MEPering

Welcome, Cindyp.  I agree with all that has already been said, but would like to add that a rotary tool is also a handy tool.  This is not absolutely necessary, since what it will do can be done with ordinary hand tools, but it does speed some tedious tasks, such as shaping filler blocks.  Since you are a beginner, I would recommend buying the tools you find you need as you progress.  I could suggest planes and chisels, but these tend to be expensive unless you are prepared to make your own.  But that too requires other tools... A vicious cycle.
 
The most valuable tool, I find though, is one you probably already have... And that is patience.  Wooden ships do not come together over a couple of nights of construction, but only after months.  I am not saying this to overwhelm you, but rather, to view each little task as a model in and of itself.  It is much more satisfying to complete a part and see it as an accomplishment, than to look at the whole and wonder what could have possessed you to take on such a monumental task.  For instance, view each individual plank as an accomplishment unto itself, and you will have a lot more fun, and will be more likely to complete the model.  I wish you luck with your first build, and look forward to you build log here so we can follow your progress.
 
Matt

Well, I finished my deck, and immediately got thrown into another situation.  And then another after another.  So Constitution is still on hold.  
 
But I got impatient.  Ship building, I find, is sort of addictive...  Coming from railroading, it surprises me how satisfying it is.  But I want my Connie to be as perfect as I can get her, so I have not touched it since my last update.
 
That being said, I was frustrated at not being able to practice modelling, so I went to my local hobby shop and bought Model Expo's "Fair American".  That was last March.  I finally started it around a month and a half ago, just to try my hand at various tasks that would be required for Constitution.  It really didn't occur to me to start a build log on it, but I notice now that there are not many on it. 
 
So Constitution is on hold for the moment.  The build of "Fair American" is coming soon.
 
Matt

Well, I finished my deck, and immediately got thrown into another situation.  And then another after another.  So Constitution is still on hold.  
 
But I got impatient.  Ship building, I find, is sort of addictive...  Coming from railroading, it surprises me how satisfying it is.  But I want my Connie to be as perfect as I can get her, so I have not touched it since my last update.
 
That being said, I was frustrated at not being able to practice modelling, so I went to my local hobby shop and bought Model Expo's "Fair American".  That was last March.  I finally started it around a month and a half ago, just to try my hand at various tasks that would be required for Constitution.  It really didn't occur to me to start a build log on it, but I notice now that there are not many on it. 
 
So Constitution is on hold for the moment.  The build of "Fair American" is coming soon.
 
Matt

The stem is now tapered for the most part.  I did not round it over yet, so that it showed up better in the photos, but also because I don't want it getting dinged up during stages before painting.  The sternpost should be a bit easier to taper, though I haven't done it yet.  It just doesn't have the complexities of the stem.  I am not sure how well the taper can be seen, but here are the pics:
 
 
 
I know this might seem to be a minor detail to some, but I think it is still a detail worth modeling in a ship of this size.  Most people aren't going to notice it, though, I realize.  But then again, I think if I am going to model something, it is worth doing it as much justice as possible with the visible parts.
 
Next update should see the stern completed as well, and the bulkhead fixing begun.
 
Matt
 
 
 

Work continues,
 
The main and fore top mast stays and preventer stays have been served and a simulated mouse created. 
The new main topgallant  has been placed and the stays attached.
 

 

 
Next up will be the main topgallant shrouds and backstays.

ok, its been too long since I have worked on the constitution. Time to get back to the impossible task! 
  Today I decided to work on the pin rails. Don't ask me why, I just felt like doing it. To do this, I had a few challenges. I noticed on the prints that the prints say there are 6 holes in the rail 4 round one and 2 square. 

But on the Constitution today has 5 holes. 3 round and 2 square.

I looked on other builds and they made 5 holes.
 

So after doing a few test, I found out that the pins simply are too large to effectively place 6 in the area required. So 5 it is.
So I made the 7 rails to fit on the second course from the top and drilled holes. I then varnished them with the only varnish in the village which was way too light, but I'm thinking it will get darker with age. 
 

 

Thanks for the likes folks.
More progress on the lower yards. I have successfully added the studding sail booms to the main and fore lower yards, after a little rework. I went to slip one of the fore studding sail booms into the inner bracket to use it to align the outer bracket, but it had a double bend in it like an S shape, which it did not have when I stained it. So, I had to make and finish a new one, which took a few days. It is all installed now. I took a bit of a short cut on the outer brackets, which on the real ship are two straight pieces that meet at a 90 degree angle. For mine, I just bent a single piece into a 90 degree angle. I have also been adding the horses and stirrups to these yards, and have started adding the jack stay to the main topsail yard.

