All,

Due to getting a new job, other points of turmoil in my life, I slipped into a year's hiatus in modelling.
I am back in the swing of things. My Tiger is essentially finished, and I have also resumed my U-boat project.
Really, everything was done on that except the deck gun and the railings--the most painstaking, arduous stages of the building process. As I have resumed, I recall how the difficulties presented by these stages in the building procecss have contributed to how my projects lost steam.
The problem I have stems from working with brass rod. It is is easy to make handles, even two dimensonal railings. But these parts are three dimensional. Specifically, the deck gun stanchions require one bit of rod, bent at a 45 degree angle, to be joined with a vertical straight piece--that two piece stanchion is then joined on a resin appendance at the side of the deck gun carousel. The problem is that CA glue either does not hold the stanchion in place, or if it does, the bond is very, very fragile. Also the braces fixed at the top end of the stanchions either do not bond, or if they do, fall off too easily. This is with the instant, super-fast CA, in the hot pink label. I find both the braces and the resin appendages are two small and delicate to try and drill a hole into.
This portends to even worse difficulties for the wintergarten. After several attempts at soldering, I decided I would try builing a Wintergarten with rod and CA. I have no doubt that attaching the vertical stanchions will not be too difficult, although painstaking. Howeever, bending and cutting the vertical stanchions, and then attempting to bond them with CA while fighting gravity--i just do not think it will work. One thing I am considering is using a hybrid mix of plastic rod and brass rod--brass rod for the verticial stancions, and probably also the top circular bar, and plastic for the middle horizontal stanchions, since plastic reacts better to ca, and provide a better bond.
Keep in mind that my job often has me working a lot of hours. The only time I have to model is on Saturdays and Sundays. Sometimes I will do an hour here or there late in the evening. The point being is that I no longer have the time and patience to spend hours and hours on some nightmare task. . .. I need a solution that is simple and that will work without having to fail a number of times before hand.