Model Building Pt. 2 (Image Heavy)
posted 6/19/2012 12:07:58 AM

Here comes a big one. I know, I know, that's what she said. Anyway, the inflamation of my excema went down somewhat over the weekend, and I went to see my doctor yesterday morning and got a new steroid cream, so it started to go down quite quickly. At the very least, the pain disappated.

Thanks to that I got quite a bit done yesterday.

I started out with some more pieces added to the internal structure, followed by two extendable "wings" on either side of the hull. These contract and are locked in place inside the hull, with two pieces on either side which can lift up to fill in the hole.

These can them be lowered back inside, the wings unlocked with a simple sprig loaded button which comes out through the bottom of the hull, and then pulled out to expand.

I haven't shown them fixed to the hull just yet, because they're not securely fastened at the moment.

Next up was the bow section, beginning with the torpedo tubes. As the picture shows, the three hatches can be pushed inwards to allow spring loaded torpedoes to be displayed in a ready position. Pulling the switches on the left back will retract the torpedoes and the hatches will snap back into place thanks to a more springs behind each one. There's a duplicate for the other side of the ship.

The next step was to fix the two "weapon pods" to the internal structure, house the two front red and white LED's inside a clear section, and the anchor chain housing...

...and then attach them all together.

Now that all but one bow section internal pieces were together, I just needed to attach the two sides of the lower hull...

...then the "nose" on the front. The connector block also attaches into the bow section. This fixes to the wired side of the display stand, and contains all of the female sockets for the motor blocks and LED's.

Finally for this part is the conn/bridge tower. Fairly straight forward for this one, but it contains a lot of clear parts. The final two LED's are housed in this section, and due to the hollow nature of the interior, the LED's are placed in such a way that they should light up the entire tower.

The last part of this section is the secon - and largest - motor block. This is housed between two large interior pieces. The two cannons affixed first are static. Finally, after threadding the LED connector through the base, the conn/bridge tower just snaps in place on top and we're done for now!

Next up, things get big. The following section involves putting together the last motor block and the infra-red receiver, and the three large constructed sections I have - the bow section, the main hull and engines, and the conn/bridge tower section.

With the next section, the hull should be largely completed, leaving only the decks and weapons to construct. This is half way through the instruction booklet, and coming up is section 9 of 17.