Been busy, biggest problem is finding a matching paint. Have spent ages mixing and trying different stuff. Brought some Revell paint for the first time and found one that is almost an exact match!!! How relieved am I?!
Sharnhorst now has a nice Becc flag flying from rear mast, have removed horrible anti- aircraft director under bridge (what a struggle) and have scratch built a more accurate one. Removed what looks like an old fashioned ventilator(?!) from the top of the battle bridge, think its meant to be a persicope- found what was supposed to be there from a plan and scratch built a new one. Have scratchbuild some compartments that appear around the battle bridge and under the tower mast. These contained small infra red gun directors and anti aircraft directors. Still wondering about how to build those. Removed a ladder that was on the face of the rear heavy gun director and repositioned it where it appears in photos. Have got a nice mattress style radar Ariel for this director and after a bit of alterating will attach to director. Got that part and others from Model Dockyard in Cornwall, they are really good and dispatch stuff fast! Got a great chain and some areonaut anchors to replace the poor ones on the model. The anchors are not so good so ordered some more, they must be wondering what I'm doing at Model Dockyard! Scraping off the anchor chains on the foredeck was hard, they have been stuck on and varnished over- after much swearing got them off and reapplied some wood sealer on the deck sections they were on. Went over it again on that area with Humbrol Matt varnish- looks like nothing had been stuck there now. I think much of the fittings for Scharnhorst have come from Graf Spee ARTR which is a slightly larger scale and it shows. Wanted to remove mooring bollards and replace with smaller ones but its just to risky, they are stuck on like hell and the wooden deck is a thin layer of wood on a fibreglass base. Will not do this now, have missed disaster to often. Neither will I repaint the funnel cap from its current black to superstructure colour. Removing stuff is just been so hard and its not worth the risk, will only be able to hand paint it in situe so no thanks. Besides its grown on me in its black matt.