Chris and Steve; I think you have already heard this, but your builds are turing out beautiful. Great build, paint, and PE work.....
Captains motor launch , part # 2.....
Taking my checklist from the previous message, I had already added the wood inner floor, removed the back of the aft cabin and replaced it with shaped PE, added the PE boat deck to the rear, and added a PE top vent to the front. Now that the base paint is on the little boats, I'm having a go at the little parts.
CHECK - add a teakwood inner floor to the boat
CHECK - remove the back half of the aft cabin and replace it with PE
CHECK - add the PE boat deck to the rear
CHECK - add a PE vent over the fore cabin
CHECK - paint NG5 side hull, black bottom, tan deck, white top and interior.
Here is what is left for the little boats as identified on the Eduard PE instructions:
- add PE boat deck hand rails to the bow and stern. The bows hand rails were difficult to remove from the PE tree as well as trim any burs simply because of how small and thin they are. They also proved to be a challenge to add to the boat as they have a very small contact point with very little glue. It took several attempts but they finally are posted to each bows port and starboard side. The rear hand rail is suppose to sit on the rear deck but must be bent to a smooth arc before gluing. These suffered the same fate as the front rails due to size but also were difficult to bent into the arc without distorting the little fragile legs. I am very happy that Eduard provides extra, but after several attempts to attach without over gluing, they have managed to stay on the boats.
- add PE hand rails to top of cabin. This was perhaps the most difficult part of the additions once again due to there size. Eduard also gives you several extras of these and I needed them (several lost because they are so small). None of these went on at the first attempt and only a few on the second try. I could only add super glue to the front and rear leg because I had to use the center one while holding it with tweezers. Because the legs are so short, it is easy to apply too much glue and obscure the open area between the boat and the hand rail. I was lucky and got them attached without any major accident. Three had to be reapplied after they came off while adding the portholes.
- add PE port holes to cabins. The little rings provided by Eduard are too small you have difficulty finding them on the cutting mat once they are removed from the PE tree. Only by shining a bright light at an angle across the table could I locate several of them. Cutting the nips from these are almost impossible to take your time when removing them from the PE tree. To add them to the cabins I used a small fine wire, dipped the tip in glue, added a micro dot to the cabin, used tweezers to place the port hole as level and straight in a line as possible. Once they dried I added a black dot to the center port hole glass for contrast. I am please with how they turned out.
- add rope and life rings fore and aft (scratch). Well the life ring is not exactly from scratch but from spare PE. They were painted on the PE tree then removed and added, afterwards touched up with paint. I have not found a way to add any rope that would look proper in scale.
- add PE rudder. The PE rudders went on without any complaint or hitch.
- add PE ships wheel (from spare parts). Once again, I found some extra small PE that looks very much like a ships wheel and added them to the left rear of the front cabin in the same manner as I added the port holes.
- possible other items (lights, horn, slat drivers water deflector, etc. from scratch). Looking at the Arizona's motor launch I saw that it is slightly different than the USS Mississippi's. One thing I found was an access door is at the right rear of the front cabin, so I painted one there. I also see a horn type vent to the left front of the forward cabin. I bent some wire, drilled a micro hole and added the wire to replicate the vent.
Overall, I am please with these motor launches as assembled, but I may try a couple other things still. Here they are up to this point (they may be done other than light weathering or shading):
The size of the boats in this last image is almost exactly the size of the actual model boats:
It took far longer than I thought it would for these four little boogers. Now I'm looking forward in making oars for the open life boats.... till then. 
Ben
"Everyones the normal until you get to know them" (Unknown)
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