Gorgeous work, Thomas. As always, your painting/weathering is right on the money!
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Hi Thomas,
as promised, here is my old Admiral Graf Spee, build around 2010.
In oder to not highjack your build log, here’s just one picture and a link to a separate thread I just created.
Cheers
Jan
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Here is my latest report: I did finished the frontal superstructure and the armored bridge. A lot of small, fragile etched parts slowed down my pace here and the carpet monster also took its fair share of victims… The etched parts are a mish-mash of VeryFire and Eduard.
The periscopes and target givers on top of the armored bridge were scraped off and replaced with the crisp looking resin ones from Veteran Models
Off for an extra ration rum before priming the whole structure 
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Very very impressive Thomas
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Holy moly that looks good!
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WOW, Thomas - gorgeous etch!
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Ah a 50/50 job. 50% plastic and 50% photo etch. This will look great when primed!
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I was sitting and thinking about which apperatures are present at the open bridge. Trumpeter suggest mainly just binoculars and, correctly two wardrobe-like boxes which can be turned around 360° 
Kagero 3D booklet also show these two “wardrobes” but all other fire control items are just the 1540 mm Searchlight controllers…
In the internet I was able to find one single picture of the open bridge and its actual aperatures within: I guess I identified 6 x 1540 mm searchlight controllers, two torpedo directors and one Zielsäule C/38 S night director in the middle center.
And this is how my interpretation of the real bridge equipment will look like at the model
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Jippie, finished painting the frontal upper deck structure and its open bridge with all its equipment inside. I had to be very careful because all these fragile parts and luckily just one Paravene fell off which could easily be repaired again. These Kriegsmarine fire control pieces are really great - once painted, treated with a wash and finally drybrushed in a light grey they show all its tiny details. The rear port and starboard anti aircraft directors had the same stripe camouflage; at this size it was no easy task to give them the same camo scheme but I am satisfied.
The small aperatures at the frontal bridge wall were from three etched parts from Eduard but Very Fire also provided some but were not used. After a light black wash and drybrushing I carefully painted some of these panels in black, yellow, red and white stencils with my smallest brush I have
Continueing with the funnel now 
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Looking good!
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That looks amazing!
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Excellent work Thomas.
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Kickin’ ass, Thomas. Great work!
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Did I already mentioned about the deplorable state of Very Fire´s construction manual 
?! I kept fighting with misleading or ommitted numbers already throughout this whole build. Today I want to show you an example I stumbled over again. I started with the funnel section
So far so good but here started the confusion: Very Fire´s instructions (excuse the bad quality foto; I didn´t got any manual within the set so I contacted the dealer and got a PDF file which I printed on normal paper) show you just one pic of the footrail detail and show you two install just two parts with number J16
But J16 is in reality an ammunition locker…
The footrails are in fret E instead but more than expected and some other partial footrails (25 + 26) are extra included without mentioning them somewhere
I just can compare everything within the Kagero booklet where and how much of each parts are really aboard. Sometimes a tiresome enterprise…
Another example is etched fred G. This fred and all of its parts are missing their numbers. Sometimes its easy to recognize them but often not, especially if they also are not mentioned within the scarce instruction manual, too. So I also have some parts in other etched frets which I still can not identify where they should be placed. This is really sometimes a let down here and surely not for the fainthearted modeller. I recognize that this is one of the first update sets of Very Fire but the quality control personnel really sucked here… JoyYard, Flyhawk and Infinity´s instruction manuals are there really lightyears ahead in their clarity and correctness.
Neverthelless after letting some steam off I will never surrender and dump this kit into River Plate but keep on building this until final victory 
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Annoying but keep working through it 
this type of manufacturing error adds more time on to the build that you don’t need, but you are certainly doing Graf Spee a great service with the effort you are putting into her.
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Today I can report finishing the funnel compartment exept the 20 mm FlaK guns which will come next.
Quite some visible support girders below the funnel platform but the fit was surprisingly good here
I decided to add also the missing piping at the funnel as it would be quite visible. I used 0,3 mm steel which was bended as needed. The kit´s plastic footrails were sanded off and Very Fire etched footrails were used instead. It was a fragile affair but fit was also good here
The signal lamp and its own small platform at the aftermost part of the funnel´s platform was completely missing as well as within the original kit as also Very Fire and Eduard were completely ommitted this. I scratchbuild the platform from a spare etched part and used a 3D printed signal lamp from my WULA set for the Bismarck kit.
The four 150 cm searchlights at the funnel platform were made out of resin and etched parts out of Very Fire´s upgrade set. Not breathtaking but much better than the scarce plastic parts of the original kit
Finally there was only the uppermost funnel superstructure part and the mast to do. First were the funnel holes drilled open. As there will be later quite some rigging wires connected to the mast I decided to strenghten it with cutting the uppermost plastic part and replace it with sturdy 1 mm round brass. I lenghtened the uppermost mast part with another, thinner round brass. The etched parts are again a mish-mash of Very Fire and Eduard
Now there was just remaining to show all components assembled together. Everything quite small but a lot work was sticking within it
Next are the 20 mm and 37 mm FlaK guns
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Blimey, that looks superb Thomas… So detailed and so small… Painstaking work, but it’s definitely worth all that effort
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Exquisite!
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Thomas,
excellent work, as the others already remarked! Fantastic work with the etch, and nice catch with the signal lamp!
At some points from the funnel it shows that Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were developed out of the Panzerschiffe.
Fantastic build!
Cheers
Jan
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Thank you all again for your support and encouraging comments. It really keeps my building spirit high despite some difficulties here and there.
Today I finished painting the funnel with its searchlight deck and the searchlights exept the four single 20 mm flak guns. These will come next. Painting was done as usual with an airbrush priming with Mr. Surfacer, than the silver gray base color and the dark gray stripes. The stripes were also airbrushed because of the delicate details and just the etches were painted with a brush aftermath to get the hard etched camo. So far I am very satisfied about its look and the ship slowly begins to show its known shapes
Cheers 
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