Antenna Towers cont.
Before I made the towers, I had to remove the kit nubs. I had already drilled a tiny hole in some of them to accept the stretched sprue. I was using some 0.042" styrene rod which exactly matched the diameter of the vertical antenna towers modeled in the aft of the superstructure. I drilled out the six locations for the towers in the gallery. I tried not to drill completely through so there was a "bottom" to seat the tower on when gluing.
I drilled a #75 hole in the end of the styrene rod and rounded it slightly. Then I took the thin styrene strip and drilled a #55 drill (0.042") hole and cut the triangular piece with an Xacto knife with part of the hole forming the base of the triangle. This gave me a curved surface that was the same radius as the styrene rod making gluing much stronger.
With the same styrene strip I made little, tiny right triangles that form the gusset. A very small amount of liquid plastic cement held it together. I made six of them.
To make painting easier, I drilled a piece of wood with the #55 so I could paint the tops and still leave the bottom bare for gluing. All of you must know that plastic cement only works on bare, not painted, surfaces.
Here's a brace of antenna towers waiting to dry and installation.
And here they are installed in the gallery. I'm still not completely sure about how I'll attach the stretched sprue, but I'm sure something will pop up. In real life there's a big, fat insulation that's tied to the bracket with some clevis and turnbuckles, the actual lead jumps around it to go into the bushing. I've thought about using a wound guitar string for the insulator, but am not sure how it will lie being much heavier and more dense than the stretched styrene. It might be possible to use a wound D string which isn't very large and CA it directly to the bracket, and then glue the sprue to it.
Lastly, since the aft towers were the same diameter, I used the same method to make a bracket for them. I started by carefully scraping the paint off from the gluing area, and using the styrene parts to fabricate the brackets.
Next time I paint this little detail, and then onto rigging. Looking at the drawings, photos of prototype and larger scale models, there are five horizontal antenna wires, and six vertical lines tying to them. Two verticals tie to one of the horizontals. There are then two additional horizontals that run the distance and then go further back to the rear towers. The real challenge will be the flag halyards since there are many of them.
Before I made the towers, I had to remove the kit nubs. I had already drilled a tiny hole in some of them to accept the stretched sprue. I was using some 0.042" styrene rod which exactly matched the diameter of the vertical antenna towers modeled in the aft of the superstructure. I drilled out the six locations for the towers in the gallery. I tried not to drill completely through so there was a "bottom" to seat the tower on when gluing.
I drilled a #75 hole in the end of the styrene rod and rounded it slightly. Then I took the thin styrene strip and drilled a #55 drill (0.042") hole and cut the triangular piece with an Xacto knife with part of the hole forming the base of the triangle. This gave me a curved surface that was the same radius as the styrene rod making gluing much stronger.
With the same styrene strip I made little, tiny right triangles that form the gusset. A very small amount of liquid plastic cement held it together. I made six of them.
To make painting easier, I drilled a piece of wood with the #55 so I could paint the tops and still leave the bottom bare for gluing. All of you must know that plastic cement only works on bare, not painted, surfaces.
Here's a brace of antenna towers waiting to dry and installation.
And here they are installed in the gallery. I'm still not completely sure about how I'll attach the stretched sprue, but I'm sure something will pop up. In real life there's a big, fat insulation that's tied to the bracket with some clevis and turnbuckles, the actual lead jumps around it to go into the bushing. I've thought about using a wound guitar string for the insulator, but am not sure how it will lie being much heavier and more dense than the stretched styrene. It might be possible to use a wound D string which isn't very large and CA it directly to the bracket, and then glue the sprue to it.
Lastly, since the aft towers were the same diameter, I used the same method to make a bracket for them. I started by carefully scraping the paint off from the gluing area, and using the styrene parts to fabricate the brackets.
Next time I paint this little detail, and then onto rigging. Looking at the drawings, photos of prototype and larger scale models, there are five horizontal antenna wires, and six vertical lines tying to them. Two verticals tie to one of the horizontals. There are then two additional horizontals that run the distance and then go further back to the rear towers. The real challenge will be the flag halyards since there are many of them.
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