Gary One way of viewing white decals on white paper is to use a black marker on the reverse side of the backing paper. This tends to flow through to the front side of the backing sheet which then makes the white lettering readable. It does not appear to have any negative effects on the decal itself.
love your approach I'm building the revell pirate ship in the style of a historical royal navy "pirate Hunter" from 1780 to 1830 s (ish) I am making my own crew captains cabin and features on gun deck all lighted and accessed from the removable magnetised side panel. it's a labour of love research wise and also practically. your uploads are fascinating and inspire me to further educational research. cheers
Hi Gary great job so far. I was all excited to start mine next week...but now... I'd watched the one built by the young Swedish woman and it all looked quite straightforward with no major difficulty...so I think I'll postpone my build to look for x'tra information. It's not quite as simple as that hey ? As I said good job, keep going and surely we'll see a happy ending, Cheers.
I watched most of her videos also and looks like she followed right along with the directions. I did not watch all her videos because I didn't want to be influenced by her build. As you can see from my videos I jump around the directions for different reasons. It is a very nice model with clean, well fitting parts. Best thing with my videos is I show you what problems your going to run into, like watch part 17 and see what happens with the decals. You must watch them all first because some problems did not show up till after other things were done. Go ahead open that box and get started.
Gary, I find no benefit in knowing if their was 1 or 2 guns, definitvely. At this point you are working on the one that was purportedly the Dora. Like you though, I like to do research to get to some kind of understanding. As you know, any WWII gun, tank, ship, etc. that had any kind of longevity probably changed a dozen times, including markings, paint, railings, etc. The trouble with the Dora and /or Gustav, They were very short lived, so to speak. We may never know the truth completely, but it's fun to look at archives, just the same. I can't imagine building historical models, without trying to learn everything you can about them. I enjoyed the video, 'cause I'm just like you in that repect. Keep'em coming. Regards, Solomon
The remains of the "Gustav" was found in Auerbach in April 45. While the remains of "Dora" was found a little later in Grafenwøhr , both guns was found by US troops.
The story is (according to researchers) it was one in the same gun, not two seperate guns. Near the end of the war the Germans droped off sections of the gun in different places and at one station were spare parts, barrel and things, Finding two barrels made the Americans think there were two guns but one barrel was a replacement for the worn out used barrel. A lot smarter people than me did the research and could find no second gun. I realy don't know but have found nothing to disprove them.
Gustav was first used in June 1942 and then sent back to Germany 1943.. as the parts were destroyed partially by allied bombing, Soviet troops discovered it and later cut her up for scrap 1946. Dora was destroyed in 1945 to avoid capture from the Soviet army, Dora, ( named after the chief designer engineers wife) Her remains were scrapped in the 1950's. it is possible Dora was sent to relieve Stalingrad but if she did.. she never fired a round. As for the colored picture-schematic that came with the kit.. try using a looking glass at it, possible its designed for one to see the decal details with magnification.
I have always have had a high interest in WW2. and consider myself pretty educated on the subject. I am no way an expert and don't don't even pretend to be!!!, Anyway , I thought this video was very interesting and I was able to learn a few things I didn't know before. Thanks
Did you ever think that maybe the cars were just numbered for inventory purposes? If the cars are the same, maybe they got moved around each time the gun was taken apart and reassembled.
The question of the number of the guns got me thinking and since I read German I looked at some German sources and they all insist, that there where two guns with a third modified version with a longer barrel that was never finished. According to those sources Dora was the one used in the east in combat and Schwerer Gustav (Heavy Gustav) never saw action. Also all guns were called Schwerer Gustav by the manufacturer Krupp, they called them Schwerer Gustav 1 and 2, so both where called Gustav and as you say Dora was the name used by the artillery people. I also found another interesting fact, since the barrel could only be adjusted vertically, they built the turns in the tracks, whenever they where shooting so they could adjust horizontally, there is a wikipedia article only in German about this, that I´ll link with google translator. It includes a nice picture of a Dora model from a German military museum with the "shooting curve" as its called in German. translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSchie%25C3%259Fkurve&edit-text=
Hi Gary, Iwatch your "Dora"-videos for a couple of days now and I love them. Great work! I have here two links for you, the first is from a guy in England who built the Dora in 1/6 scale, the other one ist from a German guy who built a 1/35 Soar Art model with a lot of detailing. Maybe it helps you with the one or other thing. If you need a translation form the german site I can help. www.vonabt.co.uk/models/Dora/index.html www.world-in-scale.de/gallery/railway/1-35-german-80cm-k-e-railway-gun-eisenbahngesch%C3%BCtz-dora-teil-3-by-soar-art-workshop/
Is there not some kind of thrust bearing/turntable between the large girders and the small bridges as I have seen on the 1/35 scale model, click on or copy this link, fs5.directupload.net/images/161024/8lt88nkv.jpg
