Revell North Cormorant Oil Rig-03
Module 4: Well Heads and Drilling Platform
Module 4 is where the well heads are located, and it’s also the spot where the drilling platform will be attached near the end of the build. The frame for this section is constructed much like the previous modules, but with longer cross beams (part F) to make room for the drill area. As with earlier sections, I sprayed the frame in broom yellow for consistency.
For the floors and the top of this module, I imagined they’d be made from heavy metal plate in real life, so I painted them gun metal, darkened slightly with a few drops of black.
The well heads themselves needed a bit of prep—lots of seam lines to trim and sand. Once cleaned up, I painted them matt red and left them to dry.
A key tip here: don’t glue the well heads in place before fitting the middle floor. Instead, slide the floor in first so it rests over the holes, then glue the well heads in. This makes alignment much easier. Once everything is lined up, you can glue the middle floor onto its pins.
Next up was the ladder connecting the bottom and middle floors, along with the first set of safety rails. The ladders do not come ready built but are just a long length that you have to cut down to the size required & fit the side rails on after.
I found that 28mm gave the best angle for the ladder. For the hand rails, I recommend holding the rail against the ladder, making your first cut at a vertical fixing point, and trimming the other end as needed. It’s best to do one side at a time and let it dry before moving on.
Once the ladder was in place, I started on the safety rails. It’s easiest to begin any junction or turn with a vertical support, just like with the ladder rails.
I also added extra safety rails along the open sides using spare railing, cut and painted to match as there were no safety rails running down the open sides of this module, so looking in my spares box I found some railing I brought that were nearly to scale.. With the top floor glued on, Module 4 was set aside for later.
