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How to Build a Model of the Lusitania

Constructed in 1907, the RMS Lusitania was one of the most famous luxury ships of the early twentieth century, second only to the RMS Titanic. It was the sinking of the Lusitania (carrying American passengers at the time) by a German submarine that provided the U.S. with a key justification for entering WWI. For these reasons, this ship has been a popular object of modelers for years. Modelers either use pre-manufactured modeling kits or build their replicas from scratch. The Lusitania usually comes in 1:350 size sets, which means that each piece is 1/350 the size of the original.

Things You'll Need

S.S. Lusitania model kit
Cyanoacrylate
Model paints
Tweezers
Magnifier
Carving tools
Computer Aided Design (CAD) program
Laser cutter

Instructions

- 1
  Research the Lusitania. Whether you buy a manufactured kit or fabricate your own pieces, try to find the ship's schematics and as many pictures of the completed vessel as possible. These information sources will come in handy in helping you to visualize the interior of the ship.
- 2
  Purchase a Lusitania model kit. This is the best option for those still relatively new to model making or don't yet feel up to making a model completely from scratch. Plastic model kits come with all the necessary pieces pre-shaped and there are detailed instructions on how to put everything together. The modeler need only glue and paint the pieces.
- 3
  Create model components. If you intend to go to the scratch built route, you have two options. You can physically create every piece by hand. Wooden pieces are carved and metal pieces are machined using precision tools. Another option is to use the schematics and photographs you acquired during your research to create 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawings of every component of the ship. You would then feed these renderings into a laser cutter to accurately reproduce miniature pieces such as masts and bulkheads.
- 4
  Paint model components. Do this before assembly. Pieces that go in the interior of the ship are almost impossible to paint from the outside. Also, if you paint the pieces separately, you don't have to worry about over paining onto another component.
- 5
  Assemble your model components. Cyanoacrylate is a good adhesive for building ship models. Unlike other kits, the Lusitania had no sails so you will not have to bother with tying knots in miniature rigging lines.
- 6
  Step back and inspect you work. Check to ensure that everything is painted properly according to your research and that the pieces are fastened properly.

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