My God, how many leagues have past since the last update?
After completing the saloon and adding some HO scale miniature figures to represent Nemo, Arronax, and Ned Land. I did another test fit. One can never have too many test fits.
By this stage, I had completed the lights and internal wiring. So, I put the model aside and worked on the base. Which in itself was fairly easy to do. All I needed was a picture frame with a themed insert, an MDF collage picture frame from a craft store along with some balsa wood and dressmaking pins to help with the steampunk look.
Then I took the back piece of the collage frame and added the push buttons for the interior and exterior lights as well as the motor for turning the propeller. The 9v battery clips are an additional stands alone power supply for when I took the finished model somewhere to display without mains power
Once I had the wiring and power sorted I added the models stand via hidden screws. I also modified the stand to run the wires from the sub to the base. you can see the deep groove I cut into the back right support. The only thing left to do was fill, paint and weather the base. the channel was filled and painted to match the stand. The colours I used for the base came from my own blend of metallics, which were part of the base colours for the actual model. Of course, painting and aging the base was much simpler than painting the model itself. But I’ll cover that in part seven.
AJ. Adsett 