Some of the needed fixes to the kit require a very experienced modeler. You are invited to pick and choose the fixes that fit your skill level. It's probably easiest to print these pages out. I've reformatted them for better printing.
The steps refer to the diagram steps in the Minicraft instruction manual.
Step 1 - Stand
If you want to do a waterline conversion or add lighting to the windows, indulge yourself! I won't get into that. Otherwise built the stand with CA or super glue. Model cement doesn't stick to metalized parts unless the metal is sanded off. Sand the uprights for a flat fit. Use a ruler to center the name plate.
Step 2 - Basic hull - Here's where the magic starts!
A) On the portside under the forecastle, you need to add a porthole. Add the porthole in line with the others 13mm fore of the slope to the well deck (between the 2nd and 3rd porthole counting from the back).
B) Just below the prow (upper tip) of the bow is a little wide spot in the front edge of the ship. This is the hawspipe. The anchor chain for the center anchor ran through this if the anchor was used. Hollow it out. If you're good you can drill it out at a 60 degree angle upward. This will tie into step 43 so don't act too fast.
| C) Cut out two small rectangular holes on each side. These handled tie-down lines for various purposes and were drains to keep water from building up against the walls on A and B-decks. Olympic did not have these. The lower hole is cut in the hull. The upper hole is cut into sides of the A-deck promenade. The other items marked will be referenced later. Photo is the Titanic passing the Isle of Wight. | |
D) Add the large rectangular indent for the condenser exhausts on the sides below the water line. Water is seen venting hard in various photos. Cut a 3 X 4mm hole in the hull and inset a sheet plastic plug painted black. It was probably screened. See Marriot's "Titanic" p.5 and "Illustrated history" pp26-27.
< Definition: a "strake" is one row of hull plates the length of the ship. On Titanic, you have an outside row "outie" and an inside row "innie" strake. >
To locate the opening, find the "outie" strake about 4cm below the top center of the hull (the lowest with portholes). Measure 227mm forward from the rudder hinges and scribe a line. This is the rear of the rectangle. Center the rectangle in the strake. Add a border around it with Evergreen K-1 strips. If you have deck plans that show the frame numbers (D-deck on the Titanic Inquiry plans or on the H&W Rigging plan), it's located between frames -58 and -56.
They played a role in the launching of the lifeboats as the turbulence cause by the force of the water almost caused boat 13 to be pushed under boat 15 during launch.
E) To improve the windows, hollow them all out from the inside by cutting the plastic back at a 45 degree angle from the inside. This is tedious, but it makes the windows look bigger and less like castle windows. The hull appears 3 feet thick in scale otherwise. Do this for the promenade and other large windows as well. You'll be able to see more of the fixes and detail in later steps by doing this.
Of note, when Titanic was launched, it had the B-deck window arrangement of Olympic. These windows were altered to the Titanic configuration during fitting out in the Thompson drydock.
F) An advanced fix is to improve the line for painting the white area under the forecastle. Note that a raised edge starts from just above the well deck and goes forward to the prow. This raised line should start even with the opening for the well deck. The easy thing to do is cheat the tape down a bit when masking. To get the raised line right, sand it off from about midway between the prow and well deck going aft. Glue on a strip of pulled sprue to get the raised line to come down to the top edge of the well deck.
G) The raised edge at the top of the hull around the forecastle and the poop deck isn't what it seems. If using photo etched railings, shave it off flat. It's actually the kick-board around the base of the railings. This was an L shaped beam riveted to the edges of the deck to produce the outer lip and the railings are fastened to it. There was an 8" wide drain between the railings and the planking on the forecastle and the poop deck. See EE O'Donnell's "Last Days of the Titanic" p.54.
Use Evergreen K-1 strips and glue them down standing on their sides flush around the edges of where railings will mount. The bow kick boards extend to the very prow of the ship. They do not follow the curve of the railings at the tip. Apply these before painting.
WARNING! Think ahead! All deck railings except those on deck house roofs have these kick boards. Don't start painting decks until you get these in place. I'll remind you, I hope. They're right and make application of the photo etched rails so much easier. (Start dashing through every photo you have that shows railings, particularly if there's a stair in the photo.) On the forecastle and poop deck, these will be delicate structures for all the handling you'll do in the coming months. You may want to add these later and do touch-up painting.
