Pack 4 - Stage 20. LED lights, vents and grills.

[Mark, The Master Modeller]

Quite a lot to do in this stage.  We get the first of the LED lights, some grills and vents, a bit of deck, and we also get to install this first funnel.

Cut a grill 20H from the photo-etched fret.  I use a scalpel but a sharp craft knife blade also works well, but it needs to be very sharp.  Preferably a new blade.  The metal cuts quite easily.

We need the vent hood from stage 16 - not this stage!  Superglue the grill to the vent hood.

Glue this to the stairwell superstructure.  I pushed it in place, then applied superglue to the pins from the inside of the superstructure.  Capillary action will draw glue into the join and no risk of getting glue marks on the deck.

Take the officers' quarters superstructure supplied in stage 14, and fit the small piece of deck.  Again, I used a glue stick to improve the adhesion.

Take the LED board and test it with the test board.

Try fitting the board on the inside of the superstructure.  I found it wouldn't sit flat.  

This turned out to be because the LED wires were proud of the circuit board.

I clipped these flush with sprue cutters.  The soft copper wire cuts easily with sprue cutters and you get a nice flush cut.

Now the board fits easily.

Take the remaining vent hood from stage 14 and from this issue and glue the grills as you did the first one.

These are glued to the superstructure.

Take the two small hatch covers and fold them to match the angle of the hatches.

Now glue them in place with superglue.  

Fit the cowled vent forward of the funnel.

Next fit the antenna holder near the two hatch covers just fitted.  This is superglued in place, but only use a tiny drop of superglue.

Fit the two swan-neck vents on the starboard (right) side of the superstructure.

Fit the ventilator duct from stage 15.  This is superglued in place, but you may need to scrape excess paint from the pins.

Remove the smoke generator from he funnel and apply the plastic band to hold the wire in place.  The smoke generator can be put to one side now as it's not refitted just yet.

Feed the smoke generator extension cable through the funnel.  Note that the larger connector comes out the top of the funnel.

Feed the lower end of the wire through the hole in the superstructure.

Put the funnel in place and secure with 2 screws.

Now is a good time to check that the various pipes are laying flat against the funnel as far as possible.  You can remove and re-fit the with tweezers the get a better position in necessary.

Finally refit the funnel grill.

This completes the stage and the pack.

 

 

 

[ILLOGI7ECH]

I noticed when doing this stage yesterday that the LED board would not sit flat. The cause of mine not sitting flat were the locating pins on the ventilation hoods. These were too long and protrude too far through the superstructure. I just filed a small amount from the pins, so that when the hoods are fully seated, the pins sit flush with the underside of the superstructure and no longer touch the board. As always, do a test fit before glueing anything.I hope this helps someone that may run in to the same issue.

Cheers.