Step 2 (fixing the wheelhouse walls).

The interior wheelhouse on the model is that of the early Olympic, being more forward and rounded. The Titanic's was flat fronted and shorter so there was a clear view from one wing cab over to the other.

To fix the front wall trim back the deckhouse bulkheads (partsH20 A&B) by 5mm so that the face of the wheelhouse will sit just behind the imaginary line extending between the bridge wing bulwarks that become the aft side of the wing cabs (parts G28 A&B).

Step 3 (removing the molding).

Now you will have to trim the raised ridge on the deck that outlines the profile of the original wheelhouse.

You can do one of two things here:

1. The first is to cut and file off this raised curved front to realign with the new face 5mm back. You can also use the grinding wheel on a Dremel tool or similar. The idea is to not hack up the deck so grinding with a precision tool might be the easiest solution.
2. Just leave it and build over it. Once the bridge is built the interior tends to be dark enough inside that you can effectively "cut corners". Painting this platform a wood color and adding a GMM crew person or two can mask this area enough to save the trouble of trying to remove it without marring the deck. We opted for leaving it there and masking it. The viewer has to make a concentrated effort to notice it.

Step 4 (windows).

Now to make the new forward wall of the wheelhhouse.

Trim off 3 panels from the 1-bar A/M railings and part of the next panel, leaving the part with four 'tags'.

Add the new windows once the officer's deckhouse bulkheads and your trimmed wheelhouse walls are mounted to the boat deck.

Check the fit of the railing section and trim the tags as required. Now apply glue to the 4 tag ends and mount this on the upper half of the new opening between the walls.

The wheelhouse of the Titanic had five windows. To make a five paned window cut out the posts from the interior panels and glue them more outboard then trim off two more posts from a spare panel or pulled sprue to make new "mullions" and glue these inboard of the posts you just moved.

We just left the three as it is difficult to see in there, moreso when you add crew and instruments. Modeler's choice. It will be important to get the mullions right if you are lighting the model.

Paint the window frames dark brown.

Step 5 (forward wall).

This now leaves a rectangular opening beneath the windows to the deck.

To fill this cut a sheet plastic panel face to the dimensions of this opening and glue this underneath the windows. The panel will be approx. 15mm long x 4mm high if you leave the molding on the deck. 5mm high if you are grinding it off.

Now fill the small openings between the gluing tabs and the bulkheads on either side of the new windows with KRISTAL KLEAR.

When dry, paint them flat white to match the deckhouse.

Step 5 (adding the handrail).

There was a hand railing just below the windows. To simulate this glue a length of monofilament fishing line (or pulled sprue of equal diameter) along the face of the wall about 0.5mm below the windows.

Paint the monofilament dark brown first, then glue into place using a CA adhesive.

Step 7 (preparing the deck for the instruments).

• Note: We did not put the front bulkhead of the bridge (part J39) on until later in construction, this allowed a maximum amount of space to work on the interior of the bridge.

First mark the seven points on the deck where each bridge instrument will sit.

Now drill out six of the marks as follows:

From starboard:

Mark 1:	Drilled	Starboard reciprocating engine telegraph to engine room.
Mark 2:	Drilled	Either emergency back-up telegraph or engine telegraph from docking bridge.
Mark 3:	Drilled	Binnacle
Mark 4:	Glued	Wheel (NOT drilled, just glued)
Mark 5:	Drilled	Either emergency back-up telegraph or engine telegraph from docking bridge.
Mark 6:	Drilled	Docking/steering telegraph to docking bridge.
Mark 7:	Drilled	Port reciprocating engine telegraph to engine room.

We did not drill out a hole for the binnacle because it will be made of thicker plastic stock and sit on the deck with a more stability than the thinner based instruments around it.

Thanks to Mark Darrah, Bill Sauder & Bob Read for their continued investigations into the layout of the Bridge insturments.

Step 8 (making the instrument bases).

To make the bases for the instruments slip microrod up through the holes until they stand 3mm above the deck. These will support the various telegraphs and the ship's wheel.

Now tack them in place with a bead of glue on the bottom side. This makes them more secure for working on in the following steps.

Step 9 (making the telegraph instruments).

To make the telegraphs cut the 2mm diameter pulled sprue or plastic rod into 6 x 1mm wide discs.

