The Ship Model Forum

Thanks gentlemen!

I gather it is a question of what tools or machines you have and how the prototype was constructed.

Are you talking about the kind of ladder that has flat iron sides and round rungs/steps ? In this case I would make a jig to drill the holes equidistantly and would drill the two sides in a pack. Next you would need a soldering jig, i.e. a piece of wood onto which you screw/glue a thin strip of wood that acts as a gauge for the distance between the sides. You then fiddle through the holes short length of wire of the appropriate diameter (pre-tinned copper wire may work best), dab with flux and solder. The excess wire on both sides can be filed/sanded away while the ladder is still on the jig, so as not to distort it. Clean carefully before painting.

I used Gold Medal Models N scale ladders on my 1/125 builds. Don't recall the scale width, but they looked fine on my minesweepers.

Vertical ladders 1:120... One of the joys of working in an "off" scale is you get to do a lot more scratch building. Slowly figuring out how to do "stuff" that many modelers use PE for. Success building inclined ladders and pipe rail coming along OK, all tedious.

Looking for hints out there in constructing vertical ladders, especially long ones such as running up king posts.

I rather like the 1:120 scale, have something that's 64' on the model, it's 6.4" on the model, easily stepped off with digital calipers.