¹⁄350

DKM Graf Spee, 1937

The Project…

After weighing up the pro and cons of the Academy and Trumpeter 350th kits of the Graf Spee, I came to the conclusion that the Trumpeter was the better option. The moldings are much sharper, and the kit includes PE for the deck-railing, and even the Eagle on the stern.

However, having said that, their kit is not without its faults. I don’t know what Trumpy were thinking about, but they chose to make the stern anchor face the wrong way. At first ,I was at loss to how to rectify this ,but I hit on the idea of filling the recess for the anchor, then I sanded the rear of the anchor itself to thin it out a little, then attach it at the correct angle ,and when painted drew around the outline of the anchor ,with an artists pen, to give an impression of depth ,Not perfect, but it was the best way I could think of.

The second error is that they have done the Torpedo tubes project too far from the rear of the mountings. Again this was easily solved, by removing the rear of the tubes, and filling the space with Milliput, as the mounting was covered with a canvass screen when not in use. The kit 3.7cms flak guns are made far too small, I think there 700th scale! So I replaced them with those from the Academy kit.

I chose to Back-date the Spee to her 1937 appearance, this was a greater task than I first thought. The main alteration was to the "Turmmast”, this require a scratch-build middle platform, and two searchlight platforms, on either side, rather than the single one on the front and middle of the tower. Luckily Trumpy give you six s/lights in the kit, as the 1939 version has only five. I’ve kit bashed an Aoshima Pete floatplane and an Alf top wing from their kit of the Takao, to make a He 60 A/C.

The model was painted with Modelmaster and Polly S acrylic paints, and the SNP stripes were from a RAF fin flash decal sheet. The model took a month to make, and I enjoyed every minute of it (Well almost)