White Ensign Model’s (WEM) photo etched sets.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Ciao Steve and all,

it is for me so good to be able to talk modeling with somebody, ..
... you will never know how happy and relaxed you are making me, ..
... thank you

I am glad my references to other websites were helpful, ...YES, Stefan as well as Thomas Schmid 3D are really superb,.. here Thomas one I forgot to attach at first :

http://www.3dhistory.de/

you should see what those 2 guys are able to make for books too,..FANTASTIC !!!,..Hood book with Thomas 3D is SUPERB !!.

Now I see you are on the hangar...

... pay attention to the inclination of the 2 boat supports on top of the hangar.....

.. on the model they are just ' parallel' to the hangar side, .. but on reality they were not parallel, .. they were oriented with an inclination externally of some degrees, to form a ' V ',.. around the mast and leave the room ahead on top of the hangar roof were there was the bell, .. yes the Bismarck bell was there.

Only the 2 on top of the hangar, the 2 external were parallel, if you need more details I can send them to you.

Ciao Antonio

[Antonio Bonomi]

Ciao all,

this guy works well,.. absolutely well,.. just take a look

http://www.forum.marinearchiv.de/viewto ... 96c8#12525


Ciao Antonio

[Matthias]

Impressive...

[Kit-Builder]

Thank you Antonio,
I’ve not stop but I don’t want to bore you all with every little bit I do, that’s why I’ve been quiet lately .
Update……….
I’ve slowed down a bit as I navigate my way around cutting the big aircraft hanger up. I don’t want to get it wrong and I only have a few bits/images to use on how it all worked out. The WEM instructions are extremely vague and I think this quote,
“The kit parts provided (by Tamiya) for the aft aircraft hanger are only accurate for the Tirpitz.
Bismarck had an angled recess in each side of the roof as shown below which housed a ventilator trunk.
If it is desired to modify the hanger roof of Bismarck to this shape, parts have been provided for the correct shape vent grills, 34 and 35 and boat cradle set 106 that are shaped to fit over the contours. Replacement boat cradles 105 may be used on Tirpiz if desired, and also on Bismarck if it is not desired to modify the shape of the hanger.”
Well if you look at Michael Taylor’s Bismarck hanger, with the WEM parts, you can see that there is little in the way of assistance in negotiating this difficult geometrical option.

I found that the rear/back is the same width as the searchlight platform part D20. The other cuts are harder to describe and I’ll do that later.
This is the link to the instruction page and as you can see the picture provided changes from the top right-hand corner to the 3 pics of the hanger below.

And the link to the whole thing.
http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/sh ... smarck.htm

It is always important to remember that aftermarket sets are only as good as the user’s skill. Cutting the hanger up is obviously a difficult job and WEM provide the option of using the Tirpitz cradles (the strongly worded hint in the instructions are there to warn the foolish against wrecking their ship and later trying to blame WEM).
I plan to completely re-work the sidewall on the hanger as it’s not that accurate and even my poor skills can improve the area’s appearance. The parts I removed from the hanger end of D14 are not deep enough and they should cut back in to line up with part D24 directly above and not D20 as I did. I don’t know if I’ll fix it or leave it as is.

Anyway here is a pic of where I’m at and as I said it’s slowed down due to the need to get the cut up hanger to
A/ line up with the WEM parts.
B/ line up with the kit parts.
C/ line up with the photos and 3D images from around the internet.
All risky stuff as I don’t know at this point which one will dip out, fit wise. Obviously the only real casualty of inaccuracy will have to be option C above.

I’m about to go and do some more on the Bismarck now so I hope to get things rolling faster (got to keep up with the others who are faster than me).
Regards to you all, Steve
I’ve completed all the boat racks assemblies for the big aircraft hanger so it’ll all fall together as soon as I rebuild it. Even with the preview option I know this will be mucked up somehow

[Kit-Builder]

Edit, edit, edit!!
I knew it! Can't do direct links to modelwarships.com.

