Gentlemen -
Finally- after 3 weeks - tonight I am leaving China for home. I can't tell you how much I look forward to touch homebase. Even though this trip gave me plenty of time for modelling at night and some literature research, there is nothing like home sweet home. As I was shifting through a choice of hotels those last nights, I didn't find time for modelling, but I made it up by reading my primary literature: Die Leichten Kreuzer der Koenigsberg-Klasse - Leipzig und Nuernberg, Gerhard Koop/ Klaus-Peter Schmolke, Bernhard & Graefe Verlag, ISBN 3-7637-5323-9. I will have to re-study this to ascertain, but I think the below artwork is sound for a 1941 fit of Leipzig, before the catapult was landed.
I had wished for this Baltic Scheme to give my model the competitive edge against the fine schemes other competitors have chosen for their subjects. Of cause I wanted to have the Arado float plane at the same time. It seems that indeed this confirguration has a sound historical backing.



I would like to thank you all for your comments on this blog and via private e-mail.
I'll be reporting back about the eventual damage inflicted during transporton on this 10,000km trip home!

Safe journey, Guido. I hope you decide to use the Baltic camouflage scheme - it would certainly add to an already beautiful model. Barry

Hello!
I have returned safely to Germany on Friday night! The trip home was hampered by Hong Kong airport being shut down due to cyclone warning, which severely screwed up my schedule! Finally I arrived 49 hours late on a total travelling time of 39 hours!
Special thanks go to our modeling brother Chuck (aka „Hermil“) and his wife for taking me in for the night being stranded and driving me to the airport the next morning at 5.30am! Isn’t it just great to have such a community amongst modelers?
Upon arrival I was glad to find out that all newly bought stuff and the Leipzig survived the flight without big damage. A few windows came off, but nothing serious!

1000(!) clicks as of today!
My humble thanks to all the visitors: Thank you very much for taking interest in my blog!

Hi, Guido, and I must say what a wonderful job you are doing with your build. I think everyone can learn a lesson here and that's that a tidy bench leads to tidy work.

Thank you for the fine example of how to build properly!

Peter F

HUH looks like i,ll be cleaning the work bench this weekend the wife will definetly think their is something wrong with me,but I know where everything is when its a mess.It,s all on the bench in front of me

Gentlemen,
Thanks for your friendly comments. However: don't be fooled by the fact that I clean up the surface I take the pictures on. As well, when moving from hotel to hotel, you hardly have any chance to really mess up.
Another 2 weeks have passed and again I am sitting in a Chinese hotel in front of my improvised workbench. Again, the little spare time I have left is filled with model building ass far as conditions allow.
Before leaving Germany I tried to plan ahead a bit and found that taking care of the funnel would be one of the next things to come up. Since it would be impractical to start extensive drilling in a hotel room, I started initial steps the night before my departure.

When you look at the funnel part it becomes clear quite quickly, that it can not be used like that on a detailed build. Again HP model tries to fulfil the requirements on the OOB builder simulating a solid cast funnel grill. Certainly that would have to go. As, well everybody knows that a hollow funnel adds greatly to the depth of every build.



To hollow out the funnel I planned to use my Proxxon drill (similar to Dremel) with a vertical holder.

First I made sure that the bottom of the funnel parts was nice and plain so that the drill would enter perfectly vertical. Upon the inspection I found that the funnel collar was chipped in two places. Comparing with photos of the real vessel I found that this collar was much too pronounced anyway, so it had to go. I removed it by chipping away with my Olfa knife. Then I cut off the funnel grill and sanded the top of the funnel flat. I made sure the top rim of the funnel would be parallel to the bottom. Having prepared the part this far, I drilled some 20 holes about 25mm deep into the funnel using a 1,2mm new and sharp steel drill bit. As the resin of this kit is not very brittle and may be carved nicely, I was able to use the drill bit as a milling cutter. With careful circular movements I made the holes bigger and connected the individual drill holes into one big hole. By continuing this method I thinned down the funnel wall down to about 1 to 0.6mm. Beyond this point I did not dare to thin it in fear of breakage. I smoothed the surface over using a rotary sanding bit. The whole process took more than 90 minutes of permanent milling. I was surprised, how well that went, but I was dumbfounded by the time I was finished and looked at the clock.
Now it was time to give the innards of the funnel some thought. There seems to be no clear detail shot and no plan information for this within my references. Now this would allow for some artistic license as long as you don’t go overboard.
The funnel serves to vent all types of exhaust from the ship, reaching from burnt fuel to steam. The steam is needed everywhere on the ship and transported into the funnel from all over the ship to vent. In some ships like the IJN Yamato these steam pipes are prominently located on the outside of the stack. On ships like Bismarck and Tirpitz you can see them sticking out of the funnel cap. On the Leipzig’s sister Nürnberg there are quite a few to be seen around the funnel, too. Almost certainly there are more inside.
In the Leipzig there are – besides the signal pipe - only two steam pipes to be seen right on the front side of the stack. I think it is safe to assume that the inside of the funnel would be stacked with pipes.
I created a 2,5mm wide ledge from 1mm styrene sheet to mount the pipes and the stack dividers and placed it 3,5mm underneath the rim. In 27 holes I placed 0,5mm brass tubing.



