"The Big Fitz" Detailing the Pilot House 1

December 2001 Mainly worked on the forward deck house this month. I did finish all major painting on all decks, even did some rough weathering on these decks. The weathering job is coming out better then I expected. I also figure out how to make the railing with not much time involved. I was not able to fined any pre-made railing of this type, so scratch build was the only solution. 

The 3 images here show what detailing has been completed. All the antennas, radar masts, railing and deck plates are done. Just some minor touch ups to do. The gussets for the lower railings are also in place. These I cut out styrene to 0.5 inch width, painted it the tan, then cut out each gusset. This was much easier to paint before hand then after they where in place. i then took a thin wash of dark gray to give some depth to the railing.  

You can see how well the railing turned out. I originally had the railing made with 0.035 rod that proved to be just a bit to thick. Even with the 0.030 rod I ended up using, it's still not to scale. The problem was being able to drill 0.015 size hole through a 0.030 piece of rod. Any smaller and it really gets difficult. You can get more information on how I did this here.

The steering pole was shaped from styrene rod, then heated and bent. I chose not to glue this in place so it can be turned out of the way during handling. The cables that hold it place will be glued from one side through the pole to the other side and glued. This will allow the cable to run through the pole to allow it swivel back out of the way.