Rear Deck House

The rear deckhouse is a bit tricky to assemble so it looks right. I started by installing the railing which will locate all the parts behind it. The deckhouse sides were set in place but not cemented. I had to remove the bottom half of the locating pins to get the sides to sit flush with the deck. The aft wall of the deckhouse was next cemented in place. This required the removal of the bottom of the locating pins also.


Using my fingers, I squeezed the deckhouse sides against the aft wall and cemented them using super glue on the inside seams. The forward walls of the deckhouse were cemented in place with just the removal of the bottom half of the locating pins.

The roof of the rear deckhouse went on with no problems. The tabs on the bottom of the companionway sides prevented it from being installed in the correct position so, as with the other parts I removed material from the tabs and test fit the parts until they fit satisfactory between the rail and the deckhouse. They were then cemented in place. The curved roof over the companionway needed a little manipulating but it went into place ok. Again I used a little white glue, applied with a toothpick, to fill little gaps here and there, then touched up the paint as needed .

To glaze the skylights and portholes, I used Model Master clear parts cement and window maker. It dries clear and is thick enough to fill the square skylight openings with one application.



The remaining items to install back here are the stanchions and railings, which went on with no special problems.

The best way to blacken chains is to use a metal toner. This is an acid which is available in the railroad section of many hobby shops. I cut the chain to the length I need and using a piece of small wire, dunk it into the toner. After a few minutes , the chain begins to turn black. When it has reached the needed color, I rinse it in a cup of water standing ready for this purpose, then dry it with a paper towel.

The remaining external hull items are the figurehead, bobstay, bumpkins and rudder pendant chains. I installed these parts in accordance with the instruction sheet.
The figurehead is very well done and has great detail which I did not want obscured by a coat of white paint. I decided the best way to keep the detail visible is to paint the figurehead a light gray color and highlight the details by using a wash and dry brush technique. For the light gray I painted the figurehead Model Master Camouflage Gray. I mixed up a water color wash of gray by mixing purple with a touch of black and applied it after the gray paint was dry. After the wash dried I removed the excess and dry brushed the highlights with Model Master Flat White.53