I made a little more progress on the Aerial Flyer today, after a bout of gardening and shopping before the rain came in.
The underside got a dose of Pledge polish by way of varnish to seal the cardboard. I did toy with the idea of painting it but decided in the end it might get scuffed-up during the upper deck building process. With all that part of the vessel finished, I turned my attention to the top deck.
First up will be decking. I found a pack of craft sticks for 75c in our local Goodwill store yesterday, which will be handy for the job. Before this I planned to use basswood, but it's a soft wood and I want something more durable for a surface which will have figures placed upon it. I'll score planking into the individual sticks before gluing them in place. Once this is done the deck-house, boiler and gearbox will follow. I'll install a few portholes in the deck-house too.
Speaking of which, some time ago I bought a consignment of the excellent ship fittings produced by Tin Soldier. These include railing posts, searchlights, portholes and classic-pattern ventilators, some of which will go on the top deck. An even longer time ago I bought some naval artillery from the sadly now-defunct London War Room. A nice big gun of some kind will go on the fore-deck. I used the Nordenfelt and Hotchkiss rotary cannon on another project, but I think I can scratch-build others if necessary. An idea for aerial torpedo tubes as an alternate weapon system is also lurking in the shadowy corners of my mind.
I might crack on with a bit more work on this today, starting with the deck planks. Details and photos to follow another day.
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