The mizzen lower yard, or crossjack yard, does not have a jack stay since it does not carry a sail. For the yards with jack stays, the stirrups are tied to the eyebolts and hang down the back of the yard. For the crossjack yard, I first made the stirrups as loops around the yard, but I didn't like how they hung down. So, I went a different route here by adding small nails to the back of the yard, leaving the heads above the yard slightly so I could tie the stirrups to the nails. I then pushed the nails further into the yard. Here is how it came out. I still need to shape the stirrups so they curve around the yard so the horses are hanging down, not straight back. A little white glue and some clothes pins should  take care of that.

Speaking of jack stays, the MS plans specifically say to only put jack stays on the fore and main lower and topsail yards. Since I plan to put a sail on the three topsail yards, I was wondering how to attach the mizzen topsail to that yard, which I figured would be to just loop lines around the yard to hold the sail. But, I have the plans from the 1929 restoration, which clearly show jack stays on all the yards except the crossjack yard.
So, I am going to add a jackstay to the mizzen topsail yard and possibly the topgallant yard too. I am not putting jack stays on any of the royal yards as the eyebolts I have would look way too big. I will have furled sails on the topG yards and maybe the royal yards too, which would cover them anyway. I will have jackstays on the fore and main topG yards. Keep this in mind future Connie builders that the plans may be misleading here.
 
I have also started planning for making the topsails and the furled sails. I have sail plans from the restoration that I have pulled each sail out from and scaled them to model scale, so I can make paper templates for each sail. This will be done in parallel with finishing the yards.
 
Have a great weekend all.

Rigging the cannon has been such an adventure - particularly when the glue doesn't stick.  First tried to use wood glue to strop the blocks and attach the home-made wire bolts to the carriages and bulkheads, didn't work on the wire and tended to swell the blocks and close up the holes; CA also often would not stick and soaked into the ropes.  Will make for a real adventure when I have to strop dozens of tiny blocks for the rigging.  Stay tuned.
 

A bit more progress - dry fit the mast, added the columns in the hold, and tried out a figure from a 1:96 plastic kit on the 1:93 berth deck.  Nearly finished with the deck frames and waterways, almost time for the deck planking (still haven't figured out what will be covered and what left open) and then time to mount and rig the great guns!
 

Hammocks about as good as I'm gonna get them, I think.  Now to finish the deck framing for the gun deck.  Originally I was intending to plank over the whole deck, but now I think I will leave a good portion of it open so the berth deck and the hold are visible from above - just need to figure out which sections to do what with.  I do want to mount all 4 long guns, just to complicate things.
 

Starting to put in some of the berth deck furniture/fittings before I block my own way with the framing for the gun deck.

Decided to play with making one of the guns, and trying to thread the tiny blocks for the gun tackle.  Despite the best advise from several members on how to skewer those darn things, I had to be rescued by the Admiral.  Eyes like a hawk, that one.

Then I made the "mistake" of re-browsing some other cross-sections and decided to allow myself to be seduced by Modeler12 and his hammocks.  So I'm going to place another roadblock in my quest to complete this thing by the 36th Annual Northeast Ship Model Conference and try to make a couple of hammocks.  I bought some bits of cloth at Joann's, but we (meaning the Admiral) decided a scrap of old cotton sheet actually looked best.  Photo shows prototype # XVII placed to see the scale.  If I do manage to make something I like, I will post the method, but so far it ain't quite right.


 

At this point, the templates were removed, and new ones for the notches were put on the top surface. These were for the gunports and head access frames. These were delicately cut out with an X-axto knife with a fresh blade. Even then, I managed to crack one of the blocks near the big edge notch. PVC glue was used for the repair and I waited 24-hours for it to set to ensure a strong bond. These were then glued into place.

Bow Filler Blocks
I had anticipated that the bow filler blocks would go as easy as the stern blocks. Well they did…and didn’t. The initial cuts on the scroll saw went as planned, following the pattern on the templates. Removing the remaining excess wood took a bit longer than I expected. After removing the remaining bulk of wood with the disk sander, I was constantly checking the block on the bulkheads to see if a plank would fit around the curves. The one thing I feared was taking too much off or taking any material off in the wrong place. So, a little bit at a time, with constant checking, using just files, I believe I managed to get the proper shape. This took quite a bit of time. Patience, tenacity, and perseverance are the key.

