Subject: 378 Cutter
Ed, I too was building the 378, but ran into a problem with the hand rails on the main deck , midships Could you give me an idea how you were able to finish off inside the railing..doors, valves, fire figthing equipment etc.. and yet,, had to paint the out side of the ship..and attach the railing on the main next , midships... I ran into a lot of problems.. and just couldn't figure it out... I tried to use piano wire and attached them to the bulkheads on the inside prior gluing the helicopter deck, when doing that... it would not align up. Any suggestion would be greatly appreicated..
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I couldn't figure out how to make the offline mail reply work after I forwarded the mail from my home to work ...
Perhaps these thoughts will be helpful to others online ...
1) I painted the hull & bulkheads MM semigloss white. I made a very thin wash of Paynes Gray and Turpenoid and touched around the hatches, fire hoses, gratings, piping, etc. I went just a bit heavier on the gratings. I found an International Orange gel pen at the craft store and I used it to color the orange fire hoses. I then went back and drybrushed the SG white around the areas which I had given the wash treatment, going lightly over the orange gel pen to get the retaining strap painted white.
I found that I had sanded off a couple of hatches and a fire hose when I installed the forward FRAM gun deck structure. I replaced them with some Gold Metal Models items, painted them and proceeded as above. (Jon Warneke and Ted Paris at ISW use a lot of GMM stuff on their masters.)
Check your photos & references. I made some lockers and boxes out of Evergreen strip stock, painted them up and glued them in place (before applying the supports).
2) I really haven't gotten around to installing the main deck supports & cutouts. That was on my plan for last weekend but SWMBO had me putting up Christmas decorations instead ... I have looked at the PE cutouts and I am not totally convinced that they will be tall enough. This is my plan. I have made a bunch of Xerox copies of the PE set and an planning on using them as templates for cutting them out of 0.010 Evergreen (its already white - no painting). I can adjust the height and the spacer tail as needed. Using white glue (Aleene's Tacky Glue from the craft store) I will tack one in place. I will then place a section of rail behind the support projecting into the cutout space. It too will be tacked in place with some white glue. Repeat the interstitial railings and cutout supports. Using white glue allows the parts to be removed & repositioned as necessary. Once everything is in place touch the joints with a pin-point of CA. Sand the joints to blend, mask and touchup as necessary. Thats the plan, but you know the saying about plans not standing up 5 minutes after contact with the enemy.
3) I don't know about your piano wire. I attached the boat decks and helo deck with some 5 minute gel epoxy. On my kit the aft corners of the boat decks had bubbles and were slightly warped. I cut away the bubble to good resin in a square cut. I then glued some Evergreen to the corner and squared it up. To fix the warp I soaked the parts for a few minutes in hot water (bring a pan of water just to a boil - then take it off the stove and wait a minute or two). I sandwiched the parts between some flat boards and clamped them. When cool ther were straight & held their shapes.
4) If you are doing the Iron Shipwright kit and you feel that you have wrecked the kit beyond your capacity to repair it, remember the ISW customer satisfaction guarantee. Contact Ted Paris at ISW and tell him you screwed it up and you need some replacement parts, even a whole new hull. You are only out your time.
I hope these thoughts help. If you have any more questions write back. I'll try to figure out how to respond offline.