H) If you plan to do a waterline model of Titanic sailing, ignore the water lines on the H&W rigging and deck plans. Neither is right. According to the Edward Wilding's figures at the 1912 hearings, endorsed by Bedford and Hacket, chief naval architects at H&W, as Titanic was at sea the bow draft was about 30'9' and the stern was at 33'9". (From "The Sinking of Titanic - Investigated by Modern Means" by Bedford/Hacket). Place the hull on a flat table. The aft waterline for water, not red paint, is 27mm. On the bow it's about 29.5mm. The center of the ship splits the difference.
I) The coaling doors are the little doors above the waterline that have an X inscribed in them. There was no X. Instead there should be a flat door with a porthole. See Wels p.24 or Marriott, p.27. Most close-ups of the sides show the same thing.
J) 8 portholes need to be added across the stern under the poop deck in the white area. The McCluskie plans on p.92 are Olympic and varied from Titanic. Going by the Belfast Lough photo in Wels p42 or E&H p.60, you see the kit has the portholes clustered in the pattern (fore to aft) 1-5-3-2-1. That part is correct. Mark a point going aft from the last porthole on the kit on each side at distances of 11, 11, 10, and 6mm. This should leave the aft two portholes about 6mm apart straddling the centerline. Drill these out to the same size as the kit portholes.
Step 3 - Main deck
A) You have a decision to make. Several fixes require that surface detail be torn off or modified. This mainly impacts the deck planking pattern. The bridge roof needs to have planking added.
To rectify the obvious deck damage, try the greater approach of scribing the deck along the raised deck planking lines. You can then scrape and sand the deck flat and have more realistic recessed plank lines, even in the modified areas. This is a lot work and the scribed lines don't show as well when painted, even though they're more accurate.
This is an advanced technique. PRACTICE it a bit using sheet plastic and a metal ruler before you attack the kit. Be comfortable with your knife or other scribing tool you use.
Step 4 - Hull painting
A) Note that the gold band on the top of hull runs just below the top edge of the well deck cutouts. The top of the well deck cutouts should be white, connecting the white of the superstructure to the forecastle and poop deck areas. See the picture of Capt. Smith looking down from the bridge in most any Titanic book, particularly the cover of EE O'Donnell's "Last Days of the Titanic." Do not paint the top edge of the forecastle or poop deck.
B) On the B-deck windows, add clear acetate from a document protector to the backside after painting. Do this on all upper decks. The glint off the "glass" will make the ship look real as you walk by.
C) The waterline isn't right for the red on the bottom. At the bow, the waterline is 44mm below the forecastle tip, just below the top of the 4th "outie" strake from the bottom. This raises the edge to the bottom of the second "outie" under the forward well deck center (35mm below the well deck cut out). The waterline in the center needs to be 1mm higher. On the stern, the waterline changes in photos. On launch, the waterline was just above the 2nd highest brace on the rudder. During outfitting, it was just below (as per the kit). See Marriott's "Titanic" p.5 and note how crooked and down turned the waterline is near the stern. In service the water line was painted just above the brace again. Mask the stern just below the bottom row of portholes to .5mm above the 2nd brace on the rudder. Carefully sand off the old waterline etches and paint. This should cut through the condenser exhaust about 2/3 of the way up.
Step 5 - Mounting main deck
A) Try using fine mono-filament fish line or nylon invisible thread instead of the thread they give you. It doesn't droop with the humidity. Some rigging is heavier than others. Get some 4lb test line at about .008" dia for light rigging and 10lb test line at .012" for the heavy rigging. Use nylon thread for very light rigging. Also paint the rigging mid or dark gray instead of black. It produces a better effect in scale.
Plan ahead. Use the 10lb as your 5.5" wire for the main stay from between the anchors to the foremast, the two bottom lines to the aft mast, and the lines from the 2nd class entrance. Use 4lb as the 4" wires from the prow to the middle foremast, both lines from the well deck aft to the foremast, funnel stays, the line from #4 funnel house to the mid aft mast, and both lines up from the aft welldeck forward. For all other lines use light nylon or invisible thread from the sewing supplies store.