Hello All,
Continuing along, I've turned my attention to refinishing the hull. I added the fife rails and pin rails to the deck, but decided that before I return any more of the deck details, I needed to get the hull done. It desperately needed repainting, but I was finding it impossible to get a decent job going over the old paint, so I stripped it all off. It went against the grain to do that and I know serious antique restorers would run me out of town, but I decided it was necessary to get a decent job. The original is not painted exactly as the plan indicates, but I've decided to paint it the way it was done to try to get some integrity to the original. It's black above the wales, then a wide swath of yellow and then copper paint below the waterline.
 
  
Here I'm working on the yellow - a couple more coats needed as well as some minor touch up at the bow. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this Model Master Insignia Yellow is almost exactly the same as the original. The hull has been beautifully carved and is very smooth.
 
I've also been working on the cannons and carriages. The cannons are brass, so I just shone them up a bit (but not too much). Even though I prefer them blackened, I'm going to leave them as is because that's the way they were done. The carriages are cast metal and the old paint was coming off in places. I stripped them all down and repainted them the same colours as the originals. I don't know if they're historically correct or not, but I'm trying as much as possible not to second guess the original modeler's vision.
 
So I guess that's enough excitement for one Saturday night. If you'd told me 40 years ago that one day I'd be quite content spending a Saturday night painting a model ship's hull yellow followed by Midsomer Murders on Netflix, I'll say you were crazy, yet here I am nevertheless!
 
David

Hello All,
I little progress to report. I've been working on a couple of things - the window frames on the skylights and the trim on the hatches as well as the masts and yards.
 
As I mentioned the window frames and hatch trim were made of card stock which I decided to replace with thin wood, but I'm trying to keep the appearance as close to the original as possible.
 
I made the window frames using a technique I learned in one of my Lauck St. practicums, which involves laminating the frames from two layers and using double sided tape. With the guide lines drawn on a piece of paper and then overlaid with the tape, lay the first layer on top of the tape. Then glue the second layer on top, but overlapping the joints. When the glue is dry, lift it from the tape, sand and paint. It works really very well. I used .5mm stock for each layer.
 
I didn't have any stock narrow enough, so I trimmed some down. I glued two pieces of scrap, the same thickness as the width I needed, to a piece of wood, with a gap between the two just wide enough to accept the .5mm stock. I then pared it down and sanded it flush with the two guide pieces.
 
Because I was fortunate to have received a package of replacement parts for this model, I also replaced the grating in the hatches. For this kit the grating is a thin sheet of wood about .5mm thick with the square holes punched through. Each hatch is a solid block of wood about 1/8" thick. The top is painted black and the piece of the hatch veneer glued on top. Maybe not as good as a built-up style hatch that is more commonly found in kits, but the scale looks pretty good and I'm not sure if you could make something quite this small using the more conventional means.
 
While I'm planning on repainting the bulwarks red, I think I'll leave the sides of the skylights alone as they have thin lines painted on them to simulate boards and I don't think I could redo them as well as these have been done.
 
I also did a little clean up on the masts and yards. Despite all the damage to the rigging, the only broken piece was the jibboom, which I couldn't glue together in a satisfactory way, so I recreated it from scratch. The main mast had come apart at the trestle trees, but was not broken and needed to be fully disassembled and re-glued. And a couple of the saddles had come free of the gaffs, and needed to be re-glued, but that was it, so they're now all ready to go.
 
David

narrowing the stock

making the window frames



 

I agree Popeye, a model this size with all the studding sails up would be very impressive. For me, a few sails is all I am going to add, though. I leave it as an exercise for future modelers to tackle that one.
 
It has been a while since my last update. With the holidays and the extremely cold weather we have been having here I didn't get as much time in the work shop that I would have liked, but there has been some progress. I blackened the studding sail boom brackets with Birchwood Casey blackening solution, which did a great job even on the solder joints. Then I tackled the stropping of all the blocks I need for the yards, spanker boom, and gaff, which was a lot. It seems like I have been tying seizings for weeks, which I have been. These little jars contain between 6 to 10 jars, one jar for each yard.


I then started adding the details to the spanker boom and gaff. This included the various blocks, some bands and eye bolts at the ends, and the stirrups and foot ropes on the boom.

