First advances.
Since the Pacific ridges are cold and not active I decided to start from there to begin shaping the crust.
Part of the Pacific is now assembled, and the round shape is becoming evident.
This bit of work took me something like 2 hours and I didn’t even make it properly. It is not a clean assembly, and I couldn’t give proper shape to some of the accidents, so gaps are clearly visible, especially from behind.
I’m starting to thing that for a good handling of the model it would be better if I cut it in 2 or 3 major parts. Otherwise I’ll experience serious problems dealing with shaping some details. Question is: where to cut? I’ll have to study carefully the tectonics maps to make a proper decision.
As for the assembly, I thing joining strips are a good option for some parts. Even though they are time consuming, with a little care they can be very useful. But it is definite that they can not be used everywhere if the idea is to have moving plates in the model.
I’m still trying to figure the best way to make the intersection of the plates. Probably a good option would be to use loose paper strips. Or maybe not too lose. Or probably some kind of dove-tail joints may be also a good option, avoiding the use of glue at all.
Very interesting challenge indeed
