I carried out the next round of sanding and filling, once this had been done I applied another coat of primer, checked the hull and done some more filling and sanding, this process was done several times until the hull was smooth.

I also added the sea chest grates and the metal parts supplied to line the portholes, these had a rounded end which was sanded back to give a perfect porthole.

Thanks Alan, there has been a lot of work on the hull! I should have used a sanding sealer before priming the hull, this way it would have got rid of any pin holes and gaps but I ended up painting, filling, painting, filling and so on, but I think I have ended up with a good finish.

Ben

Hi Ben.
Looking really nice.
Dose the amati kit give you all the paint options on the hull and super stucture. I am doing hatchettes version of the Bismarck, it came with three different paint options. Look forward to seeing your progress Ian.

Hi Ben.
I was going to do the Baltic stripes all the way up. The only way I thought you could do it was by hand painting them on before you fix the wooden deck boards on.there are a lot of super structor fittings that have to be painted round and over if you go that way. In issue 120 of hatchets original build there was a big fold out painting and rigging guide did you get this with your kit. I decided in the end to do the stripes up to the edge of the decks.

I hope this of help to you ian

I wasn't happy with shape of the anchor ports because the shape didn't match photos of the ship so I decided to beef them up using strip wood cut into small lenghts then glued in place, after it was dry I added another layer and so on, after i was happy with the rough shape I used filler and sanded back to give the final shape







I also added the detailed part at the bow of the ship, this was glued together and sanded



I made a start on the deck edge detail using strip plastic



I have also decided to plank the whole ship as the kit supplied deck is ok but there are some issues with it. I have bought lime wood strips in 1mm 1.5mm and 2mm sizes. From the photo you can see a practice I carried out, I mixed black acrylic paint with pva glue to get the caulked and tar seams effect, to the right of the photo is the kit supplied deck.

Thanks Jase,

I've noticed some people have talked about a hydrophone on the Bismarck hull, I have no information on this, just wondering if anyone can give me details on it like the position on the hull and size?

Hi Ben.
Coming along nicely. Look forward to seeing your progress Ian

Hi Ben,

That is one nice build.

Regards
Claret

The hull is almost ready for its final coat of primer and finishing colours, but before this I have added a little extra detail, I've used fuse wire to represent the eye brows above the portholes and detailing at the stern. The funnel has also seen some more attention, I wasn't happy with the molded pipes at the top of the funnel, so I've cut them all off and replaced them with metal tubes cut to size, I used the albion alloy metals for this. I have also sanded off most of the molded detail on the funnel to replace it with photo etch from the eduard set for the trumpeter bismarck. I will also mask and paint the baltic strips at this point.

Some seriously fine detail being added there Ben and it's this kind of detail that makes all our builds unique...... impressive work.....

Regards

Alan