1/72 scale German light cruiser Munich

Glooing in the first filler Latteral.

Hello Horatio,

Nice work, keep it up.

Glooing in more lat fillers.

used almost a whole bottle of Glue.

LOL I feel Stupid, I abondoned the Glue and went to Screws as the High density plywood is half an inch thick and the screws are Quicker and I put some in not all the way to help anchor the body filler to acheave the Hull shape.

A close up of the Bow, Larboard side.

Starting the body filler.

That is a lot of work and i expect much more to sand it to submission.

LOL, If You have ever done body work on automobiles the amount of Body filler wouldn't frighten You quite as much, once Im close to the Hull shape, and or slightly larger than that I will start teasing the shape of the body filler, which at that point will be harder than wall plaster but not as hard as concrete with a 4.5 inch metal anglegrinder with a mason wheel. If I screw up slightly and take a hair to much off, I can always mix up a tad more and fill it back up. I also will use and electric palm sander with 80 grit sand paper then as i refine it i can go to 120 grit. So anyway dont fret, it will take some time but Im not sanding the whole thing with 1200 grit sand paper by hand, LOL so dont let the pics scare You to much and TY for the encouragement.

more filler to start making the curves on the botom of the hull.

The Larboard bow starting to get close to the shape to start working it. I had to apply a few light puddles and let cure with the Hull laying on the side to get it to cure closer to the shape, and although the filler starts hardening quick at first its like cake batter and can gravity run into bulges that you dont want so I have to move it around with a plastic body spatula till it starts solidizing and stays where I want it.

This is the first Bow that I started on for the KMS Karlsruhe. It is a tad small to the scale do to slight mismeasuring on my part but It might be close enough for a Z class destroyer build at a later date. anyway at teh moment it makes a nifty paperweight.

A side by side comparison shows the size difference and shoud be noted that the Karlsruhe was a smaller ship but not by allot. still I suspect that the Z class light cruisers could have been easily converted to carry 8 inch gun mounts to convert them into Heavy cruisers, as they were not unsimilar in size to Heavy cruisers of other nations. and If this was never in anyway an intent then they made them that large to be a more effective commerce radier with a very long nautical range and the ships were going to be equiped with both steam turbine and deisel motors for cruising and high speed capibillity. They would have surley added a more impressive AA armerment as the aircraft threat became more apparent later on in the war. In short they could have been much better Light Cruisers then the previous classes and could have accompanied the Scharnhorst, or Bismark classes into there now famous sorties. Imagine 2 of these ships in the chanel dash, or with the Sharnhost on her last sortie where It could have been 3 against many instead of one against many. I dont think the would have changed the outcome of the war, but they could have provided a bit sharper edge on the Dagger of the Kreagsmarine.

Ok you can sand all that putty to shape ....but from my exp in this work , when you use all that thicknes of filler , there is chances that after you fininsh painting it will start to crack some places ....

I finally go a little time to continue the work.

I have some areas that need refilled and further shaped.

I like the way the hull is starting to take shape.