The bridge is basically a finer component than what has been built so far. However, since the bridge fits into the building in this way, we cannot avoid leaving it out in any way for the time being. So off we went. Even if the bridge forms a unit with the front of the ship, the bridge took an immense amount of time to complete. Several printing attempts were also necessary in order to design the bridge in such a way that it would ultimately be printable and come as close as possible to the original. At this point, the model differs from the original in terms of window struts. However, this is unavoidable and cannot be implemented in any other way, since the window struts have to support the entire bridge roof and the struts also offer enough space to hold the windows. If I didn't do that, the whole construction would gradually become unstable.
At the beginning it was difficult to estimate how the bridge arch is dimensioned in the middle. The "tooth gap" in the middle of the bridge window is also present in the original, but it is not as noticeable there as in this construction phase.
To the left and right of the arch of the bridge, at the transition to the cams, there are two small open spaces, which are created by overlapping the front below. In fact, part of the substructure sticks out from under the bridge. This tiny detail cost me days of research work, since there are almost no pictures for this area and it is not really noticeable - or rather you don't really think about it at all. This is probably also due to the fact that the group of people who come there is rather small. For copyright reasons, I am unfortunately not allowed to show you the photo here. But the search was worth it, so I could be sure that the spot actually overlaps and therefore looks a bit wrong - at least if you look very closely. Above the bridge, my replica still looks a bit "naked". But I think the two are visually very close. Because my ship doesn't have any windows yet, the window struts are very noticeable and make the bridge look a bit more powerful. However, the dimensions are the same.
It is also noticeable that the windows each have a thick main strut and are alternately divided by a thin vertical strut. Of course, I also imitated that, which you can clearly see on my ship. In the original, there is still a "path" made of lattice mats around the bridge. I will only recreate this detail in the very last stage of construction. First attempts to integrate this directly failed due to the intricacies of the floor and the railing. The details became too thick and didn't make the whole thing look as elegant as it seemed in the original. It came to the fore, so I decided to leave that out for now. Here I may have to make 3D printing free items or wait for a new 3D printer to come in house...
I had to put the struts themselves in the appropriate positions and manually adjust the appropriate angles to get it to fit. Luckily the 3D programs have mirroring capabilities so I only have to do half and it ends up looking symmetrical. I had to insert small T-bars behind the window bars, which make the supports more stable. In this way, the bridge roof can be carried through the struts without hesitation. The windows that will be added later shouldn't be 100% permeable anyway, but rather appear a little milky and only let the light behind them shine through. After all struts have been positioned, I added the main control panels to the bridge and the small panels in the respective cams. Any shading in the later lighting could ensure that these then become minimally visible.
After the bridge was ready, I firmly connected it to the substructure and made a unit out of it. Incidentally, the straight rear wall of the bridge does not correspond to the original. Usually a card room sticks out here and the wall goes a little further back. But nobody would ever see that, so I straightened the wall there and made it a little thicker, so that it also absorbs the pressure of the bridge roof and the structures above it for the most part.
For printing, I cut the bridge roof, including the bridge front, into printable parts. I couldn't wait to start printing as the hull was already complete and awaiting further progress.
Printing took several days and also required some misprints. Because the background of the front front structure was also stepped due to the gradual increase in the bow, printing with a support structure was necessary here. However, the structures kept separating from the printing plate, which caused me a lot of irritation. I printed the bridge roof together with the supports upside down. It went so well that I was very satisfied with the end product. Here you can see all three in direct comparison:
Thank you for checking in. Next week it continues. I'll tell you about the construction of deck 5 towards the aft ship.
Have a nice weekend!
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