For ease, work from the center out. Glue the center bottom of the disk to the center top of the poles in the following orientation:

From starboard:

1st Hole = Engine telegraph (port/starboard)
2nd Hole = Docking telegraph (port/starboard)
3rd Hole =Steering telegraph (bow/stern)
4th spot = Binnacle/Wheel (just glued)
5th Hole = Turbine telegraph (port/starboard)
6th Hole = Docking telegraph (port/starboard)
7th Hole = Engine telegraph (port/starboard)

Step 10 (adding the telegraph brass trim).

Make the brass trim from 12 gold/brass sequins. The sequins will be too big for the job so trim them off the outer edges to a diameter of 2.5mm or slightly larger than the 2mm disks you cut in step 8.

Add a drop of CA glue to either face a telegraph unit and place a sequin flush to each side. Repeat for each telegraph.

Now add one of Duane Fowler's Titanic telegraph decals to each sequin . If you are not using Duane's decals then paint the center of the sequin area black just leaving the outer edge the original gold color

Paint the sprue circle between the sequins and the pole it sits on flat white.

Step 11 (adding the telegraph handles).

To make the telegraph's handles cut off one 4 bar panel of spare GMM or Tom's Modelworks railings. Cut off the upright post between rails 2 & 3. This should result in two small rectangles. See diagram in step 8.

Trim the post ends off of one end of each rectangle to create a 'U' shaped piece.

Now bend the open end of the rails in towards each other, the result should look like a small brass triangle. Glue the point of the triangle to the center of the decal/sequin combo on the telegraph face and leave the other end sticking just slightly up and over the rim of the sequin.

Repeat for the other side of the telegraph and the rest of the other telegraphs.

Step 12 (making the binnacle).

This was constructed from two pieces.

First cut a piece of plastic stock 2mm wide and 4mm long.

Next remove some of the parts from the model's brass tree (A 1-10) now trim the tip off of one of the part holders so it looks like a half of a sphere. Glue this to the top of the 4mm plastic stock. You can elect to make this structure out of a single piece of plastic stock and paint the top of the binnacle brass. Modeler's choice.

Glue a microdot on either side of the brass half sphere at its base. See opposite.

Glue the unit in front of (the bow side) of pole 3.

Paint the base dark brown and the microdots one green and the other red. Leave the brass as is.

Step 13 (making the wheel).

Method 1

Use ship's one of the two wheels supplied with Tom's Modelworks misc set.

Method 2

If you have bought the improved GMM ship's wheel for the docking bridge the A/M wheel will now be free for this project. The A/M's wheel not to scale and will not as noticeable if placed in the bridge area.

Trim the A/M wheel off the docking bridge instrument `cluster' and then glue on to pole No 3 aft of the binnacle.

Paint the pole flat white and the wheel a dark brown.

Step 14 (making the step/platform).

There was a small step/platform on the deck floor to the center/stern of the steering telegraph (pole No3).

Cut a rectangle of ribbed sheet plastic 4mm long x 2mm wide and glue this into position.

Paint dark brown.

Step 15 (making the wheelhouse roof support pillars).

Cut two 8mm lengths of pulled sprue 0.75mm in diameter and glue to the bridge deck as seen in the Bridge diagram above.

Paint dark brown.

Step 16 (making the chart box).

On the inboard portside of the bridge wall aft of the window by the walkway opening was a (chart?) box on the wall.

Cut plastic sprue tree stock and sand it square until it is 2.5 high x 2.5mm long x 2mm wide. Then file the top to a 30 degree angle sloping forward. Glue onto the wall with the bottom of the box equal to the bottom sill of the window.

Paint leather brown.

Step 17 (making the table).

Cut a small rectangle of ribbed sheet plastic 3mm long x 2mm wide.

Next cut two 2.5mm lengths of 0.75mm diameter pulled sprue.

Flip the sheet plastic over so the ribs are facing down and the smooth bottom is facing up and glue one pulled sprue `leg' to each front corner.

When dry flip the `table' over and glue to the inboard starboard wall aft of the window with the legs to the front and the table's top along the wall.

Paint leather brown.

Step 18 (adding the window weather covers).

On the inside of the Navigation bridge underneath the windows were protective weather covers for each window. These can be seen on the Olympic in the photograph on page 106 of Leo Marriott's Titanic.

