BobG

Now that I'm satisfied with the painted hull and the clear coat I can move ahead with the build. I added the mahogany caprails today and gave them a coat of Satin Wipe-on-Poly, and, as with just about everything in ship modeling, it took me longer than I expected to finish them. The caprails are 1.5 x 3 mm mahogany strips and they needed to be edge bent to the shape of the gunwales before gluing them on. This is an older kit and all the mahogany is pretty dry and brittle. I traced the outline of the hull on the plywood sheet I do my building on and then edge bent them using a dab of water and an old, non-steam travel iron. It was slow going but, once I got them fairly close to shape of the gunwales, I went ahead and started gluing them on. I had previously substituted 1 x 5 mm limewood for the gunwales instead of the kit supplied 2 x 5 mm ramin. So there was only a 1 mm edge on the top of the gunwales to glue the caprails onto. I debated whether to use PVA or CA and decided to go with CA and work carefully in small sections as I went along the gunwales gluing on the caprails . Knowing that that I could easily make a mess of things with any smears of CA on the outer sides of the black painted gunwales, I worked in 1 -2 inch sections using a dental pick to just add tiny amounts of CA onto the top edge of the gunwales. Then I carefully fit the caprails so that its outer edge was flush with the outside edge of the gunwales and held them with light finger pressure for a few seconds. It turned out quite nice and I managed to avoid gluing my fingers to the boat in the process! Here's a photo of me edge bending one of the mahogany caprails followed by two photos of how the deck and the hull look now. The rudder is just dry fitted in place for the photos.

You are a braver soul than me, PJG. Kudos for getting a scary task done well!

Thanks. That's a dramatic difference in color.

I know this all too well! Seriously though, those canons and their carriages look excellent!

Glenn, if you have any pieces of pear from another kit that you can show side by side in a photo to show the difference in color between the pear and the boxwood for comparison that would be great too. Thanks.

Wow...those are incredible puzzles! My wife and I have done a couple of 1000 piece puzzles during the shutdown. She finds about 5 pieces to each one that I find though. I think that either those big puzzles would make me looney! Be careful with your beverages when you are working on a puzzle. I was lifting a string of 5 pieces from one side of the puzzle to the other and they buckled and fell apart right over my can of beer. Two of the pieces actually fell right through the tab top hole and into the beer can! I had to pour the beer out and cut the can open to get the two pieces out. The cardboard pieces were soaked and had delaminated by the time I got them out of the can. I placed them outside to dry and then carefully glued them back together with a glue stick so we were able to complete the puzzle even though it had a slight beer smell!

I love the little details that you are adding to your model. Those details are what make a good model a great model when they are done well. Nice work!

She's looking great! Excellent work.

Thanks, vaddoc! I've been watching some youtube videos recently about airbrushing clear coats. Many plastic modelers polish their clear coats to a mirror finish by wet sanding with very fine grit sanding pads or cloths (6000-12,000) followed by a mild, automotive polish that is made to remove very fine swirls and, finally, waxing with an a liquid Carnuba wax. I'm not looking for a mirror finish but have seen plastic modelers also polishing their clear coat with Fine Tamiya Paste followed by the Finish Tamiya Paste. That's where I got the idea that the Tamiya Pastes might be a gentle way to finish off the clear coat. The sheen on my hull looks good to me right now and maybe a little wax, as you suggested, would add a little more shine to it. It isn't quite as smooth to the touch as I would like it to be. It is flat and doesn't have any orange peel but it isn't quite as slick to the touch as I'd like it to be. There is just a slight friction feel when I draw my fingers across it. Maybe some wax would make it feels more silky...?? So I might try a little wax on small area at the very bottom of the keel as a test and see how it looks and feels. As always, thanks for your informative comments and your interest in my model. Cheers,

