Portholes ready for paint

After the glue was left over night to harden I got a surprise next day when removing the clamps and one plate fell off. After checking that the other five plates were rock solid, I took a little extra thick layer of glue and fixed it again. While waiting for the glue to harden I continued to drill up the holes for the other portholes and then grind off to correct size with a small Dremel milling head.

When grinding with machinery it is very important to be steady and don’t have to much “help” around.

In order to avoid extensive measuring I made a small gauge which I used to check the portholes during grinding. The gauge was made according to the plans I received from Rene van der Velden and Bert Elbel.

During the manufacture I noticed that the original portholes were sligthly longer than the Graupner model and I made my gauge correspondingly.

I also noticed that the placement of portside portholes were slightly offset on Graupners ABS hull, but since I am cutting myself I, made my portholes in correct locations. As a result the Graupner recessed niches needed to be filled where the offset was to large.

After filling and sanding (400 grain) this was the result.

The portholes for the master cabin are now ready for paint and glasses but that needs to wait for the rest of the hull modifications to be finalized.

Portholes owners cabin

Finally I have started the modification to adopt true-to-original appearance. First item to receive my attention is the portholes in the hull. Three portholes on each side of the forward part of the ship

With the kit from Graupner you receive some blue stickers that are supposed to resemble the portholes of the original. I do not understand what made Graupners designer choose pastell blue, if you compare with the original it would have been better to have black stickers.

The ABS hull has recessed niches for the stickers where the portholes are located. My first check was to measure that they were in about correct poistion according to the drawing I have.

When measuring the locations of the portholes I could establish that they are in about correct positions on both starboard and port side. This was a surprize for me since I never believed that a model kit would take such notice about the asymmetric locations, but Graupner has located the portholes asymmetrically corresponding to original. Well done Graupner!

On the original the portholes are painted in the same color as the hull in order to have a surpressed look, this will give the hull a more strict smooth appearance. Some model builders have chosen to use a metallic frame in order to install windows for the portholes.

I have instead chosen to increase the hull thickness to about 4 mm, which correspond to the original sandwich hull thickness of 80 mm. This was made by using the leftover ABS sheet from the deck and prepare six plates which were cut and grinded to get identical sizes (looks better inside the hull). They were then glued to the inside of the hull.

Next step will be to drill and grind the portholes to correspond to original portholes. After painting, the portholes will get proper window glasses from inside, possibly with a white metal frame.