Ok go down about halfway on Mike’s build and you can see both the fore and aft hangers, look at the big one and you can see how he’s tried to get the cut-out right. My observation is Mike’s cut a bit too much off but still he gets away with a smart looking ship so I feel safe about my start on it.

The WEM instructions are on this page and if you look at the one with the crane in the top left-hand corner you can see what I meant above.
http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/pe ... e-set.html
Regards Steve

[Matthias]

Forgive my ignorance but I never used photo etched parts...you really have to cut away plastic and substitute the part with the etched one?What kind of tools do you use in such operation, to avoid the rest of the piece to be deformed?

[Kit-Builder]

Hi Matthias (and all),
About cutting up the ship/kit to fit replacement p-e parts you are correct.
In almost all cases it improves the appearance of the substituted parts either by scale thickness (canvas “spray screens” tied to the railings around the superstructure on the Bismarck are represented at about 230-250mm thick in scale!) or accuracy over the kit parts.
Internationally, top model builders do their own p-e sets, but for mere mortals and part-time builders, like me, we rely on the “aftermarket” industries to do them for us at a small cost (p-e sets can cost over twice that paid for the original kit, or more) vs. time and trouble it would be for me to do my own “one-off” p-e set (so they are cheap really).
There are, as with all things, horses for courses so first do a little research to see who is currently at the front regarding fit and accuracy. Cost should not, I know that they are sometimes very expensive, be the difference between manufacturers as sometimes the cheaper one ends up being all but useless regarding the fit and accuracy test and gets thrown out as trash. Don’t be tempted to go cheap because you will only regret it at a later date, trust me its true.

The WEM sets are fair/good and will give your ship/kit that finesse that is missing in plastic. Remember that every medium has its limits and p-e is no different. Later on I’ll illustrate the deficiency of p-e as it ties to overcome its true 2D nature and fails.

Here are a few pics to illustrate what is needed to be done (sometimes) and the reason for doing it.
The 1st pic shows how the cut lines were first scribed into the plastic until they come through the other side. I then cleaned it up roughly with a file before adding the new walls. Some thought is need here as I decided that I would improve on the hanger by extending the removed section all the way down. WEM only ask that you remove a notch big enough to include their boat cradle frames.

The 2nd pic is the reason why I’ve decided to do additional work around this area. You now get an idea about the p-e parts usefulness when you can see the kit’s representation side by side with the p-e and both of them against the real thing.

Thanks for your interest, Steve

[Matthias]

So...do you use a lancet to firstly sign the cut lines on the polystyrene wall of the interested piece, and then slowly cut it away, and then you use a file to polish it from the exceeding plastic, or am I mistaken?

Forgive me if I still trouble you with questions, but...what kind of glue do you use to attach the p-e to polystyrene?

About your pics...they are indeed more realistic!Too bad ity's difficoult I guess, due ther lavoration, to give them a scaled thoughness too, so they could seem really 3D...

[Kit-Builder]

Hi Matthias,
I’m doing this Bismarck on the internet for two reasons. 1 is if I can give someone an idea on what to do with their ship and that it’s not too hard then good, I am most happy to help. 2 is if I don’t know about something or if I am going wrong some kind person (like Antonio ) will help me. So I am very happy to answer any question you have. Now from your last post I will try to give you good answers this time.

So...do you use a lancet to firstly sign the cut lines on the polystyrene wall of the interested piece, and then slowly cut it away, and then you use a file to polish it from the exceeding plastic, or am I mistaken?

What I did was use the kit part, of the searchlight platform, for the first measurement on the back wall (as can be seen it is like this in photos and 3D drawings) and scribed both sides through (the back wall of the hanger is now 30mm across) then I used a small ruler to scribe a line from this to a point 3mm up from the bottom edge between the first and second cradle frames (first being the door end, second being the middle one). I then held onto the small ruler and lightly pulled my hobby knife, with a number 11 blade in it, back towards the rear wall. After doing this a few times I could let go of the ruler and continue to scribing until I could see it was going to come through the inside. I then scribed down the ruler to cut the little 3mm bit until that came through too. Then I snapped the bit off and cleaned it up with a file. Too easy and if I had removed to much I could have shimmed the new walls to the right size.

