The substructure sounds kind of boring because nobody will see it later. However, it has an important role to play... To stabilize the whole deckhouse with as little material and weight increase as possible. At the same time, this construction should make it possible to hold the outer walls of the decks. The deckhouse will later be removable for easy access to all parts of the ship's electronics.
The construction is similar to the frame structure of the ship's hull. Later, the walls with the balconies are attached to the skeleton from the outside. The advantage is that the walls with the balconies can later be printed in one position, which is very beneficial. As a result, the whole interaction of substructure and outer walls becomes a very light, yet stable construction.
On the balcony level of Deck 6 I added a small edge at the end. This serves as an abutment edge for the balcony cabins that will come later. I also prepared appropriate edges at the places where the bulges of the balconies are. I took the thickness of the walls of the balcony cabins into account, so that the cabins will be in the right place later.
There will be individual vertical struts that will later carry the brunt of the decks above. Here, too, the struts are placed at the points where the frames of the hull and the cross struts of the deckhouse base (deck 5) are located. The vertical struts are inserted into specially designed small slots and glued to the base. This all results in a flush edge with the small edge inserted on balcony deck 6.
In order for the vertical struts to remain stable, they must be connected to each other. This gives the whole thing a certain stability. There are corresponding horizontal struts for connecting the individual vertical struts. These struts connect the individual vertical struts. I added small tongues and grooves to the construction itself to make it easier to assemble later. Nevertheless, you always have to make sure that there is a surface on which the whole thing can be printed.
Because the frames in the fuselage are not all at the same distance from each other, the vertical struts are also at different distances from each other, which in turn leads to horizontal struts of different lengths. The horizontal struts, which will connect the vertical struts to each other, would have to be of different lengths. Since there was a great deal of confusion when I first printed the horizontal struts, I thought when I reprinted various struts that they could all simply be of the same length and then be shortened during post-processing. I also implemented this, which led to a significant improvement in clarity.
The front end is attached to struts in the back of the bridge face. At the stern, the construction is installed in the rear balcony cabins. This is how the construction is fastened from front to back.
The upper surfaces of the vertical struts are adjusted in height to the deck that is to be placed on it later. The balcony cabins will only go up to deck 11. The corresponding "balcony cabin panels", which then cover the framework from the outside, end below deck 12. However, the struts protrude to support the deck above.
You can clearly see in the picture that the upper deck area (deck 12) protrudes outwards. The "Anckelmannsplatz" buffet restaurant is located in the rear part of the deck in this area. In our model, this area is only indicated from the outside. The parts that are on the outside are later attached to the substructure. Only deck 14 will become an upper deck, which is why the struts below deck 14 have their upper edge.
According to the silhouette, each individual strut will support the surface of the resulting upper deck.
Next time, it will be the stern of the deckhouse. Thank you for your interest and I would be happy if you leave a like. Share the post or the entire BLOG page to exchange ideas with friends and relatives who are interested in model building.
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Here are a few impressions from the current construction phase.
Have a nice weekend!
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