The davits as they appear on the 1/350 Academy/Minicraft need some work in order to look more authentic. First however, they are sitting inboard from the deck edges too far (by about 3mm) from their actual location as seen in Titanic photos.

Parts required:

 

No. Req. Part
 
4
 Strips of planked Evergreen sheet plastic
18
 Small rectangular plugs 1-1.5mm in length x 1mm thick
32
 Pulled sprue microdots

IMPROVING THE DAVITS

Step 1 (painting davits).

Paint the davits and the lifeboat rests on the deck rail flat white while they are still attached to the sprue tree.

Step 2 (painting the davit support rail).

Now paint the davit rail that supports the davit assemblies the same color as you have used on your deck, again while on the sprue tree.

Step 3 (removing davits).

When the paint has dried, remove the davits from the sprue tree with a sharp hobby knife being careful not to snap the rail or Emergency boat davit `arms'.

Step 4 (moving the davit assembly outboard).

The whole 4 davit assemblies have to be moved outboard from the kit's suggestion by at least 3mm. You need to make sure that the outside edge of the worm gear bracket is -flush- with the outside surface of the superstructure wall. Just dry fit this to see what you need to do but DO NOT GLUE IT YET!


 

Step 5 (repairing the deck).

Before you can glue the davit assembly onto the Boat deck you will need to fill in the existing guide tracks for the davits.

Use planked Evergreen strips cut to the width of 3 `planks' using a straight edge and sharp hobby knife. Make them a bit longer than needed for now. You may need to clean up the tracks a bit if there is any flashing in them. If there is bit of plastic buildup in a couple of the corners dig it out with the tip of a hobby knife. Lay the 3 plank sheet plastic strip into the track butting one end up flush and then placing the other end down and marking it it with a pencil so as to know where to trim the slight overhang off. Leave a slight gap at the end of the trimmed end to allow for any slight expansion that might take place with changing humidity factors over the course of any given season. Repeat this trimming procedure for all 4 track planked sheet rails.

Step 6.

Glue each of the 4 planked rails into the old davit rail `trenches'.

Step 7 (painting the new deck repair).

When dry, paint these new planks the same color(s) that you used elsewhere on the deck. If you have cut these to the proper shape you will be hard pressed to see the sheet plank inserts against the rest of the deck . If it isn't perfect, don't worry as there are a few other cosmetic additions that will be placed on them such as safety rails, belaying bitts, lifeboat safety chains and rigging to be covered elsewhere in the Tutorial.


Step 8 (gluing the davits outboard).

Now you can glue your davit assemblies 3mm farther out from their old position. Remember to glue the Emergency boat davits (the ones swung out) to the front end just behind the aft side of the wing cabs.

Step 9 (painting the davit arm detail).

Once the davit sets have dried you can add some detail to them.

The arms had flared bases made out of metal with open spaces between them, The model just makes a solid triangle of plastic to represent these. You could file them all off and make new ones out of strips of sheet plastic or pulled sprue but you are looking at a tremendous amount of work. A simpler solution is to paint the open sections with light gray leaving the white border and center support sections there to give the same visual appearance.

Step 10 (adding the frame pulleys).

Pointing inboard on the end of each worm gear frame was a pulley that held the rope that was attached to the deck bitt that sat below it. Mike these pulleys out of microdots from pulled sprue and the proceeded to glue one to the inside edges of each worm gear frame end. You need two per davit x 16 davits for 32 pulleys in total. See above diagram.

Step 11 (repairing the davit/hull `gaps').

As a result of moving the davits flush to the sides of the ship it is time to fill in the gap between the bottom of the worm gear davit frame and the superstructure. Buying Tom's Modelworks or GMM brass railing kits will free up the A/M model's railing for use in other projects. This is one project they can be used for.

Cut small 1-1.5mm lengths from the outside railing bar from the A/M set and placed them underneath the davit frames as plugs to fill the gap above the superstructure. When glued in they were filed flush and then painted flat white to match the davits and superstructure sides.

GOLD MEDAL MODELS DAVITS

As seen in the EXTERNAL SUPPORT PRODUCT segment Gold Medal Models has come out with new 1/350 davits for the Titanic kit. While the product description can be found in this segment here are Loren Perry's own words on how to use them...

"The davits are all designed to allow a choice of two positions: stowed (upright), or fully deployed. When assembled, each davit will have a thickness of .020", or seven (7) scale inches. This is very close to the prototype's davit thickness according to photos.

Assembly will go as follows:

Each davit is to be folded in half and glued (or soldered) together.

Next, the top of each davit is to be curved to shape using the supplied template as a guide. When properly shaped, the pulley eyebolts at the end of each davit are twisted 90 degrees until the eyebolts are vertical

After this is done, the end brackets of the bottom plate are to folded up to vertical and the center plate is to be glued into slots in the bottom plate, between the end brackets.

Now the two pulley wheels are folded into position.

Finally, each davit is secured to the center and bottom plates with a short length of thin wire or stretched plastic sprue (not supplied) serving as a pin. The davits are now ready to paint and install."

 

 
 
This site was created by David Cotgreave January 2000