¹⁄700

Spanish Navy Battleship PELAYO, 1895

The uprights I made of GMM, IJN Chiyoda parts, which had a hole spacing and taper that gave the right effect . I then added fine brass strip to each side to give depth to the PE and make it appear the massive structure that photos suggest it to have been.. I needed a number of pieces of small pierced girder for the fwd boat crane as well as the aft swing davits.

Unable to locate any PE sections remotely suitable, I resorted to making my own...having selected some ladderstock of the appropriate width with rung spacing about right for my hole spacing, I infilled every other 'hole' with white glue. When this had set I painted it with a thick coat of white paint.

The thick paint had the effect of settling in the 'corners' of the holes between the infilled apertures, thereby giving a passable rendition of very small roundhole pierced girder. These were cut to length, bent about and then married up with a piece of 1/350 ladderstock to complete the box structure assembly.

The outboard solid arms were cut from paper doubled over, so that I ended up with symmetrical pairs...this paper again was infused with CA to make rigid. Stretched sprue and scraps of PE completed the forward boat crane assembly.

For the aft swing davits, which needed considerable 'reach' to clear the tumble-home when lowering boats, I again used my home-made pierced girders, but this time cut them to a tapered section with sharp scissors, bent them across a hole, and then using stretched sprue added the upper part onto the davit. The final effect is quite pleasing and gives a good impression of the tapered davits.