have never used jelutong – how does it compare to Lime which I have used quite a lot?

Robin

Edited By Robin Lee on 18/04/2014 12:09:34

Thanks Dave, I shall have to get some Jelutong and give it a try.

Robin