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Description
Been a long while since my Academy 1/700 scale RMS Titanic has been featured, a year and a month to be exact. Over that time, things have changed and I mean she's had an appearance upgrade.

So, what has changed? The first major change was to the foremast by fitting a United States of America flag, as she was reportedly flying at Southampton on her departure on 10th April 1912. The flag is the decal one in the kit but I'll be honest but me and decal flags don't get along as I had no clue how to do them and the instructions are 100% no help on how to apply them. I was about to not have her flying flags until I found a video tutorial on how to add decal flags to a model and the secret was none other than tin foil and a normal glue stick. I tried this out on a flag that I could replace in case I ruin it (HMS Resolute being made using the same kit but under the Airfix name came with the same decal sheet, so I had a spare) and it came out great, with the flag bent to make it look like it's flying in the breeze, held to the mast with super glue.

A second change is what appears to be a different colour to her deck over the painted Tamiya XF-55 "Deck Tan" that was recommended in the painting guide because it's not even included with the original kit. It was only late last year I ended running across the existence of aftermarket wooden decks for model vessels and I went looking for one for an Olympic-class ocean liner. I went onto ebay and found wooden deck for the Academy 14220 kit, which is the 1/700 RMS Titanic with the LED light kit and while my kit is product code 14214, it's basically the same kit but without the LED light kit (I do plan on doing my own lighting) so it'll have no problems. The deck was by a company by "Shipyard Works", which is a Chinese firm and do a fair amount of wooden decks for warships in 1/700 and the larger but also popular 1/350 scales. My deck also came with some scale chain for the anchors at the bow, which I'll add once I sand down the molded ones on the model. As of now, six of the eleven decks supplied are now fitted to decks of the model.

A big change was to the colour of the funnels by featuring a colour I had to make custom. The colour of RMS Titanic's funnels as well as other White Star Line vessels has always been a source of debate as we don't actually know what the colour looked like in its purest form. The colour was known as "White Star Buff" and while buff funnels with black tops (the reason was hide any soot from the coal burnt below deck) was fairly common, White Star Line appeared to have a more unique but neither a paint sample or a recipe for this paint has survived. This leads to several debates in the ocean liner community regarding the true shade of "White Star Buff" with photographs and postcards being virtually useless as light can be a rather funny thing but according to sources, it was said to be a "buff with a tinge of pink". The colour you see is a mix of three Tamiya paints (XF-57 "Buff" with a bit of X-17 "Pink" to give it that "tinge of pink" that was reported and when it didn't look right, a bit of XF-3 "Flat Yellow") to create the right shade using trial and error. Sadly, I had no spare or empty tins and as I made the paint in a mixing pot, I had to wash out my best attempt on "White Star Buff" and also didn't write down a recipe but hopefully in the future, I'll make the paint again which I'll put it in a tin and write a recipe. Once dry, the funnel tops were finally glued (they were already painted matt black) with the non-functional 4ft funnel glued to the ship at last. The other three are loose as they'll house smoke generators emitting black smoke to replicate the sooty coal smoke seen when at sea (holes in the ship decks and funnel tops were drilled for this reason).

Next time in an "update 3", she might have progressed even further such as maybe fitted with all her lifeboats or even the major electrical work.

Description
Been a long while since my Academy 1/700 scale RMS Titanic has been featured, a year and a month to be exact. Over that time, things have changed and I mean she's had an appearance upgrade.

So, what has changed? The first major change was to the foremast by fitting a United States of America flag, as she was reportedly flying at Southampton on her departure on 10th April 1912. The flag is the decal one in the kit but I'll be honest but me and decal flags don't get along as I had no clue how to do them and the instructions are 100% no help on how to apply them. I was about to not have her flying flags until I found a video tutorial on how to add decal flags to a model and the secret was none other than tin foil and a normal glue stick. I tried this out on a flag that I could replace in case I ruin it (HMS Resolute being made using the same kit but under the Airfix name came with the same decal sheet, so I had a spare) and it came out great, with the flag bent to make it look like it's flying in the breeze, held to the mast with super glue.

A second change is what appears to be a different colour to her deck over the painted Tamiya XF-55 "Deck Tan" that was recommended in the painting guide because it's not even included with the original kit. It was only late last year I ended running across the existence of aftermarket wooden decks for model vessels and I went looking for one for an Olympic-class ocean liner. I went onto ebay and found wooden deck for the Academy 14220 kit, which is the 1/700 RMS Titanic with the LED light kit and while my kit is product code 14214, it's basically the same kit but without the LED light kit (I do plan on doing my own lighting) so it'll have no problems. The deck was by a company by "Shipyard Works", which is a Chinese firm and do a fair amount of wooden decks for warships in 1/700 and the larger but also popular 1/350 scales. My deck also came with some scale chain for the anchors at the bow, which I'll add once I sand down the molded ones on the model. As of now, six of the eleven decks supplied are now fitted to decks of the model.

A big change was to the colour of the funnels by featuring a colour I had to make custom. The colour of RMS Titanic's funnels as well as other White Star Line vessels has always been a source of debate as we don't actually know what the colour looked like in its purest form. The colour was known as "White Star Buff" and while buff funnels with black tops (the reason was hide any soot from the coal burnt below deck) was fairly common, White Star Line appeared to have a more unique but neither a paint sample or a recipe for this paint has survived. This leads to several debates in the ocean liner community regarding the true shade of "White Star Buff" with photographs and postcards being virtually useless as light can be a rather funny thing but according to sources, it was said to be a "buff with a tinge of pink". The colour you see is a mix of three Tamiya paints (XF-57 "Buff" with a bit of X-17 "Pink" to give it that "tinge of pink" that was reported and when it didn't look right, a bit of XF-3 "Flat Yellow") to create the right shade using trial and error. Sadly, I had no spare or empty tins and as I made the paint in a mixing pot, I had to wash out my best attempt on "White Star Buff" and also didn't write down a recipe but hopefully in the future, I'll make the paint again which I'll put it in a tin and write a recipe. Once dry, the funnel tops were finally glued (they were already painted matt black) with the non-functional 4ft funnel glued to the ship at last. The other three are loose as they'll house smoke generators emitting black smoke to replicate the sooty coal smoke seen when at sea (holes in the ship decks and funnel tops were drilled for this reason).

Next time in an "update 3", she might have progressed even further such as maybe fitted with all her lifeboats or even the major electrical work.