The outside of the stack looks nice, but need a couple of additions.
The front side Aztec stairs are actually correct in this case. Two small platforms need to be added to the front. Supports are from Lion Roar. On top goes a funnel grill from the Pocket Battleship PE-set of WEM. The backside is adorned by a 5 cm tapered brass mast I ordered from NNT a while back. I think they are made by Schatton, but I am not sure. Certainly enough, these days you can get them from BMK along with fitting yardarms. As you can see I have made two incisions (just above the rim and another one 6mm above the first) This is where the lower yardarms will go later. The third and top yardarm is so far up hat the mast is too thin for an incision.
The other bits and pieces around the back of the stack are form the spares box following two excellent pictures form AJ Press’ booklet on Leipzig and previously mentioned book by Koop and Schmolke.




Railings for these small front side platforms and a total of all-around 7 foot-rails will be added after application of the colour coats. As well, putting on the three yardarms would not make sense, as these would certainly come off in transport. That certainly is one of the down sides of hotel room modelling: You hardly get anything really finished.

I hope to find some time to continue building these next days.

Hi Guido - Excellent description of the funnel work - I really like the attention to the interior details. Barry

Outstanding work work, guido you get my vote for that - great detail and aptience!

Cheers,

Peter F

Gentlemen-
Thank you for your compliments. I just wish, I could the parts all finished as I go. It is a bit dissatisfactory to always start things and not get to finish them in the same session. The next parts will be just like this, but time it is completely my fault, as I forgot to take some parts! Dang!
Basically the original purpose of a warship is A) to protect shipping, B) to defend the coast of a country, and C) to take the war to the enemy; may that be as a deterrent or by active shooting. Of cause, there are many sub-divisions of and specialisations to these tasks and as such the different layouts and definitions of ships into their classes.
Whether your ship has motor, sail or is even just a float and whatever the specific task may be for your specific ship, all of them have one common need to fulfil their task: A weapon.
As such the weapons on your model ship draw special attention by the viewer and therefore deserve special attention during construction when building. In the next updates I will concentrate on the weapons package and their mountings.
The main weapons for the Leipzig are her nine 15cm-SK/L60-C25 (5.9”) guns. With twelve 53.3cm torpedo tubes in 4 triple mountings she packed a mighty punch for blows under the belt line. For obvious reasons the number of Flak weapons were increased in due course of the war. In the 1941-state I want to represent the Leipzig in she carried six 8.8cm- L/45 in three twin mountings and eight 3.7cm- C30 in four twin mountings. She also carried up to fourteen 2cm guns between early 1941 and 1944. These may have included single, twin and quad mountings. It is however difficult to determine at which time she carried what type and number, and in which positions. Subsequently I will put on only those I can prove in some form of evidence such as plan, photo, or text. Further, provisions for carrying mines on rails on deck seem to have been made on the ships of the K-Class and the following up Leipzig and Nürnberg. Here too, I will process on the model for what evidence can be laid.

HP delivers lathe turned brass barrels for the 15cm and 8.8cm weapons with the kit, but these I forgot to take with me so until I get back home next months I will have to keep them outside of my considerations.
Let’s take a look at the turrets for the main artillery. In general the shape of the turrets is very nice. There were moulded on shutters at the glacier plate (front), but in the photo they are already sanded off. Two of the three mountings show a hatch on top. All three have periscopes moulded on the top. In one of the turrets both of them suffered trapped air bubbles. Neither of the mounting show any detail on the backside.



The first obvious flaw is in the openings for the gun barrels. The original guns could elevate form -10° to + 40°. The high elevation was made possible as the incision for the gun extended onto the roof plate of the turret, while the HP kit has the opening limited to the glacier plate. This will have to be remedied. Second flaw is that due to trapped air the bottom corners of the glacier plates are not fully cast into sharp corners. These corners will have to be shaped with putty as the first step. As a second step the gun openings need to be extended and in a third step hatches and shutters will be added.
On the glacier plates of the turrets ladder rungs need to be placed. IMHO there is nothing like real rungs. On 350th scale it works nice, but I never tried 400th. I like the result. You might find these look a little uneven, but later when everything is painted and NOT in super-close-up, these are really neat. Since there is no moulded-on representation of the rungs, I need a template to mark down the drill positions. So I taped a PE ladder in position and marked the positions with a needle. Then I removed the template drilled the holes. For rungs I used 0.3mm brass rod and Elmer’s for fixing.



Due to travel schedule reasons I might not be able to post after today and before the end of this months, so that’s it for tonight.