B) Glue the prow shackle C-24 on with super glue. It WILL have tension on it later. You might add a pre-cut to the front side so the rigging lines will sink slightly into the mount.
C) Drill another rigging line hole in the forward well deck. Outboard of the forward hatch is a triangle of holes for a bollard and the rat lines. Add the new hole just aft and close to the outer edge. Thread these with 8" long lightweight rigging.
Thanks to Phil Hind for the use of his drawings in the various sections on my web site.
D) The wood planking stopped 15.5" short of the sides of the forward and aft well decks. There was a 'waterway' (drain) down the sides between the planking and the sides. It appears to be painted white in foreward well deck "Last Days" p.55, and funnel base gray on the aft well deck p.68 (or maybe rust). This is a 1.1mm gutter between the planking and the sides.
Step 6 - Aft B-deck
| A) Item 47 in Figure 1. There are two odd bollards that flank the 'mushroom vent' (part G31). See Marriott's "Titanic" p23 and Ken Marschall's "Inside the Titanic" foldout. Shape these from round stock 3mm in diameter with a wide base and narrower top to 2/3 the height of the shaft of the mushroom vent and position as indicated. Add a flat plastic top 2mm in diameter. Add a teardrop to the insides using plastic scrap. Paint them black. I painted in the left edge over an intervening wall from this blowup of the fixture on Olympic. |  |
B) Starting now, if you're using the photo-etched benches, erase the base outlines for the plastic benches. Do this before painting the decks. Scribe the deck planks into the surface of the affected areas. Just be sure to mark where the benches go for when you add them later, perhaps by painting a slightly darker shadow on the deck.
C) Painting tip: The winches (G13) have black rollers, but the bodies over the engines are slightly darker than grass green. The same is true for all the large (G15) and small winches scattered around the ship.
D) The windows for the 2nd Library (lounge), parts J-19&20, are wrong. The kit has 5 evenly placed windows when there should be 3 pairs of windows spaced like the ones at the aft end of H-6&7 for the 2nd class smoke room. These are 'pattern K', 21" X 36" windows with 3 rows of 2 panes. In the next step, you need need the same arrangement of 'pattern L', 25" X 44" windows for the smoke room. In short, the lounge windows are too few and too tall; the smoke room windows are the right number but too short.
To fix, slice the 24mm section of windows from H-6&7 and swap them with the same sized section on J-19&20, centered on the windows. That solves the problem for J-19&20. The smoke room problem is solved in the next step.
Get used to the idea of slicing sections out of walls and rearranging them. There are at least 5 more times you need to do this. Mark the part on the backside and carefully slice vertically downward with your X-acto knife. Rearrange the sections and glue with a strip of plastic behind for strength. Fill and sand for a clean surface. Practice on junk plastic of similar size.
E) The aft wall of C-deck (G-36) needs minor changes. Fill the port holes in the aft wall over the #5 hatch and add two narrow doors on each side flanking the hatch. Test fit to get the doors right at the sides of the hatch. They opened outward. See "Illusterated", p.25.
Step 7 - Aft B-deck walls
A) The insides of the cowl vents and the big fan housing in front and behind the funnels were white inside. Hollow out all cowl vents and paint a light gray to add shadow depth.
| B) Part J-25 is the aft wall of the 2nd class smoke room. Add an additional windows to the starboard protruding wall as shown. This is identical to windows at the rear. The lavatory windows probably have pebbled glass so cover with acetate and paint model cement on the back side. |  |
On the port side, the window came and went. See Marriott's "Titanic" p.5 to see the port side window. See Peter Thresh's "Titanic" p.32 for the same photo take a few weeks later. The window is gone, paneled over apparently. The starboard window is still in place as Titanic leaves Southampton in the Bown and Simmons postcard collection.
C) Do not mount the two G-23 vents on the aft end of the well deck. Do it in step 45.
D) The doors in the side of the lower 2nd class entrance should have portholes in the upper third of the doors. There are two windows in the fore end but they will not be visible on the model.