To make these cut an Evergreen strip to a length of 24mm x 1.5mm wide. Hold this up to the outside of the bridge windows and mark off the window layout with a pencil. Then paint each marked area brown with white spaces between them. See Bridge diagram above.

When dry, use the tip of a toothpick dipped in flat white and paint a dot in the center of each brown square to simulate the small storm `porthole'. When dry, glue this strip to the inside of J39 underneath the windows. These portholes were used in "...extreme weather conditions and not compromise breaking the glass from wind, hail, waves, etc." (Dan Cherry).

Also add a single cover for each window on the port and starboard side of the bridge. Either paint directly onto the inside wall underneath the window or fashion from sheet plastic.

Dan Cherry offers this alternative method:

"I painted the entire lower half under the windows flat dark brown. Once dry, paint thin white lines that continue from the areas between the windows to the floor. You will at this point have dark brown squares under the windows. Paint a white dot in the center of each square. Refer to page 86 of The Last Days of Titanic to see the exact pattern".

Step 19 (painting the front window frames).

Paint the inside frames of the bow facing windows with brown trim leaving white between each window on the outside.

Step 20 (adding the glass to the bow windows).

Cut a strip of clear acetate 24mm in length x 5mm wide. Glue this to the inside of the bridge windows on part J39 with small beads of model glue applied sparingly along the top and bottom `sill' area.

Step 21 (replacing the bridge roof).

The Titanic's roof was planked and not white as seen on the Olympic. T

You can scribe the model's smooth bridge roof but we found it much easier to cut the roof off of the deckhouse section (part I3) and fabricate a new one from Evergreen planked/ribbed sheet plastic.

Cut a rectangle 27.55mm in width (port/starboard) and 22.5mm in length (bow/stern). Make sure that the planking is running bow to stern on the sheet plastic.

Either paint the sheet plastic to match the decking color(s) used or paint gray (see UPDATE below).

After the Boat deck and A deck have been glued together and J39 has been added glue the improved roof panel into place.

Now glue Evergreen plastic around the perimeter of the new roof to simulate the white border.

Trim the outside edges trimmed with dark brown.

UPDATE:

Recent discussions with Bruce Beveridge has uncovered the possibility that the roof may have had a bitumen layered canvas cover over it to protect from weather.

The idea surfaced from discussions he had with Everett Viez where Mr. Viez had described the use of canvas on the wing cab roofs of the Olympic. No CLEAR photo of the roof of the Titanic Bridge is available, but a less clear one indicates that this is entirely plausible based on Olympic practices. This would indicate then that the bridge roof should be grey on the Titanic with white trim as depicted by James Cameron on his giant movie set visible during the sinking scenes. We personally are opting for the grey roof idea but leave both options open to the modeler until something definite becomes known on this subject. Evidence favors grey though.

The same would hold true for the roof of the second class entrance. Its roof and that of the elevator room above it should be grey if it was also bitumen covered canvas. These are not givens to date, but high percentage bets that are as least as sound with traditional BELIEFS.

Step 22 (improving the bridge port/starboard windows).

To make a window frame for the bridge's port and starboard windows cut two single panels of the 1-bar A/M railing kit and paint dark brown.

Next glue these to a sheet of clear acetate. When dry trim the acetate flush to the frame. Now glue the new glassed window frames to each side of the bride over top of the model's windows.

Step 23 (adding the handles on the bridge walls).

• Note: Though there is no definite photo evidence, we assume there was also one on the starboard side so repeat the process

Step 24 (adding the plates).

There are four black plates along the bridge roof soffits (eaves) over the open walkway port and starboard. As the bridge roof had no internal wall support in this area, reinforcing joists are seen on the inside that cover this span. The joists appear to be connect to the soffits with right angled brackets as can be seen in Ken Marschall's painting on page 85 of Don Lynch's 'Illustrated History'.

If you look at page 39 of Leo Marriott's 'Titanic' you will notice a slight overhang where these plates are, so we think that they are some type of reinforcement to the header. The plates may either be how the header is attached or they could provide a means to hang some kind of cover (solid or canvas) for the bridge during inclement weather.

Add these plates to the soffits by dabbing a fine tipped brush into flat black paint and touching it lightly in the positions seen in the painting and actual Titanic photographs.