Taking shape

It looks like I'll be using wooden deck veneer on this model. These are thin sheets of wood material from KA Models in Korea. From what I read about these types of decks, they will need to be glued down. (They are supposed to be self adhesive) To make the task of applying the decks easier, I have re-made all of the deck surfaces from sheet styrene. The are temporarily test fitted to the hull in the pictures below.

This picture shows the nuts in the bottom of the hull. A screw will come up from under the wooden base, through the brass pedestals into the nuts. The nuts are glued with CA and epoxy to make sure they are secure. I've also added a couple of braces made from spare plastic sprue from the kit. The hull itself was a little warped and this helps to keep the hull in the proper shape and it's easier to test fit the main deck without having it drop inside the hull. I'll probably add a couple more for strength as I'll be handling the hull more as I work on the decks and once the decks are glued on, I don't want any flexing in the hull that could weaken the glue joints.

It looks like I'll be scratchbuilding everything except for the hull on this kit. The picture below shows the bridge deck from the kit on top of a deck layout that I printed from plans on the internet. As you can see, the bridge deck is significantly 'flattened' and needs to be redone. This is also the case with a couple of the lower structures below the deck which should also be a more rounded shape.

The incorrect deck shapes, obstacles to laying down wooden decking and removal of molded on details like handrails and stairways are a few of the reasons I'll be doing a good amount of scratchbuilding on this model.

The next few steps will be to finish fitting the decks, adding more support underneath them and making templates for the wooden deck material.