The first wooden decks are on! What a nice look they bring to the overall project. As a companion project I am also building a 1/32 version of the Arado float plane which is also coming along nicely.

More progress on the Bismarck! All the handrails on the forward and aft superstructure have been added. The next step is to paint the superstructures then add the wooden decks to the individual areas that require them. The small deck armament have all been completed as well. This is actually a very extensive project with only a small variety of the total guns shown in the photograph. Assembling and modifying all these deck guns actually took several days of construction as they are both tiny and very detailed! They will look exceptional on the finished model.

 The build has progressed with more of the PE brass being applied. Fortunately the design of the wooden decks allows for the addition of the handrails and most details prior to the decks being added. The level of detail continues to increase with each pass over the model. It is very close to paint time for several of the subassemblies.

Progress images of 1/200 Bismarck build


The various sub-assemblies are not permanently attached yet so any minor misalignments will be corrected during final assembly. In building a model of this complexity several passes are made over the entire ship adding finer and finer details each time until the final product is completed. These pictures are of the first pass adding the photoetched details. After this pass the various sub-assemblies will be further detailed and then painted. The wooden decks will then be added and the final assembly of prepainted detail will be added.