E) The two hatch covers for the #4 hatch should be a little taller. Cut two pieces of .040 sheet plastic to the hatch size and apply. Paint the side white and the covers white canvas as per the other hatch covers.
F) Fix the smoke room windows (using the sections from step 6D) by cutting out all the vertical sections between the 5 windows leaving a long rectangle. The window height is right. Cut 3 strips of Evergreen K-3 strips for the frames between window pairs. Cut 2 sections 3mm wide to form the walls between window pairs. Add the wide wall sections to create 3 5mm wide windows, then use the K-3 strips to divide the windows in half. Attach these sections on the ends of H-6&7 and you have it.
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Step 8 - Well decks
| A) Item 14 in figure 2. There are two short pipes that flank the 'mushroom vent' (part G31). Cut these from round stock to about the height of the shaft of the mushroom vent and position as indicated. Paint them black. These were post mounted rollers to assist in cargo loading. The drawing shows a rope wrapped slack around it. The rope guidebars are on the fore and aft sides. It shows nicely in the video from "Titanic: Live". Drawing by Bruce Beveridge |  |
B) Place holder
C) 17. There are two additional mushroom vents identical to part G-31 aft of the cranes. You'll need to fabricate these or cannibalize them from an old kit.
D) Paint all the hatch covers an off white with more of a slight tan than gray.
E) The forward B-deck walls J-13A/B are a problem area. Add a window on each side facing forward and slightly outboard of center. These are the same as the 3 windows facing outboard. See the plans in the Wels "Legacy" book for location and a picture in Marriott p.64. Install the walls in the next step. After applying the front walls (J39), add these to the bottom of A-deck and get the fit to the front wall right.
F) The forward bollards on the forward well deck need to be moved almost flush to the wall. Fill in the old mounting hole. See "Last Days on Titanic" p54. Likewise, the aft bollards on the aft well deck need to moved back against the wall. Fill in the mounting holes and defer mounting them to step 45.
Step 9 - A-deck prep
A) The aft 1st class entrance on the A-deck promenade was a major gaff by the mold maker. It's nearly a full inch off in location! Here's a drawing of the kit:
To fix the port side, cut a 21mm section out of the wall just forward of the first bay window and insert it at the start of the cabin wall for A-36. If you're good at this cut and splice of wall sections, put only 18mm of wall next to A-36, and put the other 3mm section forward of the windows and add a new door in the center of the six windows. Glue all the sections together and fill any cracks.
To fix the starboard side, cut a 21mm section out of the wall at the forward edge of the first window fore of the door. Insert this section right on the aft edge of the forward door and the windows will be about right. Remove the door from cabin A-37 but add another door centered 3mm forward of the cabin.
Add the windows on the fore side of the cabins. These windows are the same as the side windows but you need to create them. Try just painting them in.
The outlines for the cabin walls on A-deck need to be scraped flat in the affected areas. Fortunately, no modifications are needed for the boat deck above.
Show some reverence for these two cabins. Father Browne was in A-37 as far as Queenstown. Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer, was in A-36.
This solves half of the problems with this area. If you want to get all the windows and doors right, click and print out the update based on the Promenade Elevation Plan I got from H&W.
NOTE: For all doors on the sides of the promenades, these have a 1 foot lip at the bottom. Mount all new doors .9mm off the deck.
B) Item 28. The A-deck walls are wrong around the forward Grand Staircase foyer. The kit walls turn in at the front edge of the elevators rather than the aft edge. Nobody can see into here so don't worry about it. Be smug that you know it's there. The A-deck cabin windows forward of the staircase should have the same window pattern as the 10 windows across the front, not the open rectangle. I suspect that photo-etched acetate printed windows will be out soon to solve this problem. Virtually all the windows for A-deck and other public rooms are simplified or wrong.
C) Item 22. The stairwell on A and B decks is narrower and requires modification of the deck walls. On A-deck, cut off the protrusion for the stairs. Fabricate a new 3.5mm wide stairwell wall per the sub-drawing on the bow plan. This includes a door in the center and a window near the aft end (the kit got the window right). Add the handrails using sections of pulled sprue. Add a new weather wall to the promenade from sheet plastic. This was well photographed by "JJ" in Dr. Ballard's video and features a small door and a window similar in size to the windows on the side promenade weather cover. Note the 10 degree back angle for the section with the window. See Marriott p.64.
