Photoetched

Pretty ambitious for a first photoetch project, chester101 - not that you can't handle it, mind you, just don't let yourself get overwhelmed by the amount of phototech. Just because it's on the fret, doesn't mean you have to use it. A few more observations:

• On ships, I usually work from the bottom up and the inside out. Meaning, stuff that goes closer to the superstructure gets put on first, so I'm not reaching over the already-installed railing (which I usually knock off) to glue on something else. Things on the deck get attached first, finishing off with the radars, etc., on the tops of the masts.
• You can use white glue to attach small parts that won't be under any stress or that aren't attached to anything else, such as hose racks, life rings, floater net baskets, etc. As a rule of thumb, I always use CA glue on a photoetch part that has been bent into a shape, lest it try to return to that shape after I install it!

Couple tips from me:

1. I bend the railings before painting.  Get the railings set to their proper shape, attached them to a piece of cardboard, mark were they go on the ship, and then paint them.  Less touch up work.
2. Sometimes I tack a PE part in place with white glue before using CA.  This helps me fine tune the adjustment before permently glueing it.
3. A pair of smooth jaw pliers might be handy for you too.

Mike Ashey wrote a book about ship modelling called: Building and Detailing Scale Model Ships.  He also wrote: Basics of Ship Modeling.  The second book is still in print, the first is not (check Ebay).  You might want to try and get a copy of them.

-Jesse 

Regardless of what scale (I mainly work in 1/700), the most important thing is to take your time. Using PE is a learning experience ... your first few efforts will probably not be that great, but keep at it and you will improve.

The only tools you absolutely need to work with PE are an Xacto knife and a couple of single-edged razor blades. I usually use a No. 10 blade and seesaw it back and forth at the edge of a part to separate it from the fret, but you can use the No. 11 blade, or a razor blade, to remove each part and then trim off any leftover brass from the part. A couple of other tips:

• It's usually best to paint photoetch BEFORE you remove it from the fret. You can touch up the bright spots where the cuts are made after you install the part.
• Cut/trim PE on a hard surface. I use a hard plastic cutting board. Others use a piece of glass, a ceramic tile square, etc. The cutting surface must be hard and firm to get a crisp cut. 
• always, Always, ALWAYS keep one fingertip, a pencil eraser, something, on the part as you make the final cut, lest it fly into low Earth orbit, never to be seen again.
• Use the two single-edge razor blades to make bends in the PE. Always think a sequence through before you start making multiple bends to assemble a part ... lest you have to unbend, flatten it out, and start over  .
• Cyanoacrylate glue (Super glue) is the only thing that holds PE together. Some of the masters on this forum solder their PE, but that's wayyyyyyyyy beyond my pay grade.

As I said before, PE is a learning experience, an incrimental one. You will screw up. More than once. But every time will be a little better. I look at the first model I built using PE, just two years ago, and look at what I'm doing with that stuff now, and think, "Yeah, the old dog can learn new tricks!"

 Use the forum search feature, I just typed in "using photo etch" and got many many results.