Hey Harry, I haven't decided about the mounting yet. I not too keen on the plain stand that comes with the kit. I've been thinking about pedestals but I've never done those before. It's certainly going to be "onward and upward" now. I'll be doing the masts and rigging after I get more of the deck furniture and fittings installed. I'm worried about the rigging since the instructions are essentially useless for the rigging and I haven't been able to make sense of the rigging drawings yet. I think I'll be flying by the seat of my pants for a while! Cheers,

Don't worry about "sidetracking" my build log. I enjoy the conversations and those folks who aren't interested in the chit-chat can easily skip ahead. I remember the Estes "helicopter" rocket. It was very cool. I built a bunch of rockets while I was studying for some state boards written and oral exams after my internship. That was a stressful time in my life and building the rockets was a great respite for me. I'd take my son and his friends to a large schoolyard and we'd fire them off. I love it when they exit the launching pad with that big WHOOSH! rocketing into the sky. The kids would yell with excitement and run after them as they parachuted back to Earth. One of my favorites was a 2 stage rocket with two big C engines in it. It went nearly out of sight and then slowed a bit before the second stage lit and then BOOM! it went out of sight. Unfortunately, we never saw it again. Those are fond memories for me. You might want to build a few for your kids when they are old enough to enjoy seeing them fly. Cheers,

Those rockets were exciting and fun except when they climbed out of sight never to be seen again!

I am pleased, Justin, it's been a bit of an ordeal. I just had a lot to learn. I agree, the satin is incredible! I can't believe how good it looks if that's the sheen you are shooting for. I've heard of plastic modelers spraying a gloss base and then going over it with matte. So maybe the old gloss blue on the rocket has something to do with how good the satin looks. The other thing about satin finishes is that they don't magnify tiny imperfections in the paint like the glossier finishes tend to do. You can see that in the photo of the glossier sections of the rocket versus the satin section. I wanted a near semi-gloss finish since I'm trying to simulate the resin hull that Eric Taberly made when he rebuilt the Pen Duick in 1958. I got close to that with the 50/50 mixture of gloss and satin but I think I it could have just a bit more gloss. However, I'm done and not touching it at this point! The only thing I might do is polish it a little with some Tamiya Finish Paste on a Tamiya Polishing Cloth.

Thanks, vaddoc! Success! My third attempt at airbrushing the hull and clear coating it with varnish is done and I'm happy with it. This has certainly been a learning process for me since this model is my first time painting with an airbrush. I made some mistakes along the way which required me to dig deep into my perseverance and roll with it without giving up but, in the end, it has been worth it. I did a test run today on an old model rocket I had in the garage that I had painted gloss blue from a rattle can many years ago. Vallejo Varnishes come in matte, satin and gloss. I wanted a sheen on the finish that was somewhere between satin and gloss. So I sectioned off the rocket into 3 areas and sprayed the first section with satin, the second section with a mixture of 2 parts gloss to one part satin, and the final section with a 50/50 mix of gloss and satin. I also added one drop of Vallejo Thinner and one drop of Vallejo Flow Improver to each drop of varnish and mixed it well in the airbrush paint cup. I lowered the air pressure to about 20 psi and sprayed from a distance of about 3 inches from the rocket using a .3 mm fan spray nozzle for a wider, vertical spray pattern since there is a lot of surface area to cover. I sprayed the varnish on fairly wet but nowhere close to risking any runs. I'm not sure how well you can tell the difference in the sheens in the below photo but the section on the right is 100% satin, the middle section is a 2:1 gloss to satin mixture and the section on the left (the nose cone) is a 50/50 mixture of gloss and satin. I decided that I liked the 50/50 mixture and that's what I ended up using on the hull which is shown in the second photo below. We all hate to learn through our mistakes but here's what I learned to do differently from the first time sprayed the clear coat and ended up with orange peel. The first time I sprayed the clear coat I did it outside in the garage. The air temperature was too warm and the spray was drying too quickly. In addition, I had the ears on the .5 mm fan spray nozzle cap in the wrong orientation which resulted in a narrow, horizontal spray pattern so I was applying way too much varnish in narrow, concentrated area as I made passes. This time I sprayed indoors in my airbrush spray tent and I switched to a .3 mm fan spray nozzle with the ears oriented for a vertical spray pattern. I also thinned the paint to a consistency close to 2% milk and added Flow Improver to help prolong the drying time just a little bit and I paid attention to keeping the distance of the spray gun to the hull consistent with nice, even passes while spraying. I would take the hull and inspect it closely after each coat of varnish to see how it looked. I ended up putting on 3 coats. It looked good at that point and I've learned that more is not necessarily always better in anything I do in ship modeling! Thanks to everyone for your comments and encouragement even when I was making a mess of things. It is much appreciated. Cheers,

