Many thanks guys!
Thanks Wouter! I'm relatively new at ships indeed (if you don't count my childhood years

). This is only my second project, having finished only this one yet:
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... n-700-mvg/But I'm always a diorama modeler at heart, whatever the subject! Besides, I find that many of the skills and techniques of other subjects and scales are transferable and can even be very enriching. They just have to be adapted properly to the different scale and subject matter.
Nicolas:
I'm just glad I'm not flying to the USA… I id that a couple of times with a box of models, and it's always nerve-wrecking!
Many thanks Milan! Your build is a big inspiration and set the bar for me!
Meanwhile, the island came out of the box completely unharmed, and I added the last details.
One last step-by-step:
I often see vertical ladders against masts, and they bring great detail. But with small and thin masts they can look overscale, and moreover the photo's show a staggered ladder (without verticals at the side) on Amagi's and Katsuragi's masts.
Greg Moczko's (Blackman) great Kirishima inspired me to have a go at this:
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... /index.htmBut he custom-designed PE for this (
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=155082&hilit=kirishima&start=180 ), which I am unable to do.
So I decided to cut it from PE mesh. I chose stainless steel mesh for rigidity, and first cut a strip from it.
Then I cut away every other 'step' on each side, creating the staggered 'steps'.

I first of bending the ends of each 'step' upwards, but it was just too tiny… For that effect, PE would be needed.
But after straitening and gluing to the mast, the effect looks sufficiently like I wanted, and certainly a lot more in-scale than a generic 'full' ladder:

And the last photo's of the finished island:


And one more to show the actual size:

Cheers!
Marijn