Right, almost two months of going around in circles on this one. The main issue? The deck. If you trust the instructions, you have a right job on your hands, because it all depends on the intended part of Bismarck's life that one wants to capture.
As my intention has always been to show her in the Baltic, during trials, in all that fancy color scheme, I found some reference and, when studying it more carefully, I found out that I had been wrong about the deck color. It is much much darker than I thought. Following this reference, I kept digging deeper and, as it turns out, the deck was indeed very dark at the time they were on trial in the Baltic.
This photo below ..... I was totally wrong in the way I interpreted it....
When I looked at the deck, it's obvious the deck was being painted - it's very light at the bow and very dark at the stern. Initially I thought it had been dark and they were painting it in a light color. The date of 8th of March is right at the beginning of the Bismarck getting ready for her sea trials.
Well, I was wrong. It had been light to begin with, then they painted it in that dark color. Look at this photo below, taken when she was sailing towards Gotenhafen.
It's a bit blurry, but still, the deck is very dark and wet.
Also, when the big boss visited her, in April, the deck shows a very dark color too.
Well, after thinking about this for a while, I decided to make the deck darker, again, by staining it with a darker shade.
Also, another thing that occurred to me was that, without a systematic approach, this could turn into a mess pretty easily. As such, I started putting all the bits and pieces in place, from bow to stern, and from the middle of the ship outwards. This only happened I had already made a start on the main deck, so, some pieces had already been placed, where they would not have, had I followed this principle from the very beginning.
The difference between deck version one and deck version 2
The stern with the flag painted. There are decals supplied, but they would have never looked good.
At the bow, the two big capstans, lots of vents and the two smaller wave breakers, close to the camo stripes.
Also, some of the elements on the superstructure. There are so many of these little things, and most of them also have PE bits and pieces on too.
Well, that's it for now. Work goes on, heaps to do.
Thanks for watching,
Laurence