Hi,

Just over a year ago, I started a topic here detailing my first Minicraft Titanic build, of which I abandoned shortly after. Since then, I’ve been at Sea with the Naval Reserve and so the partially built kit was sold to a former colleague. (I think he shaved down the hull and turned her into another ship. Or so I heard)

Anyway, I’m back with a brand new Kit; another Minicraft (just your bog standard 1/350 without any of the etched parts) and this time i’m ‘gonna take her the extra mile and go all out on the detail.

Thank you for reading! Here’s one or two images from the first stages. (Drilling the portholes was quite a task, but really does make all the difference!) I hope to get her painted tomorrow, then I can think about which material / product I’m going to use for the decks. (I’m thinking V-Groove right now, but we’ll see)






The Bollards I'm going to use are from Graupner


I think rather than attempting to raise those B Deck windows at the stern, I’m going to paint the white of the superstructure just beneath them, as opposed to going right through them. This means that the white will cover the tops of the rivets along the entire side of the ship, before eventually meeting the portholes at the forecastle. The sheer line will run below the tops of the rivets in the ‘clean’ area.

Example:

Regards,

Luke McHugh

Looks like you've made a good start sir.....

I got her painted this morning. In the image below, you can see how I delt with the window issue. Forgive any imperfect paint lines.. there are one or two touch up's that are on my list of things to do today.

Regards,

Luke McHugh

Looking good sir! I like how you approached the white paint.

Dane

Thank you, guys!

It doesn’t seem to matter how long I’ve been a ‘Titanic buff’ or for how long I’ve been researching the ship or how many books I’ve read over the years, I find that with building a model comes a lot more ‘on the job’ learning. Things become apparent and I start asking myself questions and so out come the books once again! I’m doing my best to get the detail in there so that it can look the best that it can be, and so certain changes will be highlighted throughout my build.

For example, the portholes in that well deck bulkhead seem a little too large and cartoony for my liking. What I’ve done is built a new one and drilled smaller holes that look a little more to scale.

Regards,

Luke McHugh

Luke,

Looks like you're off to a great start there. You're absolutely right about the "cartoonish" appearance of some of the pieces. Your replacement piece looks great.

Be careful...you might be opening a can of worms. You might wind up scratchbuilding ALL of your bulkheads, heh heh! It seems that with this kit, once you make one modification, the rest needs to follow suit. I'm sure whatever you do, it will look great.

I like your solution to the window/sheer stripe issue.


Looking forward to more! ........... Matt

Thanks for the kind words, Matt

I'm progressing slowly but surely and today, I've been working on a prototype for those Chain Windlasses on the Forecastle. I'm having a little trouble trying to get those worms back in the can :/

Regards,

Luke McHugh

Luke,

I warned you about those worms! They're crawling ALL OVER my ship!

Those chain races look awesome. I take it you cast those yourself? They really look good. One thing I need to add to my foredeck are the hoops over the chains.

Something tells me you've done this before, heh heh.

Keep it up. I look forward to more ......... Matt

Again, no major progress made just yet. Just thought I'd share these with you. Today I cut some of the forward most decks out of Evergreen's V-Groove styrene. (Aprox 0.75 mm wide planking) All that's left to do is to cut out the Anchor well at the fore-peak.

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/evg/evg2030.htm




The quality is superb and so I highly rate the product. Unfortunatley however, I don't think my camera is quite up to capturing the very fine detail!

Regards,

Luke McHugh

A few more progress shots today, among them are the applied adhesive hull sheer-stripe aswell as shots of the fo'c'sle and the fore well deck area.

I'm moving slowly from bow to stern! Once I've finished with those forward deck fittings, I'm going to start on the enclosed promanade's and the A Deck promanade.

The #1 hatch cover still has to be painted and the portholes blacked out, as the deck is still visable beneath them.






Below are the colours I've used so far, starting with the anti-fouling at the top, followed by the deck colour and the colour used in the well deck.

Regards,

Luke McHugh

Superb sir! I like your scratch building approach. Your color choices
are reminding me of my own...very nice.

Dane