This is a battlers connection des Moines that I'm going to build. I have zero plans to make the guns functional. I'll do that with the next ship I build. I rough cut the deck already. I just don't really have a plan on attaching the deck to the hull
Hi Scott, welcome aboard! To install the deck you will first need to cut a sub deck. The sub deck sits under the deck and provides a surface for the deck to sit on and strengthens the hull. In general, you will have a 1/4” thick sub deck, and a 1/8” thick deck. This way deck + sub deck = 3/8” which is your allowable solid area.
Here is some shots of my furutaka under construction. Here I used a thinner sub deck to reduce weight. Note how I use magnets to attach the deck. The more common way is to use deck screws (don’t recommend) or tabs on the deck rim (highly recommend)
To cut the sub deck, turn your hull upside down and trace it onto a piece of plywood. Then draw a cut line 1/8” inside your trace (the fibreglass hull is roughly 1/8” thick - so the sub deck should be 1/8” thinner on both sides). You may need to put in some temporary struts to hold your hull in shape if it has folded inwards a bit (measure to make sure you are at proper width before cutting!)
All ships generally have their decks cut into multiple pieces which line up with the centres of the cross spars of the sub deck. If you never arm it where you put your cross spars doesn’t matter. However if you do even remotely plan on arming it one day, make sure your stern cross spar sits aft of your stern turret barbette so it doesn’t interfere with you servicing your guns. The forward spar can sit between the A and B turret barbette, and maybe put the centre spar aft of the stack.
Go to the for sale section on this forum. At the top there is a how to build a warship dvd for sale. While the dvd is no longer for sale on page 3 the whole video is available. That should give you some good advice.
To cut the subdeck put masking tape across the hull with a slight overlap. Cut the tape with a xacto knife along the inside of the hull. Take the tape and put it on your plywood. Then cut the wood.