Forgive me if I still trouble you with questions, but...what kind of glue do you use to attach the p-e to polystyrene?

Just like almost everyone else I use “cyanoacrylate” glue. This is called superglue or “CA” here (and most of the hobby world too) and I’ve started with the thinnest grade. There are 3 grades of glue, thick, medium and thin. All 3 are needed but if you can only get one, let it be medium.

A tip on keeping superglue fresh (stopping it from going hard) is to keep it in the kitchen refrigerator. The cold stops it from working and you can keep it useful for many years (2 years for one bottle I had ).

I have, up until this project, used acetone to remove extra glue and fix up mistakes but after I wrecked the railing around one of the rear 10.5cm Flak range finders I invested in a real superglue de-bonder. The difference is astounding and I’m not sure why I tried to save a small amount of money on this important product. The reason I say it’s important is that superglue is extremely fast setting and it’s sooooooo easy to fix things, like fingers, in the wrong place and you need to recover the parts from the strong grip the glue has.

About your pics...they are indeed more realistic! Too bad ity's difficoult I guess, due ther lavoration, to give them a scaled thoughness too, so they could seem really 3D...

Yep they are better and as this is just the very beginning (like a pile of bricks that will turn into a house) I have ideas to turn them into more 3D like cradle frames with very thin wire. I’m sure that the makers could help out with a better set of parts but they do not make this just for me and you who have a good eye but for everyone from a brave beginner to the lazy expert.

Best regards to you and thank you for your questions, Steve

[Matthias]

Old good cyanoacrylate...the first time I got my fingers glued from it I was eight years old...

thank you very much Steve, anyway!
Well, being a chemist, I could say acetone is not teh best solvent to remove cyanoacrilate from polystyrene, cause it tents, dunno if you noticed it sometimes, to ruin polystyrene surfaces too. should search the composition of the cyanoacrylic debonder and then try to formulate something similar in my lab, using my solvents... if I succeed, well, we all could save some money with the right stuff I guess.

It's always annoying when glues or paint ruin some plastic detail, damn.

I am not sure but somewhere I should have still a RN Fiume model never finished...I'll try to work on it, it had also a little set of p-e parts, then I'll show you the results.

[Kit-Builder]

I’ve been rolling along slowly with the hanger and it’s about half way there with the structural modifications done to the area and all I’ve got to do is the missing two big vents under the boat cradles. The lots of small details will be added after the pe boat cradles go on.
I cut out the plastic in front so that the little door on the WEM pe big one could be left open.
There are more photos of the modifications if anyone wants them e-mail (under-side build up and bits like that) and I’ll send them off.
Regards to every for now, Steve
As always this is very rough as I've a long way to go yet .
Front and back

Top

Sides

[Matthias]

Steve, did you reconstruct the white areas on the sides of the hanger with putty or may be you built the whole structure on a white material support?
Dosn't seem polystyrene to me...

[Kit-Builder]

Hi my friend,
There is more plastic glued here than I’ve done on the rest of the ship so far ! Once I understood what I needed to do it has turned out fair. Some CA glue for filler and a coat of paint and hopefully it will only look average and not a total wreck. In the big world of 1/35 armor I have built whole railway rolling stock (the 80t SSym) for transporting heavy German AFV’s (big ones like King Tigers, Ferdinand/Elefants and others over 50t) around and I remember thinking that the little bits on that was hard to do but now I’m having fun ten times smaller .
Thank you for taking a look, more will come soon now I have done this (plus I must start on the C turret on P. Eugen so we can see what it will take to do the rest), Steve

Underside of the hanger

[Matthias]

What material is this?
Sems to me a polystyrene paper cutted and used as skeleton for the whole structure, as for the hull you're re-decking.

It's good to stay here, everyday I learn something more...

[Matthias]

EDIT: sheet, not paper...:P