Return to the BUILD

In this issue, we will add more details to the deck as well as the first LED lighting. The first funnel will also be installed.

This is going to be a long issue, so bear with me and my many modifications.

Contents

Parts

Materials: The Decking is wood veneer, the Grilles are photoetch metal, and all of the non-electronic parts in this issue are plastic.

Magazine

• Giant of the Sea – The World’s Biggest Ship’s Dining Room
• Step-by-Step Instructions

Build

Boiler Room Vents

Step 1

Retrieve your Ventilator Hood from Issue 16. Carefully cut one of the larger Grille A (20H) parts from the photoetch sprue and super glue it into the recessed opening of the Hood, as shown.

Here is our photoetch sprue with the individual parts labelled:

As these are the first of many photoetched parts we will use building our Titanic, I wanted to quickly explain how I cut photoetch. Using a #10 rounded blade in my hobby knife, I carefully slice the tabs holding the part to the sprue. This is best done on a hard surface to prevent bending the delicate metal. Here, I am using a small cutting board, but many people use a piece of ceramic tile or glass for this as well:

If there are any burrs on the removed part, these can be filed down with a metal file such as this Tamiya Diamond File for Photoetch. Then, we can go ahead and secure this Grille A into our Ventilator Hood:

Step 2

Retrieve your Superstructure of the Stairwell section from the previous issue. Press the three pins of this Ventilator Hood assembly into the matching holes at this location on the Superstructure forward of the Funnel opening, as shown. Use glue if needed.

As before, I am not gluing any of these deck detail parts into place as I may want to replace them later on:

Step 3

Retrieve your Officers’ Quarters assembly from the previous issue. Remove the backing paper of the Decking piece and fit it into the matching recess at the front of the Officers’ Quarters, as shown.

This piece is so small, I did not need to use my 3M General Purpose 45 Spray Adhesive here:

The First LED Lights

Step 4

Fit the LEDs and Circuit Board into the underside of the Officers’ Quarters, aligning the round LEDs into the matching holes. There are four clips that hold this Circuit Board in place.

While aligning the round LEDs into their holes (circles below), I slid one edge of the Circuit Board under two of these clips (arrows below). To make sure this is installed the correct way around, note that one end of the Circuit Board has a cut corner that matches an angled ridge on the Officers’ Quarters:

To attach the other edge of the Circuit Board, you may want to use a screwdriver or other tool to move the clips aside from above, as shown:

Here, all four clips are holding the Circuit Board in place and the round LEDs are fully seated:

Step 5

Retrieve your Smoke Generator Tester Unit from Issue 3. Connect this Circuit Board to the MOT/LED socket and install 2 x AAA batteries (not included). This will allow us to test the operation of the lighting:

Once finished with your light test, you can disconnect the Circuit Board:

Additional Deck Details

Step 6

Like before, cut the second Grille A (20H) from the photoetch sprue and glue it into the recessed opening of the Boiler Room Vent Hood.

Retrieve your Vent B from Issue 14. Cut the smaller Grille C (20J) from the photoetch and glue it into the recessed opening of Vent B:

Press the three pins of the larger Vent Hood assembly into the matching holes at this location on the Officers’ Quarters at the rear of the Funnel opening, as shown. Use glue if needed:

In the same way, press the three pins of the smaller Vent B assembly into the matching holes at this location on the Officers’ Quarters forward of the Funnel opening, as shown. Use glue if needed:

Step 7

Carefully cut the two small Hatch (20G) parts from the photoetch sprue. These need to be bent at an angle down the center to form a ‘tent’.

There is a embossed line on one side of these parts – this is the ‘inside’ of the bend:

Bending photoetch can be accomplished in many ways, from using a expensive photoetch bender to photoetch pliers to just some duck-bill pliers. Any tool that has a way to hold the part with smooth jaws and provide a sharp edge to fold the photoetch will work. I bent these Hatches in small increments and kept test fitting the parts as I went:

Once each Hatch is ‘folded’ to the correct angle, glue them to the matching openings on top of the Officers’ Quarters as shown:

After doing a bit of research, it appears that these two Hatches were actually wooden skylights, including one over the Marconi radio room and the second over the Officers’ Lavatory. Therefore, I masked off these Hatches and ‘messily’ hand-painted them with Vallejo Game Air 72.743 Beasty Brown acrylic paint:

This was my gross attempt to give them the appearance of being made out of wood. Any darker-wood colored paint should work here:

Step 8

Press the two pins of the Cowled Vent into the matching holes at this location on the Officers’ Quarters.

As before, I hand-painted the exposed opening of this Cowled Vent with Vallejo Model Air 71.270 Off-White acrylic paint:

Step 9

Glue the thicker end of the Antenna Holder into this hole of the Officers’ Quarters.