Gentlemen,
I am lucky again to be able to connect to the net today and I thought I give another update on the main turrets.
After I found a very nice 0.2mm brass rod by Lion Roar here in local hobby shop, I removed the previously installed 0.3mm rungs and replaced them for a much nicer scale look. The same rod I used as well to create the rain gutter lids above the main hatches on the back and the ventilation holes on the rear side-plates. The cartedge ejection chutes are represented by 700 scales doors.
All turrets have little railings along the slanted roof plates which were used to fix sun sails. On B gun these extend only over the rear part. Again the 0.2mm rod was used to represent these rails.



to compare back to the original again



That’s as far I as I can go on the turrets now, so I pause on them until I can install the brass gun barrels and the blast bags. As well, turrets supposed to have 2-step ladder at the back hatch. These will very likely come off during transportation so I safe the hassle for back home.

Absolutely stunning work...

As always, beautiful!

Great job on the turrets.
I love the rails up front. Fantastic job with them.

Amazing work on the turrets.... they look great, very nice accurate detail

Gentlemen –
I know, I was setting myself to the plan finishing the weapons system, but then I had another look at the model and thought that there is some more of that stupendous prep-work to be done.
I had set my mind on displaying the Leipzig in “lively” waters. To do that convincingly a waterlined hull does not suffice. Some parts below the waterline will be visible. Adding the underwater hull had to be next, as it would require some “man-handling” of the parts.
Certainly enough bilge keels and propeller shaft housings will not be need or might even impede the later placing of the hull into the sea-bed, so they came off and were sanded flat first.
The lower hull was bent out of shape a bit, but the fit is generally quite good.



Starting at the bow, I placed positioning pins into the hull. Using 2-minute epoxy, I glued the hull parts in the middle first, then forcing the bow and stern into position. (I am very sory for the poor pictures, but this hotel's lighting was really bad!)


/


In the pictures it looks as if there is a step between upper and lower hull, but it is really just a gap. I infused white glue into that gap and put styrene strip in as filling material.



After letting the whole she-bang dry for 24 hours, I covered the gap using White Putty. Again I let is sit for 24 ours. Then the tedious sanding began.



In the end it paid off nicely. Even tough very little will be seen after final placing into the sea bed. I am satisfied to have produced some clean work here, which is - by the way – the first time I ever fused hull pieces in a resin kit.
As you can see in the picture the 240 portholes are already drilled out. I did that while the putty was setting.




Cheers,
Guido

Hi Guido

The hull looks very good - seamless!
And I must say that the tedious task (drilling portholes) will pay back

Keep up!
Rui

Gentlemen-

Another Saturday has passed and besides a good bit of work today I approached another section of my Leipzig: The upper deck.

The part itself is beautifully cast and very thin. It has s slight bend to it, but that won’t be a problem, because of the big attachment surfaces to the weather deck structures. It has engraved panel lines representing the anti Skid matting. Cast on are the boat cradles as well. I will most likely remove them later, as it seems they are not quite as per the original style, but want to address more reference before doing so. The underside is devoid any detail.



I measured and drew the outlines of the superstructures of the weather deck onto the bottom of that part und added 0,3mm square styrene rod to the surfaces to represent structural supports. Work from the outside to the inside and finally just cut away the parts that will touch the black surface. It’s not at all hard to do.



Little of it will be seen, when the final kit is placed into the sea-bed, but it looks really cool and if an observer will ever get down to the knees to take a look from below, some of it will be seen and greatly to the depth of detail.
The whole procedure indeed took me an afternoon to complete. Am I that slow….?

I hope you like what you see!

Cheers,
Guido

Wow, Guido, looking great! Of course, I know exactly what you mean regarding underside structure detail. It really is bringing your build together!

And no, taking an afternoon isn't slow. Taking a couple of nights like me- that is slow!

Well done Guido, the hull mating looks good. The underside deck detailing is a nice touch, true to your level of super detailing.

Frank

Hi, Guido - if you're building detail that can't be seen then the idea is that you know it's there, and , an afternoon? It can take me that long to find a missing part, and that's frequent!

Keep building.....

Peter F

Gentlemen-
as Gunny is calling in our latest progress reports, I have to disappoint you, if you expected more progress pictures from me. As you could follow I had finished quite a bit of work early this month and I continued a bit by partial deck painting in the mind-ship area of the weather deck, but there is hardly anything to see as everything is already masked off.
Unfortunately, I have been skipping hotels every night for 2 weeks so I didn’t even get to unpack my stuff. (Yes I am in China still, if you wonder!)
I hope the viewers and judges may excuse that all my month’s progress was made within the first 2 weeks of this months.
I am looking forward to the competition input of you other modellers! Think about the nice incentives by Gator’s and BFM added to the suspense this month.
I hope to see some input of those, who did not make themselves heard of, yet!
Cheers,
Guido

Guido, my friend, real life tends to get in the way sometimes of the "finer things", we do understand!!

We all will be watching and waiting though, when you do get a chance to "unwind" at your mobile hobby bench, mate....

Cheers,
~Gunny

Whatever happens, Guido, the work MUST come first especially during these times of crisis.

All the best,

Peter F