another update
today is the "hull day". again, this part of the ship needs a bit of precision, and there's another tricky passage: that central fissure or whatever it is, sorry, I don't even know why ILM guys made that crack in the front hull! even the prop is broken there
(clearly visible in this pic), and that part is composed of two separated pieces, meaning that even them had some troubles with it. considering the small size, I decided for two pieces too, but in the end of the building process there won't be any visible seam. the most important thing here is to cut and bend neatly that "gutter piece" (pic n°3): the thickness will be doubled gluing two element together, then the rear part of the gutter has to be slided precisely and adjusted in order to make it flat with the hull plate. at this point it can be glued with superglue (see the circled stain in pic 6): don't worry for possible glue flaws because they won't be visible from outside
while be sure to have glued it well. pic n°7 shows what I mean. then you only need to glue the remaining edges, and this is my advice: first, press them gently between your fingers and make the gutter line up with the purple line you see in the
last pic. now flip over the hull plate and glue the inner part of the gutter with superglue (pic 8). if everything has worked right you should get what you see in pic n°9
belive me, it's harder to write it clearly than to make it! once you glued one edge, repeat all the process for the other one and then for the other hull plate (pics 11-12). pic n°17 show a detail of the inner side of the gutter when it's mounted on framework.