Since this Antenna Holder appears to represent the small pillar that held the wires coming up out of the Marconi radio room and acted as a strain relief, I painted the ‘stick’ of this part black as it likely would have been an insulated cable. I also oriented my part a little differently from the instructions:

The radio wires would have come out of the center of the roof section (note the tiny hole circled next to the rear Hatch), so I rotated my Antenna Holder to the 45° towards the right rear of the superstructure:

Step 10

Press the two pins of each Swan-Neck Vent into the matching holes at these locations on the Officers’ Quarters.

As before, I highlighted the hole details on these Swan-Neck Vents with my Vallejo Game Wash 73.201 Black:

Also, regardless of the instructions, these two Swan-Neck Vents are not the same. One of them has a square ledge around one of the pins as seen here:

The Swan-Neck Vent with the square ledge should be placed so the ledge fits into the square recess of the grey Funnel surround, as shown:

The other Swan-Neck Vent should be placed in the second location, as shown:

Step 11

Retrieve your Ventilation Duct from Issue 15. Press the two pins of this Ventilation Duct into the matching holes of the Boiler Room Vent Hood and Decking at this location of the Officer’s Quarters, as shown.

My understanding is that this was not actually a ventilation duct, but perhaps a ridge pole for the awning system that could be deployed to keep the roof and walkways underneath cooler in warm climates. Try to only push down on the ends of this part so the center ‘pipe’ stays as straight as possible:

Attaching the First Funnel

Step 12

Retrieve your first Funnel assembly from the previous issue. Remove the Grille and slide the Tank assembly out of the Funnel. Using the Plastic Band, secure the wires of the Smoke Generator to lower part of the Tank, keeping the wires taut as shown.

I feel like this Plastic Band might be an afterthought to help keep the wires of the Smoke Generator from becoming caught on the Funnel as the tank is removed to refill it:

Step 13

Connect the larger female end of the Connecting Cable for the First Funnel to the plug of this funnel’s Smoke Generator:

Thread the free of the Connecting Cable back down through the Funnel and out the square hole in the bottom as you reinstall the Tank assembly back into place.

Leave the plugs we just connected up inside the Funnel as shown. We will need this slack to be able to remove the Tanks for refilling later on:

Step 14

Feed the smaller plug of the Connecting Cable down through this opening of the Officers’ Quarters.

The instructions say to feed this wire down the port (left) side of the Circuit Board, but the plug will only fit (tightly) through this larger gap on the starboard (right) side:

Step 15

Continue feeding the Connecting Cable down through the opening in the Officers’ Quarters until the two posts of the first Funnel can be seated fully into the deck, as shown.

Go slowly and take care of the four Water Pipes that surround this Funnel as you install it:

Secure this Funnel to the Officers’ Quarters from below with two (2) AP screws:

NOTE: There will be reflective strips supplied with the model starting with Stage 49 that are attached to the inner walls of our superstructures. They are only so-so at doing the job, but you can elect to skip this mod if you choose and wait for those parts to arrive.

At this point, I used my 2mm Molotow Chrome Pen to add a reflective surface inside both of my Superstructure assemblies to keep my light-blocking black paint from absorbing the relatively dim lighting used on our Titanic. This will not be visible on the completed model so I did not need perfection. There is a good chance we will not receive any ‘glass’ for the windows of our model, so I plan to something to create Frosted Windows later on.

UPDATE: Starting with Issue 41, I stopped using this chrome pen to provide a reflectivity layer on top of the light-blocking layer. Instead, I started airbrushing a coat of Vallejo Model Air 71.064 Chrome Metallic acrylic paint over the black layer. You may want to check that issue to see how I did it:

Step 16

If you haven’t done so already, retrieve your extra Grille from the previous issue and replace the one on this first Funnel with the new one. The new one is a better fit than the original Grille supplied in Issue 11:

While the steps for this issue are now complete, I wanted to circle back to the Water Pipes we installed in the previous issue. These Water Pipes would have been directly attached to the Funnels, but the pipes on my model tended to slightly lean away from the Funnel instead. Therefore, I removed all four of the Water Pipes from this Funnel area and snipped off the mounting pins right below the ‘flanges’. For example, this is Water Pipe (D) for First Funnel (part 19K):

This allowed me to apply tiny drops of super glue to the bottom of the two ‘flanges’ of this Water Pipe (D) and align it to the Funnel so it would be both vertical and touching the Funnel. I used a third tiny drop of glue to attach the top ‘loop’ of the Water Pipe to the Funnel itself:

I did the same with Water Pipe (A) as you can see here. This one is trickier because of the nearby CP screw but I managed to make it work:

Viewed from the front, I think these Water Pipes look much more accurate this way:

I repeated this process twice more for the two rear Water Pipes B and C:

Finally, I hooked up the lighting again so we could see how our Officers’ Quarters and first Funnel look lit. I am very happy with this so far!

Thoughts

I am loving how these superstructure assemblies are coming along! I know we could get buried in the minute details of Titanic accuracy, but I just wanted my ship to look like more than a collection of plastic parts. The unused Grille B (20I) will not be needed until a later issue, so keep it safe for now. There is a lot more to come, and I am looking forward to it!

Next Up

Issue 21 – Starboard Hull Section