Thomas,

That is some beautiful, flawless work with both the airplane and deck. I especially appreciate your success with those stripes!

DITTO!

Mark

Wow Thomas!

that flagstaff!

Some small progress I would like to share with you:

First I assembled some small parts (bollards, hosewheels, winches etc.) and prepared them for painting


I tried my hands at the first of the ships six dual 3.9 Inch casemated AA-guns. As I had a picture of the casemate´s rear I wanted to improve the visible area a bit


I thinned the sidewalls of the casemate as much as possible (still far from being in scale but best I could do) and added the ready ammunition at the sidewall. I also added the rolled up canvas cover for bad weather at the Roof out of aluminium foil. The etched railings at the front are from the SHIPYARD WORKS set and the turned barrels from MASTER




the side steps at the casemates could be replaced with etched steps from the SHIPYARD set but, though they are really nice I think they are still too big for being in scale. That´s why I decided not to use them.

Thomas,

Very nice upgrades to that AA gun.

Mark

I concur with Mark: You're attention to detail is really good Thomas

Have to agree, sometimes etched steps/rungs are more trouble than they're worth and a lot of the time the molded efforts are just fine

I am with Mark & Russ,

The upgrades on the secondary armament are very nice indeed.

Cheers

Si

Thomas,

please accept my apologies for not joining in earlier here - that's just another absolutely stunning and awesome build of yours!!

Your dedication to the detail and the craftsmanship and accuracy you are building with is fantastic! I just went through your build from the very beginning - great job! I'm looking forward to see your Italian job continuing!!

Cheers,
Jan

I am very sorry for this long absence of updates in my blog. Reason was I was busy in business and I finished two other shelf queen projects which were luring for long time in my stash of doom.

But now this week I did started again with the ZARA and I was able to accomplish some small steps:

I masked some deck floors in preparance for painting the side walls in barley grey


Then I did finished all secondary armament twin guns


And I accomplished some small photoetched platforms. These were very fragile and extreme caution is necessary not to squeeze or bend anything unwanted. But the result looks very promising


Next will be painting all these small prepared parts

Cheers

Great to see this one moving forward Thomas

Thomas,

Very nice PE work, I don't think I could handle such small work.

Mark

Yes you can, too Mark! You just need a magnifiying Visor, Micro tweezers and a good bending tool. No magic skills necessary

Some more progress occured: As I tried to install the wooden deck I ran into small problems there. The wooden deck set from MODEL SHIP YARD have a small plastic foil which have to be removed of the backside of the real wooden deck as all other manufacturers do. But as I removed the foil I discovered that the wood was not sticking at all anymore - maybe a failure with the glue or it was dryed out already?



I was forced to glue the deck with carefully applied superglue. It worked well. Though it is a pity that MODEL SHIP YARD failed to correct the small gap which is there between the plastic deck and the ship´s hull. The wood funiture deck is also too short. I tried to paint the gap in a similar Color but it is still a bit visible. Maybe it will be better after the railings are installed


Then I airbrushed all the prepared etched superstructures and treated the doors and Windows with black Panel liner and Kristal Klear. MODEL SHIP YARDS suggest you to replace some doors and windows with etched parts but I see no advantages with the etched parts compared to the kit ones so I let them off.







The guns were finished in the same matter (prepared ammo painted in brass, canvas painted)





After all I glued the new upper deck onto the ship´s hull and installed the secondary guns, too. Now everything Looks like this





Next will be the funnels or bridge (not decided yet)

Thomas,
That is some great upgrading to the kit! Love all of the brass details and the secondary armaments look excellent!

Gaz

Thomas,

She is shaping up really nice. Your enhancements to the ship is working out nicely, loving the detail.

I see you added the crane already, I hope you don't knock it off during the rest of the build.

Mark

Thank you very much Gaz, appreciated!

Yes very much care is needed now. That´s why I decided to fix the ship at ist base at the very early stage. this way I can build it up parts after parts.

Today I fumbled around the hole time at these two funnels. The etched parts for funnels is always a tire- and gruesome work. First they dont glue at all, then they will glue at your tweezers, next to your fingers, then after you put the glue on the plastic funnel to make everything sure the part snip off your tweezers and your crawl around in a hurry at the bottom to find the part before the glue is dried.

Shortly before you get insane everything is suddenly finished and you can smile again. Thank god this ship have just two funnels - can you imagine my misery when I tackled the four tiny funnels of my EMDEN?





Hopefully I can spraypaint them without blowing off half of the etched parts again

Thomas,

Your funnels reminded of the pain I went through with my dreadnought. The funnels came out wonderful, nice work.

Mark

Ooooohhh I love what you have done so far on her. I love it......Cheers Mark

Thank you very much

Finished the remaining main gun turrets. Refitted them with MASTER´s turned barrels as they are of slightly better shape and of more correct lenght then SHIP YARD WORKS ones. The most rear battery turret have the ship´s motto "tenacemente" (tenaciously) imprinted at the turret - a nice attention of the rear ship´s detail from SHIP YARD WORKS!



Proceeded then to the 37 mm twin AA guns. The kit parts are nice - if you give them turned barrels they would look even better.

SHIP YARD WORKS let you build these guns completely out of 18 (!!!) etched parts. This is sheer madness and I was not able to install all (two out of four gratings in front of the gun and one chair had been left off). The guns itself would be also etched and are Looking too flat. I therefore used the superior quality turned barrels from MASTER´s set. You can see the difference:







Though the etched one looks far more correctly than the kit´s plastic ones I still struggle with myself if my patience and skills can endure three more of them ...?!

Thomas,

Those turrets are looking mighty fine. That 37mm is awesome and I hope you have the patience to finish the other three.

Mark

Very fine work on the Armament Thomas