The top platforms for this tanker kit are also part of the Masokits etches - in fact, with the ladders, they're the main brasswork above the plastic tanks. Stage one is folding down the side legs, which takes a little care: there's no fold dimple at the tops of the legs, where they join the flat, because that would weaken the join, so needle-nose pliers and concentration are used instead:
This folded frame - I've left some etch scraps on temporarily as grips - is then positioned over where it will sit on the tank top and holes are drilled in the tank top through each of the three centre holes. A short - 1 cm or so - piece of 0.45mm brass wire is then popped through each of the three centre holes and the wires then pushed down into the holes, so that the frame can be positioned flat and centrally and the wires them soldered in place: you're using the tank as a jig, in effect:
I was a little nervous of soldering with the wires sitting in the plastic holes, in case they got hot enough to melt the plastic and fused themselves to the tank, but using a very hot (300C) iron and being
very quick, that didn't happen and this is the result:
This frame is then put back into the three centre holes and at this point, after wiggling the thing on and off a couple of times, I worked out that it's best to leave the the lengths of wire beneath the flat at three different lengths, longest at one end, shortest at the other, so the long one can be inserted first, then the middle, then the shortest:
With it back on, the bottoms of the six 'feet' are then bent outwards - and there
is a fold dimple for these folds - to conform to the tank shape:
Then another rather fiddly bit, drilling down into the tank top in line with each of the six outer holes:
This gives you nine holes int he tank top, each of which benefitted from a very light touch with the reamer:
Then, similar length pieces of 0.45mm wire are put down through the six outer holes and soldered in place - again, very quick with the iron:
I even risked a touch of solder between each of the six outer wires and the backs of the folded legs:
The tops of the wires are then trimmed (the middle three flush, th outer six to about 1mm) and the platform tops are slipped onto the outer six. That really was fiddly as the platform tops are incredibly delicate etches. I
slightly distorted one in detaching it from the fret but managed to correct it in the subsequent work:
As you can see, there's inevitably some lack of closeness between the two layer of platform at this point, partly because the vertical 0.45mm wire pieces aren't pushed fully home:
I was able to correct that and restore pretty consistent flatness by soldering along the edges of the platform 'sandwich' a little at a time, clamping each section gently in ceramic tweezers. I was even more nervous by this point about sending too much hear down the 0.45mm brass wires and fusing them, but the value of using the tank to keep everything correctly in place was so much more appealing than trying to solder everything away from the locating holes, so I risked it, pausing after each few mm of soldering to test by gently pulling the wires up and down that nothing had fused. I figured that if I did fuse one wire, it would be best to remove it and let everything cool down before proceeding, but in fact, that didn't happen at all - I should by the way say that the instructions suggest doing it this way!
And here's the end result, after some cleaning up:
And here's the platform in place, though I shan't fix it permanently until it and the tank are painted; the instructions suggest fixing now and pating everything together, but the possibility of clogging up those very fine etches attempting to reach underneath them to the tank top means I'd prefer separate parts for painting purposes:
