Looking at the underside of the aft deck house structure, the recesses have been added from 1 mm plastic sheet. Notice the port side recess has an angled front face, all the other faces are at right angles. The corners will be radiused when the glue has fully set. This work is good practice for what is to come; the bridge structure will need a lot more similar work to make it accurate.

This view shows the sides of the next level temporarily glued in place with a couple of spots of Cyanoacrylate glue. Missing from the kit is a passage under the helo deck. To make this, the areas outlined in red must be cut away. The floor of the passage is shown here in blue outline. Once the deck is in place, fore and aft walls will be required. These will be made using 1 mm styrene sheet cut to shape.

The aft angled walls also need adjusting. As the kit is designed, they follow the line of the edge of the helo deck, but in fact they are angled more steeply so the helo deck overhangs. The location ‘slab’ on the missile deck will need trimming to the correct angle, and the deckhouse walls will have to be cut at the angled join and reset. Finally, the aft wall, part A5, will need narrowing to the new width. These alterations are shown in green. Acryl Red filler has been used to smooth out the joints in the other modifications. Other modifications will include opening the windows and adding the flying decks cut away previously.

In this picture, the angled walls of the upper level have been relocated. Sawing the base slab away has opened up two triangular holes in the missile deck, but these will be covered by the raised floor around the Rocket Launcher bases, cut here from 0.5mm plastic card. The sloping edge butts against the angled walls of the upper deckhouse. The aft wall of the passage over the two recesses has also been glued in place, and the rear wall of the upper level (part A5) cut down in width and glued. The large piece of plastic card will form the flying deck, and at the moment it is over size. Once it fits satisfactorily, the edges will be shaped and structure on the underside added from plastic strip.

Here the raised floor pieces are in place on the missile deck and the flying deck placed on top to check its fit. The helo deck (part B13) has been trimmed around its rear and side edges so it drops into the new wall locations. This will be glued in place, but then covered with a new helo deck piece which will include a full-size floor for the hangar and details missing from the kit part. Some packing cut from plastic strip is needed under the flying deck to make sure it is level and can be attached securely to the walls below.

Flying decks cut to shape and test fitted in place. The sponsons (starboard item in place, port one on the work surface) will need trimming slightly in height to fit under the helo deck, and the passageway forward wall fitted between them.

Test assembly of the aft deck house with the stack, in place on the hull.

A new helo deck has been cut from 0.5mm polystyrene sheet, including the gun turret platforms, the tops of the aft missile blast screens and the extended floor for the hangar. Also the original kit helo deck has been trimmed in several places so that where the new deck overhangs it will be scale thickness. Joints made previously have been filled and sanded smooth.

In this picture the aft deck house and helo deck, and the stack assembly have been test-fitted to the hull. Before this assembly is glued together, the passage way will have to be painted as it will be inaccessible later on. Next job will be to fix the helo deck in place, build up the sponsons underneath the gun turret locations and fabricate the missile blast screen structure. The helo deck edges above the two windows in this picture, will need radiusing, too. Although not seen in this picture, a piece of sheet material has been glued into the large hole moulded in the main deck, to coincide with the recesses made in the deck house above.

The trimmed kit helo deck is glued to the new polystyrene sheet deck. The two rectangular holes have been cut in the old deck to allow the liquid glue to spread and dry evenly. This will make sure the two pieces do not separate in the future. Also there are some tie-down pockets in the helo deck, and these can be drilled into the new deck to give a good scale appearance.  The two small areas where the old deck projects beyond the new one, aft of each gun turret platform, will form the platforms for the inclined ladders from the main deck. These platforms are slightly lower than the helo deck, so this will simulate the step very well.

Final fit check for the helo deck before gluing it permanently in place. The walls and floor of the passage way have been painted, the helicopter tie-down locations drilled in the deck and the large boxes under the helo deck and forward of the gun turret sponsons have been added from styrene sheet cut to shape. Once the helo deck is glued down, all the seams will be filled with modelling putty and sanded smooth.