Murdo

That looks an incredibly neat build and very BLACK! Nice one mate!

Absolutely, and learning a lot too!

Pretty sectacular figures and scene, beautifully painted and posed.

Looking at this on my phone screen. It really is starting to look pretty spectacular. This will be an absolute cracker when it's finished!

Sorry guys, no great expertise here. I just looked through a few kits till I found sprue gates the right size and shape. The plastic bits I wanted were then just cut, drilled, any cowl shaping done with a tiny jewellers file and sandpaper. It's not really what you want if you need to make quite a lot the same size and shape, I was just lucky. Come to think of it, Bandsaw Steve made quite a number of very neat ventilators for his 1/500 "Carpathia" build this summer. I don't think he posted how he made them but I'm sure he could be persuaded. He's a chap with some great innovations. I'm pretty sure Kev (Longshanks) posted how how made them in his TID Steam Tug. I'm working down in Englandshire just now so no access to my modelling stuff (which is why Jura and Anonymous are stalled) but back home next Friday so will happily show you what I did then, if you can wait. <Edit> Just remembered, I have a very brief description on how I made some other ventilators with plastic and brass rod here:

As an example, two 1:350 WIP ships mostly held together by Blue Tack (you can see the grey / blue blobs sticking out) to get an idea of how they'll look and where further work is needed (Plus, I just can't resist doing it prematurely): Here, can just be seen under the Nav Lamps, Bridge and Funnel. Works great.

There's even plants under the pier??? WOW!!!

Blue (or White) Tack

Love the curves on that!

Looking really superb, Love the deck planking!

Thanks guys, very much appreciated!

Absolutely superb work sir!

Jura and SS Anonymous together for size comparison.

And the other wee ship - S.S. Anonymous: Made ventilators from drilled out sprue, painted and coloured red with a sharpie. The funnel has had an Aber PE "Hand wheel" glued on top, been painted black and has has a couple of wire stays fitted. There's also some kind of skylight (inverted L and square strip) behind the funnel. Anchor winch (and the two boom winches) made from a toothpick stuck in a Dremel used as a lathe and grooves cut in it with a tiny file. Twas then painted black and drybrushed with Citadel "Chainmail" (silver). The anchor chain was made from the same steel jewellery wire (which is very strong) as the boom cables. The wire was twisted round in a pin vise then placed on a large hammer head and bashed slightly flatter with a pin hammer. Railings are from Tamiya 1:350 Ships Railings PE set. Front piece just two bits of plastic shaped and drilled. A small Tamiya ladder was added to the front bulhead for access to the winch area. Had already managed to damage the tiny PE railing which was gently pushed back to shape with a scalpel. Masts and booms made from different widths of stiff gardening wire soldered together. Cables mades from Jewellery wire and blocks from SuperGlue Gel. A lot of it is still blue tacked together.

Sooo... It's amazing how much time runs away when one is enjoying one's self! Some update pics: It's taken a fair amount of work to get the wheelhouse to the shape I wanted. The front isn't a slanted shape, it's two seperate slants lika shallow L (does that make sense?) which took a silly amount of fettling to get right and in this scale I'm not sure it was anywhere near worth the hassle. I've inexpertly drawn a red line to show the shape here. Also took a while building the funnel but I'm not happy with the shape of that either. Needs more of a slant at the back and I've also noticed in a photo I was given (by David, her ex-Captain) that the funnel sits on a raised platform and doesn't go down to the wheelhouse deck so that's going to need some futtering as well. Made the Navigation Light placements from U Bar - one strip cut off so it's cut to an L shape and glued to the other U and a wee sliver of strip added to one side.