I also started adding details to the lower yards, starting with fore and main yards. I glued in all of the eyebolts for the jack stays, except for the eye bolts at each end. This was a little tedious but once I got into a rhythm it went pretty smoothly. I did have to clean out each hole with a drill in a pin vice, as the finishing process closed up the holes somewhat. The tool shown is a needle holder, which I have to say is the BEST tool I have used by a lot for working with these tiny eyebolts. They can be used like tweezers to grip them without them flying off around the room, but they also have a locking mechanism when you squeeze the handles together which holds them very tightly, so they don't want to twist when inserting into a hole, like they do with tweezers. This tool that I bought was one of the inexpensive versions you can get on Amazon or eBay (I forget where I got this one), which works great, but I may invest in a more expensive professional version since I like it so much. I have also used it for its intended purpose, when pushing needles through things like glue hardened strops on blocks. It works great for that too.


Once all the eyebolts were in place, I seized a piece of line into another eyebolt and glued it into one of the end holes. I then threaded the jack stay line through each eyebolt. For the small blocks that fit on top of the yard, I had stropped them with small loops, which I threaded the jack stay line through at the right locations as I got to those points. When all the jack stay eyebolts were filled and all the blocks in place, I seized another eyebolt to the end of the line and glued that eyebolt into the other end hole. I left the seizing loose, and pulled the jack stay tight when the glue on the eyebolt was dry, then fixed the seizing in place.


The two larger blocks on each yard were seized around the yard, as they hang underneath. You can see the inner studding sail boom brackets have also been added, so the next step is to line up the outer brackets, bend them so the booms will be at the right height, then glue them into the ends of the yards. Then the stirrups and foot ropes will be added, and I will move onto the crossjack and topsail yards.

Transom almost complete. Just have to sand off some filler. You have to use a digital caliper to get the measurements correct. It took me about 3 hrs to get this part of the ship done. Complicated , but it came out perfect.  Take your time and double check your measurements, and make an angle guage for the end frames 3.
I got this cool little vacuum from my son-in-law for Christmas. It plugs in the computer usb port. Works great for getting the sawdust off the ship, and desk,lol.
 

Hi Tom,
   I did the same on my Constitution build, and it truly makes for a much more stable frame, and I would not want to try and fair without the braces.  It took me a couple of days to brace mine, using a pair of calipers to try and get it all exactly spot-on.  Looking forward to your progress and will be following.
 
Matt
 

Well, I finished my deck, and immediately got thrown into another situation.  And then another after another.  So Constitution is still on hold.  
 
But I got impatient.  Ship building, I find, is sort of addictive...  Coming from railroading, it surprises me how satisfying it is.  But I want my Connie to be as perfect as I can get her, so I have not touched it since my last update.
 
That being said, I was frustrated at not being able to practice modelling, so I went to my local hobby shop and bought Model Expo's "Fair American".  That was last March.  I finally started it around a month and a half ago, just to try my hand at various tasks that would be required for Constitution.  It really didn't occur to me to start a build log on it, but I notice now that there are not many on it. 
 
So Constitution is on hold for the moment.  The build of "Fair American" is coming soon.
 
Matt

Well, I finished my deck, and immediately got thrown into another situation.  And then another after another.  So Constitution is still on hold.  
 
But I got impatient.  Ship building, I find, is sort of addictive...  Coming from railroading, it surprises me how satisfying it is.  But I want my Connie to be as perfect as I can get her, so I have not touched it since my last update.
 
That being said, I was frustrated at not being able to practice modelling, so I went to my local hobby shop and bought Model Expo's "Fair American".  That was last March.  I finally started it around a month and a half ago, just to try my hand at various tasks that would be required for Constitution.  It really didn't occur to me to start a build log on it, but I notice now that there are not many on it. 
 
So Constitution is on hold for the moment.  The build of "Fair American" is coming soon.
 
Matt

It has been a few days since my last update, but my Admiral sprung on me that she wants a deck built on the bacl of the house, 12' x 30", and she wants it by the 4th of July.  Since I am a one-man-shop, this leaves little time for shipyard work.  But I did get just a little time tonight to check some things as I was beginning fairing.  I made a mistake.
 
My gun deck gun ports are not in the correct position.  The are very close, but they are still off.  This is a mistake, but it is not major, since I intended on showing the ship with ports closed in most positions anyway.  The way I positioned the ports was to use a 1/4" spacer to make them even with the top of the gun deck's bottom.  This did not work, since there is variance in how the laser cut bulkheads are cut.  Perhaps if I had faired the gun deck first, then this would have worked.  But I didn't.
 