D) 50. The large openings for the Palm Court and Veranda cafes were covered by double sliding doors. These can be seen in the Eaton & Haas book on p.98 and it shows the positioning of the tripod crane racks (item 48). To close these openings, you basically have two windows like those in the side walls in each door and they slid together. To add the doors, start by cutting off the base strips. In addition, add two doors on the side walls adjacent to the cafe doors. These have a porthole and black stripe over the door knob on the aft side. Cut these 5.5 X 2mm and mount .9mm off the deck and centered in the wall. |
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| Cut a 10 X 7mm strip of clear sheet plastic or acetate. The pattern at right shows each of the two 3.5 X 7mm doors. Do what you can with fine adhesive strips or a fine steady brush, and cement the doors into the backside of the door openings. Paint the non-window areas white. |  |
E) Item 18. You can add ribbing on the back sides of the bridge shields by taking a pull of plastic sprue (heating and stretching into a thick thread) and cementing strips to the backside of the bulwark. To simplify rib laying, use a business card and build yourself a gauge. Three foot centers are 1/10" in scale. Draw a series of marks on the edge of the business card and use the gauge to mark where the ribs go. Use Evergreen K-2 strips for the foot board, about 1.5mm off the deck, that runs from outside the flying bridge cabs to the bridge. See "Titanic: An Illustrated History" p.85.
F) Item 67. On the front wall of B-deck under the bridge (J39), there are 6 windows and two portholes. The portholes should be doors. Cut two doors from .010 sheet plastic about the same size as other doors and cement them over the portholes. Then drill out the holes again. The doors should be spaced 1mm above the deck. Ken Marschall paints floor mats under the doors on p.81 of "Illustrated History." The windows are Utley's single pane sliding windows, there are NO frames on the windows. Cut these away and add clear acetate to the backside after painting. Between the center windows is an oval shaped plaque, probably the builder's plaque. Use the reference above to locate it.
G) The aft end of A-deck has the kick boards mentioned in step 2 where the aft railings mount. Look ahead to step 32.
H) Both side edges of A-deck had a drain trough. This only went down the outside and doesn't turn any corners. Paint a 1mm strip funnel base gray down each side of the promenade. The C9 post set on the forward starboard promenade is wrong. It's properly centered, but there should be 7 posts on 7.8mm centers. Fill the trough in the kit and use Evergreen SA-2 strips just inside it. The Aft post is 3mm aft of the old trough, then add another post every 7.8mm going forward. See McCluskie p.127.
The C9 post sets aft are also wrong. The posts come off the outer corners of A-36/37, see "Last Days" p.59 (Capt. Smith walking aft). First add the expansion joint using the wide spot in the promenade sides for a guide. The aft three posts are spaced every 7.8mm from the cabin walls of A-36/37. The forward three columns start just fore of the expansion joint and continue the 7.8mm spacing. This assumes you rearranged the aft 1st class as decribed above.
Step 10 - Promenade sides
A) Item 40 in figure 2. Each side of the A-deck promenade featured 10 swing arms that swung out from the promenade. They were used to assist handling lines to tenders, during coaling, and could support scaffolding for maintenance. These are positioned as follows: measure back from the forward edge of the promenade and place the vertical post at 7.8mm, 43, 75.1, 106.5, 128.7, 163.9, 203.2, 237.7, 273.7, and 319.4mm. The arms are stored pointing aft on both sides. It will probably be easiest to fabricate the sections from pulled sprue and assemble them directly on the sides of the promenade prior to painting it. Be careful of the cement roughing the texture on the promenade sides. "Titanic Voices" p.45 shows them swung out and in use during coaling.
B) The promenade sides featured two additional holes a bit smaller than the small portholes in the hull. Drill these 2mm above the bottom edge and 196mm and 276mm aft of the front end.
C) If you want to cut out the grand staircase, use the lines on the drawing. The stairs molded into A-deck can be removed and placed in a new hole in the boat deck (where they are just short of visible). At this point you're playing around for you own entertainment. Remember that the fore wall of the stairs is the line pointed to by item 28, 104mm back from the front edge of the boat deck.
