Attaching PE parts

[tomcat Fanatic]

Hello All

neel one advice from master ship builders..
When do you attach PE railings and stuff to the deck of the ship?
for easy painting and hangling ship during building process I would attach it at the end of the build.
maybe prior paintiong or after weathering - final assembly..
what do you prefer ?

[MatthewB]

As I have discovered through the various builds I am working on...

And from having used PE on larger models and miniatures.

"It depends."

For the USS San Francisco I am building, almost all of the PE went onto the ship as I was building it, prior to paint, by subsection (bridge, hangar, directors, etc.). But the railings themselves I am putting on after painting everything (the railings included - I prime and paint them prior to gluing them on, and then go back over the seam).

But for the Laffey and Farenholt, I put the rails on before I painted (on both). The PE for these kits are really.... I can't think of a word to use... Abusive? Angry? Touchy? .... They just present so many problems of "If I put this PE piece on now, it will make it hard to paint. But if I paint it now, it will make it hard to attach the PE piece. And if I don't attach the PE pice now, I can't assemble this other part. But if I don't assemble this other part now, I can't paint it till later...." And around in a circle. Ultimately I decided on the Laffey to do most of the assembly first, including PE assembly, and then paint it, and on the Farenholt I am painting most of it first, and then doing assembly and PE. Just to see which is better (because I have found to six more Benson/Gleaves-class DDs to build).

And the St. Louis is causing similar build problems (Where? When? How? etc.) with the PE.

The Aoba and Kinugasa are sort of like the Laffey & Farenholt, but I have not worked on them in a long time.

And I just began a USS Porter and USS Selfridge that both look to have the "Assemble Subunits, including PE, and Paint before assembly" (including the railing on the hull) sort of feel to them.

Something that helps is to have the parts mounted to something, or in grippers to keep from having to touch them. It took me several crushed railings on the USS San Francisco to figure that out.

MB

[carr]

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