On The Bench - 1963 Revell Bismarck, or How to Safely Remove Ancient Enamel and be Happy with your Model

 

If you've been modeling as long as I have, you've probably built this, or know someone who has. Although the now-odd-seeming scale of 1/570 is no longer in vogue, it was not uncommon back in the day, and this kit was for its day a reasonably detailed model. However, my youthful enthusiasm was not matched by any particular patience, skill, or tools. Eagerly, hurriedly assembled and painted with whatever I had available to me, flash went untrimmed, bad paint was inexpertly applied, and matching the box art, not any prototype pictures, was all I could hope for. Yet it looked good enough, and weathered the decades of play, storage, children, and more storage in nearly intact condition. Stumbling across it recently (while looking for something else entirely, of course) I thought to myself  "it really deserves better". What if I had built it in MY mid 60's rather than THE mid-60's?  

That Hull paint, though.....

I seem to recall using a bottle of bad Pactra Enamel, with lots of dried paint bits mixed in, leaving a somewhat "textured" surface (shudders) applied by hand. My scotch tape masking bled badly. Can she be salvaged? Only If I can a. get it disassembled without undue damage and b. only if I can remove that hull paint completely, without abrasives or otherwise removing what modest detail is available.

Having used Pine-Sol on miniatures and railroad car bodies before, I thought this would be Trial 1. It is not harmful to people or plastic, and is ~ gentle on both.

First, lets break this down into subassemblies:

Deck and superstructure required a little exacto work, some prying, and one spot of razor-sawing, but went quickly.

All that "exercise" opened some hull seams, which had many gaps anyway, so I split the hull, cut off all locator pins, sanded the joints smooth, re-glued and reinforced the hull bottom. It should withstand the rigors ahead.

A Pine-sol test patch near the bow was chosen. The virtual immersion, for over an hour. The plastic was untouched, and including vigorous rubbing with a battery of q-tips, so was virtually all of the paint. I'd get some color, but the 50 year old enamels were as bulletproof as Bismarck's armor belt. I'd need some bigger caliber stuff to penetrate that layer.

Time for the Big Gun. Time for Easy-Off.

It is caustic, so gloves, long sleeves at a minimum are warranted. Would it break through the Armor-namel without damaging the styrene? Well, start small, and see...

I sprayed some Easy-Off into a glass jar, and applied some on the bottom of the hull with Q tips. 10 minute timer, and ...

...now we are getting somewhere. Skip the Q tips, we are going whole hull spray, 10 minutes timer, and -

A quick rinse to verify no ill effects on the hull - check! OK, spray, scrub, rinse, repeat. 15 minutes soak followed by a toothbrush scrub and rinse in the sink. Repeat until all your paint is gone, with the added bonus that what you rinse off helps clear that hairball down in your P-trap ;-) (Yep, Drano - caustic)

I can now see that the formerly paint covered plastic is pristine gray, while above the waterline age, oxidation, and light has yellowed it slightly. But with the paint gone, I can now redo it as I might have done it, but with superior skills and materials.

Stay Tuned for, as Paul Harvey used to say for "...the Rest, of the Story!"

I thought a fair rebuild would require some PE railings at a minimum. While I found nothing for this specific kit (or scale) there are good examples available for 1/600 Kriegsmarine ships, which I declare to be "close enough". I picked up a set of railings supplied by White Ensign Models, shown here:

I'll need to find some good photos for reference, as these are generic. I found an excellent set here: https://3dhistory.de/wordpress/3d-models/dkm-bismarck/bismarck-medium-res/

Reviewing these really begins to highlight the deviations in this old kit. I decided early on I was really just shooting for a better Old Revell, not an attempt to correct its inaccuracies, so a best guess would be good enough. What followed was disassembling, cleaning, and straightening superstructure; drilling out the main battery barrels; and removing plastic railings.

Here it is, with reassembly under way. Flash removal and seam filing was also accomplished at this time.

The paint scheme I wanted is the striking May 41 "Baltic" pattern:

According to online resources, there are 3 different gray shades present; a medium gray on the hull, a dark gray at the bow and stern next to the false waves, and a lighter gray above the main deck. I found three non-exact shades in my stash, but if you went Full Prototype, you'd need to approximate this:

I plan on painting the hull completely before assembly, so down to the basement we go.

Hull with medium gray above the waterline 

Next day, mask with Tamiya tape and prime the bottom (I'm using Vallejo acrylic and don't want adhesion problems).

And once dry, the hull red

While that dried, I spent some time cleaning and drilling the main battery.

Anton, Bruno, Caesar, Dora...

Next, some lighter gray above the main deck.

Now for some wood deck paint...

And while we wait, let's work on the hull and national insignia.

Tamiya tape and hand-applied Vallejo black provided the waterline. Now for the May 1941 hull "camouflage": false bow and stern, false waves, and the iconic B/W diagonal disruptive stripes.

Lots of Tamiya tape and three colors later, we have this:

But wait, how did the deck markings show up? Like so:

Mask for white spray, and apply:

Let dry. Mask again (add the circle) for red, and apply. The circle is several rows of tape laid out on a sheet of clean styrene, and cut out using a circle template and a fresh exacto. 

Let dry. Remove these masks and prep the insignia mask. More tape on styrene, cut with a sharp exacto.

Trim it down, lift, and apply to the deck to suit. Slow and fiddly....

Burnish the edges down as much as possible to prevent bleed-under, which is nearly impossible with vintage raised detail. I would recommend spraying this to further avoid that problem. I didn't, and paid for it. Some cleanup with an exacto and whit touchups were required.

Progress so far. Next, I'll clean and repaint cranes, planes, and boats while I wait for the deck "wood" (paint) to arrive. Stay Tuned.

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Boats:

Planes:

Yes. You can get a variety of aircraft decals in 1/600 scale.

Cranes:

Rigging the cranes with some stretched sprue cabling.

I tried two different colors for the wood deck.  To my eye, Vallejo acrylic Wood was too yellow, so I went with a thinned mix of Modelmaster Wood, akways painting in the direction of the planking, where unevenness is not just ok, but adds depth.

It went on in a straightforward fashion.

Now we can begin adding the multitude of railings. I based mine on some great 3d renderings available at this site:

I had to take liberties as the old girl has a number of differences between her and today's more accurate representations. The PE sheet from Tom's Modelworks was excellent, but generic to KM capital ships. If you've worked with PE before it is a slow go, particularly since the model wasn't designed for it. 

I did make one concession to accuracy as it was glaring. The model had no rear facing array, so I fabbed one out of styrene to match those forward. 

The last bit is installing the boarding ladders, which are made of 5 tiny components. Here's the first in progress.

You need to extend the "falls" to length with materials you provide, in this case, transformer wire. 3 more, and some final painting. Then, to rig or not to rig?

Before:

currently: