Gator52 wrote:
Jason,
Great work, I've enjoyed reading through your build here (as well as following your other projects). So far I've gathered the kit, the Big Ed PE, and a couple of CMK figure sets with the hope of building Cavalla.
If you could do it over again, would you still attempt to leave strips of the deck in place to support the PE deck, or would you cut out the entire deck and build your own support structure, as recommended in the Eduard directions?
Thanks
Jonah
Thanks!
I actually
did start to do it all over again; I began a future USS Cod but I've decided I'm better off focusing on 1 build at a time so both projects are on hiatus until I finish the Bismarck. I learned a lot from this build and want to improve on what I did here so I'll certainly be back to work on the 2 gatos eventually.
Anyway, for me it was far easier to cut the crossbeams out of the kit deck; it's easy to grind out the excess with a dremel and I'm fairly good with a knife (it was actually kinda relaxing for me, but I'm weird
) but I am not nearly as good at exact measurements...and seperate cross braces would need to be varying exact lengths to keep everything straight and sturdy.
Doing things that way meant I could stick where my talents were and keep everything straight and easier to assemble in the end.
One thing I did with the Cod that I didn't on the Cobia was to focus more on opening the perforated areas rather than trying to make perfectly neat crossbraces. They just aren't visible under the painted Eduard PE so they matter more for structural support than anything; Really, you can simply grind out the areas of the kit deck that have the molded-in "holes", making sure to leave enough plastic in between to keep the deck sturdy. If you do it that way however, lay the deck before putting the sideplates (the opposite of what I did with the Cobia) to keep everything looking right!
The planked section is another mater entirely though... I'm still mulling over better ways to accomplish that.