I love the decks Rory. Even though real wood decks are in fact hopelessly overscale for 1/350, they look so much better than paint - the eye doesn’t read overscale, just real wood! 
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Tamiya have always baffled me with where they put the breaks for the deck parts, always so visible.
I usually do something to the deck to make them look used and aged but since PoW had only been commissioned for like 4 months at the Denmark Strait I have opted to leave them new and clean 
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I have been productive this weekend. Worked on getting most of the main superstructure parts ready for paint.
Main Bridge and associated bits.
Sponsons for the 5.25’ guns.
And everything ready for paint 
Trying to get as much done as possible before next Friday when I head to South Africa for 2.5 weeks.
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Looks great, Rory!
One thing, if you find the time doing so - the uppermost bridge ‘platform’ that looks rather solid in reality was a really light construction, not solid at all. I used to have a reference somewhere… I thinned that part down considerably. I am really occupied with real life these days, but maybe I can dig out a photo to show what I mean.
Cheers
Jan
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No worries. The part is painted and attached now so wont be messing with it anymore.
Last update for at least 3 weeks as tomorrow I start the 30+ hour trek from Missouri to Johannesburg, South Africa 
All the sub assemblies and ladders are attached. No major issues to report beyond the need to do some touch ups where the glue got on the paint.
See you all mid April
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Hi Rory,
Apologies for being late to the party, but I have very much enjoyed catching up. excellent progress, it may be an oldy, but it is a goody. I have one in my stash to build either as a Bismarck chase P.O.W or KGV.
Cheer, Si
The image with the 3 colour blocks is mine and at some point it has become detached from the context introducing it in my document Royal Navy Colours of World War Two The Pattern 507s, G10 and G45.
Paragraph reads:
"The widely held, yet problematic, modern understanding of the pattern 507 family is as follows, with Light Reflectance Value (LRV) of these shades noted below each, measured from Snyder & Short Enterprises’ cards using a Nix Pro Color Sensor hand held spectrophotometer using current industry standard D65 illuminant and 1964 10⁰ observer: "
In short, they’re what the widely copied Snyder & Short chips show, but they’re wrong.
507A and B were exactly the same colour, as the source document explains, and was lighter than shown on the Snyder & Short chips. Meanwhile the 507B chip is a misidentified sample of something else - essentially we seem to have got here by Alan Raven having a pile of age damaged old samples, a bunch of names of paints but none of the actual documentation and he’s assigned names to colours using what he presumed was common sense.
When corrected, 507A looks like this in natural light:
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Good info to have. I feel like every time I build one of these ships I learn something new and its one of my favourite parts of the hobby!
I think I have painted PoW in something at least approaching her proper colours or at least I hope so.
For avoidance of doubt, at the time of the battle of Denmark Strait HMS Prince of Wales, in common with all capital ships of the Home Fleet, was painted Admiralty Pattern 507A Dark Grey, Home Fleet Shade. In contemporary documentation this will often be abbreviated to just Home Fleet Grey or HFG.
When juxtaposed against a pure white background 507A looks very dark but in a natural environment it is much less so, noting that the true appearance of 507A was lighter than Snyder & Short portrays and hence lighter than all model paint brands which copied Snyder & Short.
In the days before Photoshop, fairly extensive manipulation of images was still possible in the old fashioned dark room where photographs were developed, and many photographs of RN capital ships of this period were developed to lighten their appearance and make the ship appear more attractive than a natural viewing would result in.
In original colour cine film, 507A looks more like this:
This is the same paint HMS Prince of Wales had freshly applied through early March '41 then 2 days of painting on 20th and 21st May just before deployed to hunt Bismarck. What’s often not portrayed on models presented as depicting the ship in the battle against Bismarck and Prinz Eugen is that in line with Home Fleet Temporary Memorandum 288, her wooden decks were stained dark on 7th and 8th May '41 according to her logs.
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Last update was March last year. Been meaning to get back to this build but life got in the way and I just wasn’t feeling it either. However New Year, new motivation.
Started with the funnels and it became very clear I had some rust to blow off as these took way longer and were way harder to do than they should have been. Mostly fat fingers and the carpet monster.
Then did some smaller bits.
Hopefully I can get a bunch more done this weekend and lay some paint down.
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Good to see you back at it 
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Great to see you back! I know exactly what you’re talking about…“Been meaning to get back to this build but life got in the way and I just wasn’t feeling it either.”
Good re-start! And looking forward to see the doomed Prince grow further!
Cheers
Jan
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Weekend was spent getting a bunch of deck gubbins built and painted up. Dericks, paravanes, carly rafts, search lights etc.
Then all attached to the ship. She’s really starting to come along now.
Painted the carly rafts a lighter gray, just to add some pop and I think they look good. Definitely stand out more in the photo than in real life.
Tried to match the deck colour in the aft gun tub area. Partially successful. Since taking this photo I have gone back and cleaned up the paint a bit.
Next up will be masts and maybe ships boats. I am saving the 3D printed stuff till last since its so fragile and I want to handle it as little as possible.
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Hey Rory!
For whatever reason, I haven’t been getting notifications on your most excellent build of the lovely POW! I’ve re-subscribed so hopefully that fixes it…
She’s looking great and I can’t wait to see you bring her into the finish line… 
All good. This build was on hiatus for almost a year and only just started back up. You haven’t missed much
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Hi Rory,
Excellent progress, looking, great haul of 3D printed parts, I have been enjoying the discusion on colour too, I think the P.O.W does look good with grey anti fouling.
Although, just my opinion it spoils the look of the Hood, If I build another Hood in any scale it will be waterline and on a sea base.
Cheers, Si
I am withholding my judgement until she is fully built. I know it is historically accurate but it just looks wrong. I know that’s because ships “should be red bottomed” in my head but I do like the red/grey contrast. Maybe with a much darker grey it would look better. I will need to experiment
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As this is a purely subjective judgement, can’t say I blame you. good luck with any experiments.
Cheers, 
Si
This week I slowly worked on the masts and the ships boats.
Masts weren’t too bad. I did got ahead and switch out the yards for brass rod since they were bendy and I intend to rig the POW. They still need the top most antenna but they are pretty fragile so I will only add them after rigging. I am pretty fat fingered and can see myself bending/breaking them.
The boats were like little models in their own right. Not to complicated but time consuming.
I really do need to work on my lighting setup.
With this done, major construction is pretty much done since the turrets are all 3D printed in single pieces.
Goal for the weekend is to paint the masts and boats, get them installed and maybe get the ship rigged. Need to research the boat colours first though.
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Looking good!
Happy to see you’re back!
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