In hindsight, I should not have assembled the gun port frames off of the ship.  Or perhaps I should have done it differently.  But if I were to do it again, I would assemble them on the ship, and then fit the laser cut backs to them.  This would have been much more accurate.  Had I done it in this manner, this mistake would have been totally avoided.  You should be able to see the variance in the picture below.
 
So how to solve the problem?  Well, it is more simple than it might seem at first.  Once the planking is on from the main rail down to those ports, then it is a matter of shimming and filing.  As I said, the error is not that much, and since most of my gun ports are going to be closed, this is how I will solve the problem. 
 
Now I could also go to an extreme and chop out those ports and rebuild them, but it is really unnecessary.  In most cases, this is only 1/32nd variance.  If you look carefully at the picture, You should be able to see that.  And it is just a few that are off.  I just wanted to throw this out there to warn people about using my original method.  When a ship sits in port, the ports are often opened to provide ventilation and drying.  My ship is in port with sails off for repair, but I am only going to show a few open, so it is not a major fix.  Just a warning to you who are starting this ship.
 
Matt
 
 

Actually, Geoff, the rivets go all the way through, but are flush with the back of the bulwark planks.  CA or super glue will probably be applied from the back to hold them in position, relying on capillary action to suck the glue in.  The problem with this is that it stiffens the plank quite a lot.  So heating the plank will be necessary to make it fit after the studs are mounted, and after the fairing has occurred.  This may be easier than it appears, since the copper wire conducts heat very quickly.  Brass wire would do so almost as quickly. 
 
This being said, I think that the bulwarks should be done on the interior of the deck before the external planking should go on.  This allows for mistakes to be removed more easily.  Of course, this means exterior planking, at least for the bulwarks, needs to be perfect.  Due to less curvature in the outer planking, I think this should be the better approach.
 
I wish I could get to the ship to test some of these things, but it has been so busy this summer, I can't seem to do this at this time.  Building this deck off the house is taking all of my time at the moment, and probably will through the first of July... Possibly longer.  But this gives me time to think, so it is not all bad.  As a first ship for me, I think I should be spending about 10 hours of thinking for 1 hour of building.  The building I miss though, and I shall return to it as soon as I can get to it.
 
Matt

Well, I finished my deck, and immediately got thrown into another situation.  And then another after another.  So Constitution is still on hold.  
 
But I got impatient.  Ship building, I find, is sort of addictive...  Coming from railroading, it surprises me how satisfying it is.  But I want my Connie to be as perfect as I can get her, so I have not touched it since my last update.
 
That being said, I was frustrated at not being able to practice modelling, so I went to my local hobby shop and bought Model Expo's "Fair American".  That was last March.  I finally started it around a month and a half ago, just to try my hand at various tasks that would be required for Constitution.  It really didn't occur to me to start a build log on it, but I notice now that there are not many on it. 
 
So Constitution is on hold for the moment.  The build of "Fair American" is coming soon.
 
Matt

Thanks Usedtosail.  Yes, I found the bow challenging. I'm glad how it came out.     Now on to the stern.   I figured it would be easier after working on the bow.. But I'm finding that its a real bear.
 
I've spent hours and hours staring at the plans trying to figure out the stern.
First I started on the filler pieces.
Marked up the R bulkhead with some reference lines.
 
 
G
Glues some blocks together to be larger than the shape I needed.
 

 Rough cut them on bandsaw to the approximate shape
 

 

Made lots of sawdust using a dremal tool and sanding drum and sand paper to get to the right shape
 

The lower tips broke off.  they get quite thin.  I was able to glue them back on.  But they are supper fragile unlit they are glued in place.
 

Before I glue the filler, started working on the counter block.
The counter took me awhile. and several attempts.    The main reason being I tried a different approach than the directions.
What I was thinking was to make the counter in two slices instead of 1 thick piece.  The lower slice was cut to a thickness that would make the top surface the same high as the gun deck.  What I was trying to plan for was the quarter galleries.  The floor of the galleries are at the same level as the gun deck.  I was going to keep the counter block wide and extend it out to include the floor of the quarter gallery's.  This would make positioning and building the galleries easier.
However after a week of struggling with it, I gave up and  went back to  and following the instructions after all.
Through all this...I failed to take any pictures.....
So I'll jump ahead to pics with the counter block and the filler blocks installed
 

 
    
If you look close at the counter block.  You can still see that it is made up of two slices still.   But the two pieces together still match the plans shape and size.

