PE and deck building sequence (and water tight doors)

I use CA to stick them on. After I've done everything on the hull except the bridge glazing, I spray the ship with dulcote which hides all the little shiny CA spots. I'll try white glue, Don.

I don't measure the runs and cut to length, because I position all my joins midway along a straight. I think corners are your "best friend" in ship PE. I position it so there's a stanchion at the corner and then go midway each direction towrads the next corner, to a stanchion. I trim the overlaps last.

Ahhh, it's not insanity ... at least I hope not. My daughter actually kind of enjoyed drilling out all the portholes when she tackled her Titanic model.

I think the picture is getting through my skull. The Iron Duke is an old kit and detail on the superstructure is very spare (my 700 waterlines have more). Methinks that White Ensign put those door covers in to remedy the situation - but finding out where the doors are is your job. (They recommend getting very detailed plans of the ship - probably cost more than my computer.) So, we'll do our best. At least the hatch covers will cover those little rectangles laying around the deck - never knew what they were.

Will delay PE railing until the end. Hoping Gator Grip will work its magic. This is going to take a little longer than I thought. There aren't many parts, but nearly all of them need a little cleaning. And I have to drill through all of the lame port holes or whatever they call windows on a Dreadnaught - lots of them and pin vise is pretty slow. Do want to get this right. I'm not a rivet counter but some basic refinements really would be nice on a warship. (Still am in the dark about rigging a ship of that scale. Some guy on Warship.com has the photo of his Iron Duke and he used some 400 scale PE railings for those huge old radio antennas: now something like that would make for a good model.)

Thanks for the advise.

Eric

As far as where the doors go, best bet is to try and find some pics of either the ship or another model. You might start at modelwarships.com and see if anyone else has built that kit. Internet searches can get you some pics for leads on where doors go - and they are usually, but not always, symetrical on each side.

As for the railings, paint them while still on the fret, use a pair of dividers to measure each segment before you cut it off, and i generally apply them from the top down and the inside out, and as one of the last things. Unless you really, really like gluing them on repeatedly as you knock them off.

I put on PE railings very late in assembly, just before rigging. I use white glue, thinned 1:1 with water.  I paint the railings early, while they are still on the fret piece.

Doors are something else- I put them on while building up the superstructure, even before priming and painting.

I am not familiar with the Iron Duke or the White Ensign parts, however, as an ex-navy officer I can offer some guidance. Generally hatches are horizontal openings in the decks and on a ship like the Iron Duke would be covered with watertight hatch covers. Watertight doors are rectangles the size of doors in the vertical surfaces of the exterior bulkheads. There are interior watertight doors as well but not really applicable to a ship model. So if White Ensign gave you rectangular pieces the size of a door they should be positioned where doorways would be on whatever drawings or photos you have. On US Navy ships all doors would be watertight doors up to the highest deck level even though you would be very unlikely to get water up that high.

Amphib