I Get My Ship Together – Part 1

Where have I been? Have I been working on the layout? Yes, most definitely, although there have been some changes which I will detail in a future post. In the meantime, I wanted to write a sidebar series about a kit which I bought for the layout. It’s Sylvan Scale lake freighter. I looked around and couldn’t find a post or video of anyone actually building one. So I thought I’d try my hand.

The kit is a non-trivial build and is made of resin so right away, I knew it would be a challenge. Being made of resin means it needs special glue, CA (short for cyanoacrylates), the same type as Krazy Glue. The first thing I did was to wash all the parts since resin parts all have a mold-release agent on them, then I laid them out to dry.

Then I dug out the tools I would need. A good hobby knife is essential. I bought a nice X-Acto kit from Hobby Lobby, just over the border but if that isn’t an option, I have found decent sets of hobby knives in the dollar store too. A set of small files will also be needed plus some putty and, of course the CA adhesive. In addition I have a pin drill set that will be needed. I spent several minutes drilling dried glue out the applicator so the drills hav already proved useful. The kit had a lot of flashing left over from the molding process (you can see some in the photo of the drying parts) so I cut and filed it off.

The first step is to assemble the two halves of the hull. There are hull extension kits if you want to make the ship longer but I opted for the stock kit length. I filed the parts where the hull would fit together but after I glued them there was a noticeable seam. I applied some putty and let it dry. Once dry I filed the seams smooth.

With the hull assembled and looking okay, next comes painting. I gathered all various pieces I wanted to paint together. Next time I’ll go over the painting.

The assembled hull, ready for painting.