Progress as of October 28, 2008

I have the entire boat deck done as well as the four funnels and the rigging that goes with them. I have not yet done the touch up on the paint. That will be the last step.

Bending the brass rails has proven much more difficult than I anticipated. The brass is so soft and bends so easily, it is hard to get mounted straight.

I've passed the halfway point now. I still have to finish the forecstle deck, construct, paint, and detail the entire poop deck, detail and place the masts, construct individual lifeboat davits, mount the lifeboats on the tiny, little davits, then do all of the rigging. Still have a long way to go!

Forecastle Deck

This is the forecastle deck of the Titanic. I am very pleased with the modeling process on this deck.

I had to cut the point off of the deck because the actual ship had a recess at the front where an anchor was stored. I then reshaped the piece I cut off, flipped it over, and glued it into place to serve as the anchor platform. I have put contour putty in the seams, but have not yet sanded it or painted it. I have an etched brass grille that goes over top of this.

The mast platform was not part of the model (the gray area by the big hole at the rear of the deck. I used some spare parts and contour putty to build this area.

There are a number of valves use to control ballast that were not part of the original kit. The brass wheels came with the after-market kit, but I had to fashion the posts out of spare plastic parts from the kit.

The kit's forecastle's hatch cover was flat. In reality, it was slightly concave with beveled edges. I used contour putty to shape this as well.

I still have to finish the anchor well, fashion an anchor out of spare parts, create a coil of rope or two for the bulwarks, and actually mount the forecastle.

Progress as of October 14, 2008

Here is my progress thus far. . .

I've since removed the incascent lights and replaced them with twelve white LEDs. I also replaced the thread provided with the kit for rigging with four lbs test fishing line which is close to scale. I paint it gray once I'm ready to finish the rigging as I did with the number 1 and number two funnels.

I have nearly completed the bridge, officers' quarters, and gymnasium. I used brass aftermarket windows that are glued onto the kit. I had to use a lot of contour putty to reduce light leakage. The Morse lamp stations would not assemble correctly at all, so I reconstructed them out of contour putty.

I added two vents on the boat deck. One is above the Marconi room and the other above the officers' lavatory. They are the dark brown fixtures on the roof above the gymnasium. I still have to add collapsable life boats A and B to the roof, then it will be done except for railings.

The compass station mounted on the roof of the first class lounge is also etched brass and was very difficult to bend and mount. The brass is very soft and delicate. The benches that are visible are also etched brass and, up close, individual slats in the benches are available.

I still have a lot of cleanup to do on the front of the ship before it is done. The parts were painted before I mounted them, and the contour putty has covered up some of this. I still need to do the fine sanding of the contour putty and repaint the Morse stations and the bridge.

Still have a long way to go. . .

Early Pictures

I started this model about four years ago. In that time, I assembled the hull, painted the hull, assembled A-Deck, painted A-Deck, the forecastle, the poop deck, the boat deck, the roof above the first class lounge, and the roof above the first class smoking lounge.

I also drilled each individual port hole and ran fiber optic cable to them. I glued clear plastic behind each of the large windows to give it the appearance of glass when lit and I wired it with two incadescent lights.

I then set the project aside for four years. These pictures are of the progress I made up until then