D) Think about replacing the aft bridge cab bulwarks G28A&B with .010 sheet plastic. These will otherwise look clunky surrounded by other fine detail and you can add the ribbing to the back side as per step 9 D). The bulward does not hit the cab at a right angle, it curves up into the side of the cab similar to the front side. Replacing these leave deck detail and the holes that need to be cleaned up.
E) Lay the promenade sides alongside the boat deck and etch a deep line for the expansion joints fore (wide spot betweenthe windows) and aft (down the center of the wide post).
Step 11 - Boat deck prep
A) Big problem. All the lifeboats and davits need to be moved outward 2mm. The easiest way to do this is cut out the trench for the lifeboat davit assembly all the way out to the side of the boat deck. Drop in a 2mm wide plug of .02" plastic strip or Evergreen K-5 strips where the davits were and scribe to match the planking pattern. Mounting the davit assembly farther out leaves you with a small line to fill between the davits and the side of the promenade when you get to that point.
B) Item 20. Now it gets tricky. The crew stairwell railings (or bulwarks) had straight sides 42" high (3mm). Cut away the molded stair cover on the kit and fabricate new sides. Narrow the width to 3.5mm, the width of the photo-etched stairs. If not using the photo-etched parts, use the plastic stairs without handrails for the width. This stair goes down to the A-deck enclosure fabricated in step 9b so make sure they're aligned. You need to fill in the deck a bit. Again, the deck surface is affected and you may want to scribe the plank lines.
C) You have deck benches everywhere. If you're using the photo-etched benches, erase the base outlines for the plastic benches and scribe the plank lines. Remember where the benches go.
D) The aft end of the boat deck has the kick boards mentioned in step 2 where the aft railings mount. Look ahead to step 32.
E) Where the 1st class lounge and smoke room poke up through the boat deck, the edges of the boat deck were lined by a C-shaped trough. Paint it gray like the funnel bases to form an edging around these rooms on the boat deck. These troughs stop where the boat deck structures begin. You may want to paint the deck wood first, then mask off the edges .5mm and paint the gray strips.
F) There was also a trough on the outboard edges of the boat deck. It runs the length of the boat deck but interrupted at the expansion joints. Paint a 1mm wide gray edge in the open space at the life boats. Unless you replace the kit bulwarks with .01 plastic, the bulwarks in the kit are about as wide as the trough and painting the line around them will be awkward.
Step 12 - A and Boat deck assembly
A) Test fit everything many times! Test fit to the hull! Those hull tabs are not well sized!
Get 3 large rubber bands that can hold the assembly tightly to the hull. When you cement it all together, quickly dry mount (no glue) to the hull and hold with the rubber bands. You want this all to set in the shape of the hull curve and mountings when the glue is dry. Later remove the bands for further work.
B) 66. The aft boat deck overhang on A-deck is supported by 4 posts in the kit. Pitch C-23 that has the 4 posts. Fill the slot in the deck with 2 Evergreen K-2 strips and fill and scribe to get the plank detail back. Use Evergreen SA-2 tubes and make new posts placed closer to the outer edges of the boat deck and corners. The outer two posts have ladders just inboard and exactly in line with the post under the deck edge. Use ladders from the Gold Medal Merchant Ship set and paint the ladders black. See the photos in "Last days of the Titanic", pp. 65-66 for the ladders. The posts show better in construction photos such as "Illustrated History" p.25.
In addition there are two additional posts supporting the second frame (6') forward. Add two more ports on the outside edge 5.2mm farther forward. These are not perfectly aligned with the corner posts but are slightly farther outboard. Use the same references as above.
C) The Titanic sported a canvas sun shade that hung down from the boat deck to a wire strung along the outside of the pillars for the open part of the A-deck promenade. The wire can be clearly seen in the photo of Capt. Smith walking aft on the promenade in "Last days of the Titanic" p.59; the same photo in other books is too washed out to show it. The canvas shade is shown deployed at Queenstown in "Triumph and Tragedy" pp.110-111 and "Last days of the Titanic", pp.71,75. It's seen on the upper part of the promenade for the first 9 pillars aft of the weather cover. Fabricate this from plastic food wrap for that "canvas bend" and paint it off white. The canvas was not mounted in Southampton.
