Sunday 8 September 2013

Bismarck - Flee market treasure

I was born and raised in a small village in the North of Belgium, where roughly 800 people live in 3 streets (and a few dead-end neighbourhoods). Once a year, there's a small fair and everyone is out in the streets.
I've moved away to a larger city (Ghent, 250k inhabitants) long ago, but we visit once every few months, to visit my parents and grandparents. 

Why am I telling you this? This year, on occasion of the yearly fair, they set up a big flee market (an entire street! :-)) and - as usual - we went and browsed the stalls for salvageable goods. Having a two year old, it's easy to pick a few winners from the tables, so we came away with a little kitchen, shopping cart and baskets, washing machine and new dress.

While quickly glancing over several more tables, my eye was caught by a familiar blue colour : Revell box blue. Closer inspection revealed Revell's 1/1200 Bismarck. The old lady wanted 1 euro for it, so I didn't need to think twice.


Okay, "treasure" is too strong a word, because it's only worth about €8, but it's still a winner because this kit would never have attracted my attention in a hobbyshop, between other models. It was the only one in the entire market and I wanted it.


The contents of the box were in perfect condition and it also contained 4 bottles of paint and a small bottle of glue. This box was obviously meant as a gift for a beginner modeller - perhaps the lady's grandson? - which had remained unsused and had made it into a perfect fleemarket candidate.
With the added content, it makes a perfect €15 gift for a young modeller. As it is, the paint will remain unused, as I've moved away to airbrushing acrylic paint.


The box contains 1 sprue - well protected - with all 31 parts. Details appear to be very nice and I could only find ONE easily removed piece of flash.


There's a 2 page instruction with colour callouts and paintguide and 6 simple decals with the Baltic camouflage.


The 2 pieces that make up the hull are connected with very large and sturdy pins. Dry fitting was impossible, because the fit is too tight, but with some glue in place and a 1 minute wait, they easily pressed all  the way down.
(For the novice reader : because the glue basically melts the plastic to join pieces together, it becomes malleable and if you press the pieces together hard, they become "welded" together)

With the 2 halves joined, I ran Tamiya extra thin liquid cement (my new favourite since I discovered it a few months ago) along the join and clamped everything together with my shiny new set of clamps.


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