After some time, lets get started...

I have been out of the garage due to my son's birthday and every day life. I was able to get into the garage and actually do some great work this weekend.

Rather than paint every little piece the same color I have glued them down to have them painted. The roof of the wheelhouse will be white and all the contents of it.

I am unsure if I am going to build the windows for the wheel house or not. Will require cutting clear styrene and dipping in Future.


So I found the bit to be a little toy'ish for me which is the one on the left. I have begun the process of scratch building a new one. The plastic post is 4mm in hight and 2.9mm in width. I drilled out one side of the post so the other styrene rod will slide in just like the original one.

I will drill out the other post on both sides and slide it down the stick. Make sure it is the correct width and glue it down. I will then need to add the support fins. I did this by making a rectangle the size needed, then cut a 45 angle in the desire location.



I have also decided to glue on the hand railing, steps and some other things on the stern end. These all need to be white with the deck so I can paint them in one pass.











Another shot of the hand railing.










This is a life raft that usually has a netting at the bottom. The original piece had injected plastic at the bottom to 'look' like netting.

I removed the bottom with a file and installed my own PE piece. The netting will be black while the rest will be a rescue orange.







This is the 'tarp' that goes on top of the life boat. The original part is smooth. I put white glue on the original part and then laid toilet paper (single ply) over the top. After painting this should look worn and like a tarp.. We will have to see if this works, if I don't like the way it looks i have a back up plan.







Once again I couldn't stand the original part. The part on the right is the injected part. You can see that each hole is plugged from the 'blast' plastic.

I got some PE (photo etch) grating and rebuilt that piece. Once painted it will look like the back deck or platform of a boat.






Here is another bit that I needed to rebuild. The original one actually broke. The main reason I wanted to rebuild this item is if you look at each end of it you will see what 'looks like' rope.









Once again, rebuilding another bit that goes onto the bow of the boat. The one one the left has imperfections in the injection and would be easier to build it from scratch.

Discouraged but not beaten..

5 seconds and I was ready to give up..

I am learning real fast what to do and what not to do when it comes to airbrushing. A huge problem that I ran into was trying to spry primer over a red plastic is quite hard. I was thinning my paint way to much (25% paint 75% thinner) so it was taking 2-3 coats. As you can see here the paint is not getting into the panel lines very well.

I have a HUGE seam going down the front and back of my smoke stack. Not sure if I can even fix this. I know it will require some putty and sanding but unsure if I want to take the time..

An overall view of the primed smoke stack.

It took quite a bit of paint to get the red plastic to go away. I noticed after the paint it was very rough to the touch. I wet sanded it with 6000 grit and now it is smooth for the next coat. My concern is the amount of primer paint it is taking to do this.. Am I doing it wrong?

I learned something else, you need to wash your parts to get all the oils off. Well I did but not well enough because one of the side panels failed to paint. The paint puddled up like oil on water. I soaked the part in simple green (not diluted) for 20 min and the paint came off without hurting the part. I think I will make the parts first before I paint again.. Get all the seams nice and smooth.

"Why is my model melting?"

So I sanded down the main deck to remove the ropes that were molded to it. Doing so I was impatient and used to low of grit sand paper. This left deep scratches in a few places once I painted it with primer. My only option would be to remove the paint and try to smooth out the scratches. Well I used my paint thinner as a medium to remove the paint. It was working fine till I used it to much and my main deck started to melt.

That only left me with one option; scratch build (build it by hand from spare styrene) the main deck. With tons of sanding to mold it I was able to get the new deck right. I used clamps to hold the deck to the hull and glue it in place. Any extra styrene or unevenness I was able to sand down.

The life boat is designed to have a molded “tarp” cover to

it and tied down. The tie downs were molded to the

side of the life boat and smooth. The box has it as a life boat with 4” wood planks rather than a fiber glass boat. I sanded down the tie downs molded to the boat smooth and started to scribe .93mm planks. It is tougher than I thought to carve these lines on such a small item, but once I started I was committed. After all the lines were scribed I wet sanded with 6000 grit to smooth it out. In theory once it is painted it will show slight groves for the planks of wood.

I used non-drying clay to hold the main deck edge to my work bench so I could glue the two halves together. With the scratch built deck this brought a problem, there are guides on the bow and stern (front and back) that guide these edges. I had to make my own pegs to guide this. It is currently drying but my plan is to

mount it to the bow and stern, leaving the sides unglued. This way once the bow and stern are dried I can spread the rails where I want them.

The main stack to the tug has molded ladder going up the side. With a little bit of sanding I removed these moldings. I drilled small holes and made my own ladder out of wire. Each step is less than 1 mm wide and 1mm away from the stack.

So far I am letting stuff dry now. On the main deck (not shown) super structure it also has molded hand rails. This is something I ‘may’ sand off and add my own. Several hurdles I may have are the size of the wire (1/108 of a 4” pipe is .92mm, so a 2” is much smaller) and can I sand down the original one without hurting anything else.