Funnel Raised
Fortunately I had a resin funnel left over from the original castings, so I trimmed it on the Proxxon table saw and glued it onto the top of the bottom half of the funnel to raise it. This required putty and repeated sanding to clean it up, but it worked. For the searchlight platforms, on the Deutschland drawings these platforms are not square to the funnel and are mounted forward a bit. On Pommern, however, side views showed that the platforms seemed to be square to the funnel, so this is where they were mounted.

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Aufbau Railings
I admit that I have been dreading doing the superstructure railings since I saw my first photo of Pommern 6 years ago. PLM Marinedetails perfectly scale #82 Relingstütze, 11 mm hoch, dreizügig (railing stanchions three-hole) have very tiny holes .020mm for the railings or chains. They are perfect, but converting metric to inches is where I ran into problems. Canada, like Europe is metric. However, a great many of the commercial goods here are from the USA which uses the archaic (and painful) system of inches. So the .020 brass wire I bought would not fit, and I discovered that it was in inches not metric. So .020" = 0.5mm and no wonder it would not fit. In inches, what I actually needed was .007" wire, however, my experience on the Aft (rear) 'Admiral's Walk' using soft brass wire was not that pleasant. The brass wire was so fragile, that even a slight impact badly bent and damaged the railings. So I ordered .007" music wire from "Small Parts" (www.SmallParts.com) in the USA which came in 36 inch sections and was very straight and quite strong. Small Parts is a company I highly recommend for wire, metal, and plastic; great prices, incredible selection, and fast service.
Let's do it.
I wanted to use PLM Marinedetails #77 Ösenleiste für Reling (railing supports) which go on the outside edge, but unfortunately they arrived well after I had built and painted the basic superstructure. Putting them on would have done a ton of damage to the upper deck edge, so I chose to drill holes on the inside. Fortunately, looking at period photos, it appears that on Pommern, the railing were on the inside of the edge. That's my story, and I am sticking to it.

The first step, was to drill holes along the entire upper deck to hold the #82 Relingstütze (railing supports). Once the holes were drilled, then I started by gluing railing stanchions along the longest edge, and then threading through .007" music wire. The advantage to music wire, is that it is very stiff, so the railings, which were made from hollow tube, would be straight. The downside of using music wire, is is that it is very stiff and it takes a lot of effort and patience to get it bent.

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Back to the Pommern Index Page
Aufbau completion Intro / Three Deutschland-Klasse Versions / Masts / Funnel Searchlights / Railings and Canvas / Ladders / Gangways / Compass Platform & Davits / Fixing 8,8 Gun Platforms, Funnels, & Doors / Rain covers / Searchlights / Crane / Air Vents / Final Product