It's a combination of getting the sheen I would like and protecting the paint. The acrylic paint never feels rock hard to me and, although the model certainly won't be handled a lot, it's easy to mar the paint finish with little scratches, tiny dents and even fingerprints. I considered leaving it alone but it just seems fragile to me. Another thing I've considered is using Satin Wipe-on-Poly over the acrylic paint. They seem to be compatible with each other from what I've read. I'm about to try to airbrush some varnish samples and I'll see how it goes.

Thanks, Harry. I plan to do a test piece just as you recommend. I used to build flying, model rockets with my son when he was young. We had a blast firing them high into the sky but sometimes they would catch the wind and float away to some other part of town never to be seen again while sending him into tears. I still have a couple of these in the garage and I've decided to practice varnishing one of them with my airbrush as a trial run. I'll be trying a combination of the Vallejo Varnishes. They come in matte, satin and gloss. I would like to have a semi-gloss sheen on the hull so I will try various combinations of the varnishes and see if I can find a sheen that I'm happy with. I really do not want to mess up the clear coat again. I've spent way too many hours already sanding and painting and resanding and repainting the hull to have it all go wrong again with the clear coat. I'm apprehensive about spraying the clear coat but the hull really does need to have a protective coat over the acrylic paint. Fingers crossed... 🙏

Thanks, Don. I've been following your Winnie build. What a gorgeous ship that's going to be!

🤣 Yeah, nothing like skipping the practice runs and just ploughing through until you get it right!

The first time I painted the hull it turned out great. Then I botched up the clear coat and, after another series of missteps, I finally have a pretty nice paint job on the hull. I'm going to let it dry thoroughly for a day or two and then I'll cross my fingers and try to clear coat it again. Hopefully, the third time will be the charm!

Hello Harry, Not much progress to report recently but the adventure continues. I've slowed down to a snail's pace with trying to get the hull painted to my satisfaction. I'm still working on my third go at it and I'm hopeful that this will be the last time I paint it. I've currently got the white and green done and will paint the black today and then see how everything looks. I'm determined to get it done well, not perfect, but very nice. I've found out that I'll never get it perfect! I think I have managed to encounter just about every problem, mostly of my own doing, that you can have when it comes to getting a perfectly smooth paint job on a hull like this one. I've encountered problems with orange peel, masking tape leaks and pulling up paint, airbrush clogs, and little flaws showing up in new places after redoing the painting. I ran out of the emerald green paint also and had to reorder it online and that took a while to arrive. So, long story short, I'm still afloat...took on some damage but I'm not ready to abandon ship! Cheers,

This is a wonderful model and you certainly did her justice. Congratulations!

She's a beauty and she looks very fast too!

Beautiful model. Well done!

It's great to see a build log of this model, PJG, and a waterline diorama to boot! I look forward to following along with your progress. By the way, Sea Watch Books has an excellent book on creating waterline dioramas: Waterline Dioramas - A Modlebuilder's Artform by Justin Camarata. I have it and it's excellent. https://www.seawatchbooks.com/ItemDisplay.php?sku=107002

I've been saying that I need to clean up and organize my small workspace for about 2 years now. Somehow, though, I never get around to doing it. I seem to know where most everything is among the clutter and, if I were to reorganize it all, I probably wouldn't be able to find anything! I have this model on the shelf and I am really enjoying watching you build this beauty.