Lake Victoria Gunboat - Part Two

With the main form of the superstructure of the gunboat built I undertook the construction of the detail work.

 

For this I chose to use plasticard. This included, three sets of doors, two deck lockers, two small wall lockers, three ventilation ports, three bulkhead lights and a set of steps. All, but the steps were fixed to the model, along with six 3mm washers with a 6mm diameter that I used for portholes.

Above, the superstructure with all pieces glued on and the steps free standing.

 The whole superstructure then undercoated black. The steps were also undercoated black. Two coats of grey were then applied, to both the super structure and the steps followed by a black wash. The portholes were painted brass. Finally the steps were fixed to the superstructure and the whole piece was varnished.

 

The fully assembled and painted superstructure

 

I then began work on the hull. I thought of using plasticard for this, but didn’t have enough of the right thickness on hand, so opted for card instead, using the card from the box of some Perry Russian Infantry. I did not want the hull sides to come too high up so I set them rising 12mm above the deck. I cut the strips and painted the inside edges black, then two coats of grey and finally to coats of varnish. Was done for two reasons; first because the inside edge would be impossible to paint once assembled, and second because the extra layers of paint adds thickness to the card – by the time I paint the same number of coats on the outside, the thickness will have increased by half a millimetre. I then glued them into position and used some dressmaking pins to hold them in place.

 

For the stern I again pre-painted the internal faces and fixed the flat piece across the back first. Then the sides were attached, pinning as needed. I left these to dry.

 

When they were dry I applied a small angled piece of card over the points were the card met, etching rivet marks as I had on the superstructure and glued them in place. I then filled any gaps with glue, pinned then some more as required and left it all to dry.

The lower deck completed.

 

The next step was the construction of the upper deck. The deck itself had already been cut from a thick cardboard, but I deepened the hole to the top of the stairway that was just too shallow. Next was the wall around the deck. This time I used a heavier card and using some vertical cuts I soon had it confirmed to curvatures of the deck. I couldn’t pin these so I used a tape to hold them in place until the glue dried. This is going to need to dry overnight before I smooth out the curved edges with some moulding compound. Finally I made a rough hole for the smoke stack and fitted the plastic tube of a ball point oen that will be the stack. This will eventually be held in place with some green stuff.

 

The upper deck walls fixed and the deck dry fitted to the super structure. Te hull still needs to have a black wash applied.

  

The next step is the wheelhouse, armament and other details.