 
Next I added the 2  outside frames of the stern.  Actually I had to do this twice.   Uggg 
Again, I spent hours looking at the plan, measuring and trying to figure out how to position these two properly.
The difficulty being they cant inward, as well as its edge follows the angle of the  bulwarks on frame R. 
And because of the angles, you need to bevel the edges so that they sit flush.   
and of course both sides need to be symmetrical but mirror.
 
Well after all the planning, I glued them in places... they looked good.  so I walked away and let the glue set.
Come back a few hours later to admire my work.    All looks good.   But then for kicks...I take out the stern rail piece that lazer cut. 
This will sit on top of the stern bulwarks.    My bulwarks were canted in way too much and were too narrow at  the top.  didn't match the top rail piece,
Swear, swear some more.     Then pry the pieces off without breaking them.  (Thankfully the Glue was not yet completely cured yet and I got them off )
 
 
  
 

Soo Attempt # 2 I learned my lesson and made a template /jig to position the pieces properly.
You can see in the pic the actual top-rail piece that the bulwarks need to align with.  and a template with the positions indicated.
With the template,  the second gluing attempt was much easier and accurate.
 

 

This time...  much better.  And some batons in place to make sure the run looks good as well.   

 
Now, I'll let those dry.   And start planning for the next part.
As this is a 1812ish version... I need to pick the stern so that I can adjust the other stern  frames to account for the sternwindow configuration.
 
 
The big question 3 or 5 or 6 windows.
I made a copy of the plans,

and then a copy of the AOS stern versions.

Then after an hour playing with scale,  I determined the AOS picture scaled to 179% will math the ME plans.  Or close enough.
So I printed the AOS versions to the same scale as the ME plan.
 


C2/3 (1803 version)  and c2/4 (current day)  are both out of consideration.    But I used C2/4 to size and compare the scale to the ME plans.
 
 
At this point, I like and would be happy with either c2/1 or c2/2   they are basically the same except for the 1 extra window. 
I'll play around with adjusting the frames to see how I can make either of them work. 
Right now I'm leaning towards the 5 window version just because it makes the framing easier.
 
I'll let you know what I decide in my next post.
K
 
 

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year!
Over the past couple of days, I've begun my restoration of this old model. At the outset I didn't know how much, if any, of the rigging could be saved, but after some time with it I decided to cut it all out and start over. Where the spars are broken, it had become hopelessly tangled. As well many of the knots were letting go and the lines felt very brittle, so I spent the better part of a day of examining it and making copious notes before I cut it all out.
 
Next on the list was a thorough cleaning of the deck and hull. It was coated in decades of dust. In the process, some additional damage occurred, but in many ways, I'm better off having it all happen now as it's easier to repair then it would be later. The type of thing I'm talking about here is fife rails coming loose and the edging on the hatches and the roof on the skylight coming off. These were made with cardstock, so I'll replace them with some 1/32" wood.
 
I salvaged all of the blocks, deadeyes etc. by soaking them in some rubbing alcohol and releasing them from the lines.
 
I've taken stock of the repairs that have to be made - the main one is the chunk that's broken out of the port side bulwarks, some missing railing, missing cathead, broken jibboom, broken tressle trees on the main mast, fife rails, hatch trim and skylight roof, as well as return the cannons. When I received the model, over half the cannons were missing. However, over Christmas, I saw the friend who gave me the model and he had found them, so I have the full compliment.
 
I'm particularly fond of the deck on this model, so I am going to give it a coat of polyurethane to protect if from the likely possibility of paint, glue and/or coffee being spilled on it.
 
I had hoped at the outset that I would only be doing very minor touch ups, but the closer I look, the more I realize I will need to do. I think I will have to repaint virtually the whole model. For example, take a look at the photo of the yard below. I just can't return it with the white tip looking like that. That's a combination of a sloppy glue job plus 60 years of dust and cigarette smoke. 
 
David
the major damage is this break. Thankfully, the piece is not missing

the skylight roofs and hatch trim are made of cardstock
 

example of how it needs to be cleaned up

soaking the blocks etc. loose

the rigging stripped off - no turning back now

the deck is almost clean now, notice how the cardstock pieces did not survive the cleaning