Step 13 - Bridge area
A) Item 19. Titanic's wheel house was square, not curved, and it didn't extend so far forward. The front of the wheelhouse is even with the back wall of the flying bridge cabs. There is a clear isle from one bridge cab to the other. Fabricate a new wheel house front using a piece of clear plastic 7 X 22mm. Glue an evergreen K-5 strip across the bottom and use K-2 strips for the window frames. Use the old wheel house front as a guide and add 5 windows directly aligning with the 5 center windows in J-39. Also, add the bridge wheel, 4 telemeters and 2 posts as per the bridge photo on p.86 of "Last days of the Titanic." With the wheel house pulled back, this is all more visible.
B) Paint the expansion joint brass or bronze instead of gold.
| C) The Morse lamps can be done better with a taller shaft of Evergreen SA-2 rod and a larger top. Also add a tapered rear and bottom edge to the running light panels on the sides of the bridge cabs. Tapered K-2 strips should work. Note the photo etched ladder used in the background. See "Titanic Voices", p155. (Loren Perry's model) |  |
Step 14 - Officer's quarters area
A) Item 21. The window arrangement in the sides of the officer's quarters is wrong. There's no good way to fix the port side and it's not that far off. To improve the starboard side, carefully slice up the existing walls and rearrange the pieces into a new wall. The right configuration is there, just not in the right places. See the sub-drawing in figure 2 for where to cut and how to rearrange. The dot on the doors on both sides is a port hole and can be drilled out.
B) There are portholes along the bottom edge of the officer's quarters that provided light for the interior A-deck cabins below. See "Titanic Voices", p.94. Inside the officer's rooms were sloping protrusions so the side porthole (called a "skid light") could illuminate a skylight in the cabin ceilings. These stop when the passenger cabins begin. To indicate on the model, drill or paint porthole size dots along the bottom of the officer's quarters and spaced as follows (from the forward end of the officers quarters going aft):
Portside: 13, 18.5, 23.5, 29, 34, 39, and 54mm. (7 skid lights)
Starboard: 13, 18.5, 23.5, 31.5, 45, and 54mm (6 skid lights)
Olympic had an additional 2 at 64mm back they are more oval shaped. See "Titanic Voices", p.265.
The Forward walls of the officer's quarters on both sides of the wheel house start 2mm closer to the front of the bridge. To correct. Mount the sides as indicated in the kit, but add a 2mm thick plate of plastic to the front sides and replace the ladders. This means extending the roof 2mm forward as well.
C) Starting now, if using the Gold Medal ladders on the sides of the deck houses, find the molded ladders, remove them, *remember where they were*, paint and assemble, then paint the photo-etch ladders black and apply. Do this for each deckhouse sub-assembly.
D) More slice and dice. J29 is the aft port wall of the 1st class entrance and it's wrong. From left to right you need a door and two windows, all evenly spaced. Slice the right end off so there's 1.5mm of wall right of the window. Slice the center between the windows so there's 1.5mm between them. Tack the cut sections to the left side, fill and sand. Add the door cut from thin sheet styrene.
E) Wall railings and lights: All wall railings on the boat deck appear to be painted white. Wall railings on A-deck appear to be dark wood brown.
On the port side of the 1st class entrance (wide area between #1 and #2 funnels) are 5 big windows. There are hand rails on either side of the center window; all other hand rails around those windows should be shaved off. The deck light is the little pip high on the wall on the left side of the center window. This should be to the right. On the portside officer's quarters, the light between the 2nd and 3rd windows from left should be moved to the right side of the 3rd window. On the starboard side of the gymnasium, see "Last Days of the Titanic" p.61 or "Discovery of the Titanic" p.186 to see the sections of wall rail that stay and go. The gymnasium windows have pebbled glass so cover with acetate and paint model cement on the back side.
All boat deck doors appear to have a 2 foot long vertical plate centered behind the door knob. It appears black but might be bronze. Paint a 2mm long stripe at door knob level on the aft edge of the officer quarters doors.