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13 year old Devon's 1/350th scale Titanic


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Off topic? Well...not really. You see, every so many months we all bemoan the condition of today's youth and the shrinking hobby of model building and then we'll all start worrying about kids not picking up model building, etc. So you all should joyously welcome the addition of a cell-phone texting, Playstation game using, cheerleading, 13 year old into your midst. And a "girl" on top of that!

Devon - although 13 - is no stranger to model building. She has a pretty vicious appetite, easily devouring most of my limited stash. Devon though, has remained firmly in aircraft building. While she has used resin and photo etch before, this is her first ship build. A school field trip to a Titanic exhibit was pretty impressive for her and soon she was watching the movies. It was then no shock to me when one day she asked "are you ever gonna build that Titanic kit in the garage?" "What...a 'father-daughter' build" I asked? "No...me on my own." Ouch.

We opened the box and I fanned all of the Gold Medal and Tom's Modelwork photo etch like a hand of cards, showing benches, deck chairs and other sundry parts. "Oooh this looks like a HUD" she remarked while eyeing the deck chairs. Indeed...the chairs and their folding template resembled the head's up displays she uses on her jets. She was not deterred by the ton of etch that the kit will get. So we started out by mapping how she'll build the ship and then spent some time looking at the instruction book and other reference stuff I had. She decided that the ship will have a light kit installed inside. So welcome to chapter one: Prepping The Hull...

Dremel in hand, Devon drills out all of the ship's portholes. Once the holes are cleaned up and ready, Devon will apply the hull colors. Paint wise, Devon will be using a combination of brush and spray for the hull.

tit1.jpg

Most of the portholes are the same size, so that has cut down on her prep time. And of course, not being hampered by poor eyesight, her steady hand was able to knock out most of the portholes in a few minutes.

tit2.jpg

Switching drill bits, the next task will be the smaller portholes. Once done, the cleaning tool will be added to the Dremel and the flashed over openings will be cleaned up. Once all holes are drilled out, Devon will measure the plastic sheeting needed for the porthole glass. Devon will affix the plastic sheeting to the hull using Testor's cement for glass after painting is done.

tit3.jpg

Dremel work done, deck painting comes up. Brush painting with Polyscale Deck Tan Special is the order of the day. The humid Florida air dries the paint quickly and Devon is able to put two coats on.

tit4.jpg

The finished deck sections. At this point, all the sections have had two coats of Polyscale deck paint. She will then buff it and start on the deck plates. All of that will be painted by hand. Her color choices will be based on the color photos of the Fine Arts Models' 1/48th scale Titanic.

tit5.jpg

By the way, the kit she's building is the Academy 1/350th deluxe Titanic kit with the White Star Line poster for box art. The next phase will be cleaning up the lower hull and adding the prop shafts and rudder. Once that's done, Devon can work on the lower hull color and display base. Stay tuned.

Cheers,

Don

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Don, great to see a youngster not only building, but picking a great kit! Tell Devon I said good luck with the build. For inspiration, here are a couple shots of my Titanic build. This is an early version kit that I built around 1990.

hiotttitanica.jpg

hiotttitanicc.jpg

I would suggest using Kristal Klear or something like it for the portholes as opposed to clear sheet. I drilled out all the portholes on mine as well and the KK looks great and is way easy to use.

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Sure! By all means move it over.

Cheers,

Don

Hi,

Very nice, why not se if we can get this moved over to the Titanic Group Build?

Devon would be very welcome!

Have a look, here, I am one of the Build leaders.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Welcome Aboard

Nice work so far Devon. I'm going to be doing the Acadamy version, but I have a few Phantoms to rattle off first in that GB, but I will be for my build as I go, plan to start things moving shortly though as I do want to get mine finished in plenty of time.

Keep up the good work.

Dave

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  • 6 months later...
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