Another major milestone down: the after superstructure/searchlight tower/mast. This was a fiddly assembly to put together, and just as fiddly to affix to the ship. There are tiny, faint, raised lines on the deck where the structure is to go, but after a coat of paint and clear coat, there's not much left to aid placement. This was one of the cases where I dry fit a dozen times, and got it right every time, but the first time with glue applied it just wouldn't sit tight. I used Gator Glue to do the initial assembly to give some working time, then once that had set up a bit, I placed strategic drops of super thin superglue at points not easily visible to lock the structure into place. The next time I build something with such a placement method, I'll first glue some styrene strip to the deck inside of where the structure sits, to act as a base for attachment.
The aft mast is maybe a little taller than it should be, but it turned out fine. I was going to use the kit part, as it looks great, and there's no rigging to contend with, but the realistically thin mast was fragile and bent out of shape removing it from the sprue.
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File comment: Still using the telescoping brass rod, I glued down a support piece of solid rod, and got that aligned properly, in rake and parallel with the forward mast. That I fixed with superglue.
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File comment: The mast assembly then sleeved over the fixed brass rod. I put just a drop of Gator Glue at the bottom of the brass rod so that I had time to align the mast, then once set, I applied a small drop of super glue to the base of the whole assembly.
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File comment: This is how she looks now. Have to stop building for the day to help out at an event at my wife's studio. Tomorrow I plan on getting the 01 level railing sorted, and may have to start working on the rigging.
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_________________ We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley
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