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Tim,
Standing further back would make the wire thinner....LOL. Are you sure it as thin as you think it is? You are not mistaking the shadow as the rigging. I been looking at that photo and it looks heavy to me.
Mark
Hi Mark,
It is the etch brass mounts I used for the footrails that seem to me to be heavier than they should be. Take a look at the footrails along the funnels of the destroyer Samidare:
The real footrails look very fine to my eyes, with the mounts for them being the same diameter. The 34 gauge wire I had used looks right, but the etched brass mounts are heavier. The fault is mine. Gold Medal Models actually identifies their brass mounts as "handrail supports" - the footrails and their supports were of a different design.
Before tearing out the offending footrail mounts I did some tests to make sure there was a better alternative.
Taking a scrap piece, I mounted the GMM fittings with 34 gauge wire as I had on the bridge structure. At the bottom I attached the piece cut from 1/400 scale etched brass railing, and the middle section was made from .010 inch plastic rod.
I painted the samples to get a better idea of how each would ultimately look.
The top piece looked the best for detail, but the mounts remained oversized. The etched brass rail piece at bottom was definitely the finest, but at this large scale it was evident that the flat etch lacked the round outline of the original footrails. The middle piece made from plastic rod turned out to be the best; it is a nice combination of the two, being convincingly three-dimensional yet fine enough to appear correctly scaled.
Associate Editor
