STEP 16 Fig 16 shows the hull assembled with the hole cut for internal wiring arrowed. At this point I discovered that the idea of pre cladding certain ribs was a really bad idea. The glues used weren't too good at bonding MDF to styrene sheet. many times during handling of the ribs the plastic sheet pulled away and had to be constantly re glued using a 2 part epoxy resin. This is a long time consuming process. I recommend that if cladding with thin sheet MDF before a plastic top coating do ALL the MDF first and then cut each individual piece of plastic separately. You'll notice in the following photos I removed most of the plastic cladding I painstakingly glued and reglued on over the last 3 weeks

STEP 17 Had a bit of good news from the laser cutter a few days ago. Parts for the 04 Fast Attack ship came back in included were 4 pieces that make up a narrow neck assembly for the 01 Small Freighter (fig 17).

STEP 18 So a new neck assembly means one thing. I had to pull the front hull apart to fit the neck. These pieces allow a "head, neck and body" configuration to be used. For this build I intend to use all the parts in the template so if you have been following up to this point, sorry about the changes. (fig 18).