General Build Sequence of Incan Superior
Note: Most styrene has a slight cup. The convex side is the harder ”finished” side; the concave side is slightly softer and less glossy. Unless a large piece has a cup, such as on the camber of a deck, it is easier to glue the concave sides together when laminating. For smaller structures the cup is immaterial, and the soft side will finish just as well as the harder side.
- Cut the vertical keel at the front notch near the bow. Laminate the two bow pieces
- Center the laminated bow vertical keel. Glue the three bow sections to the bottom and keel so that the width matches. Alignment between sides may vary slightly.
- Laminate the bottoms and the sections. There are five center sections (ten pieces) of identical length. The slightly shorter section is cemented to the front notch. The shortest section goes in the last notch. The second shortest section goes in the next to last notch.
- Assemble sections and side vertical keels on the bottom. Make sure the front section that joins into the notched keel is square and glue. Glue up the sections from bow to stern. Slight bows in the side vertical keels or sections are inconsequential.
- Decide on individual rails in slots on the deck, or track laid upon the surface without the slots. A trick if you decide on slots: Lay about five strips of masking tape across the beam at regular intervals. Using tweezers pull out the slots away from the tape. The tapes will maintain alignment when you laminate the two pieces together.
- Paint the deck now, at least in the midsection under the superstructure, which will become increasingly harder to paint as assembly proceeds.
- Glue the deck to the assembled hull.
- Detach and laminate the eight traverse structures (16 pieces). Try to follow the note at the beginning.
- Separate the traverse structures roof spacers. Glue one each to seven of the traverse structures at the top. Precise alignment is not necessary; these will be unseen and are just alignment guides.
- Using your fingers on the underside of the deck to ensure vertical alignment, start joining the traverse structures into the cutouts of the deck. Using a trysquare and the roof spacers, proceed toward the stern, keeping things as square as possible.
- Glue one layer of the roof on, with the front flush to the front of the traverse structures.
- Trim any overhangs on deck, bottom and sides, continuing edges when they are not square
- Glue to hull sides to the bottom, sections and deck, using lots of masking tape. Alignment starts at the lower edge of the sides with the bottom of the hull. The deck will protrude past the rear of the sides to form a lip with a dock. The sides may droop a bit below the bottom at the bow–there is plenty of depth and this excess can be ignored or sanded off.
- Leave the top of bow unglued for now. Use masking tape or better a six-inch clamp applied from the bottom to securely glue the deck to the sides in front of the superstructure before the bow starts to curve. Let glue bonds firmly set.
- Glue one layer of the superstructure sides to the traverse sections. The rear of the roof (the 01 deck) aligns with the rear top edge of the sides. The bottom edge is misaligned with the rise in the hull sides. This will be patched later. For rigidity it is fairly important that most of the traverse supports are glue to the sides. Glue on the second layer, trying to form a smooth seam with the hull. Laminate the front of the superstructure and glue it to the front edges, using tape to close the gaps.
- Apply the second layer of the 01 deck. Then build the 01 houses as shown. The large openings are not glassed. The laminated roof (02 deck) overhangs at the rear (not shown here)
- Pinch the bow at the bottom. This may force the point of the deck upwards a hair to clear the anchor ports. This is perfectly acceptable, even prototypical. I find the pieces may overlap slightly: I glue them in place with tape than trim them later. Once the first layer is trimmed, use the same techniques for the second.
- Here are the slight misalignments that may occur, even slightly vertical. There is enough extra depth to sand off or cut off the protruding pieces. Some filler may be necessary to completely fill the gaps. I use small chevron shaped strip to reinforce the inside of the bow over the deck. Also show here are the bow bulwarks reinforcements which help smooth any deviations in curvature.
- Build up mirror image stacks. One of the sides for each stack is the other side and is shorter than the inner sides.
- Glue the rear bulwark reinforcements, then the stacks, then the midships reinforcements.Note the strips to fill the gaps at the rea of the superstructure. These should later be trimmed to match lower slopes. Note the upper and lower slopes do not exactly match.
- These are the parts for the bridge. Glue strips to the floor inside the other edges to support the “desk level.”
- Cut a small length out of the desk level. Glue the sloping fronts and sides (the acetate windows must be trimmed very close to the openings). Use the deck parts to reinforce the walls.
- Assembly of main mast, front mast and stack platforms.
- The walkway in front of the bridge.
- This shows the upper deck details. The rear stairs are strips of styrene glued to the edges of the superstructure. The davits are assembled from five pieces. The octagonal main mast house is assembled and mounted slightly overhanging the rear of the 01 house. The rear overhang is supported by four posts, and the mast supports are drilled through the 02 deck at an angle. I just eyeballed it and enlarged the holes as needed.
- The bow auxilliary hoists are slender rods drilled through for even slenderer rods. The location of bitts, vertical lockers, etc. is somewhat arbitrary. Also shown is a loading dock based loosely on that at Superior, Wisconsin
