mikiek

Hey Chris - would a big box hardware store have that or do I need to go to a paint store? Better yet, have you got a brand - I can pick it up online.

One more post on my Niagara project - keep in mind it is my first build. The bulwarks are painted on this one and I am mostly finished. I say "mostly" because I find myself constantly pulling out the 000 detail brush and touching up spots here and there. When is good enough, good enough? The thing that is killing me is the outer bulwark planking (yellow ochre) on top of the gunwales (black). Two high contrast colors and the edge in between them is a little ragged. I have taped the gunwales and put down some additional yellow on the planks. Then taped the planks and put down some black. But the edges still look rough. Do I just stay at it? Is there a better way? I do emboss the tape at the edge. Someone mentioned using a clear finish over the tape and onto the painted surface. I am a little concerned about what that might do to the finish of the paint (all flat finishes). I know someone has the answer.....

Brian - I have been using Tamiya tape. It still occasionally wicks under.

Canute - this has been very helpful. Sadly I am not having an easy time pulling the mast measurements out of the plans. In general, is it possible that the diameter of a finished mast might be larger somewhere than the dimension of the mast slot in the keel? Hope that made sense.

Is there any rule of thumb regarding what size to start with? For instance the main is a 3/8 dowel. If I start with a square beam what size should that be? I realize just about anything bigger than 3/8 x 3/8 would work, but I'd rather not be whittling for the next month.

Philo426 - here is just a sample. I taped the entire bulwark wall (still primed) before spraying the red paint which is supposed to be what covers the 1/32x1/32 strips. Look at the painted pic. You can actually see the strips - my masking covered too much of the planks. I went back with a tiny detail brush and moved the green edge in towards the strips. Talk about stressful

I'll bet the pine your grandfather gave you was longleaf pine. It was a great wood for construction and it was all but decimated years ago. It was not replanted because loblolly and slash pine (what gets sold as yellow pine) grew a lot faster. Birch or maple should be pretty easy to come by at the big box stores. I'll just inspect the grain and get what looks best. Definitely something I can rip down to a suitable square beam and start from there. I may actually have to pull out the table saw. Thanks to all for your comments!

Thanks Jaager - that's good information. I'll take the challenge and go the octagon route. What type of wood has worked for you?

Jaager - this is a POB kit. I am about to start on the deck and need to at least get the scrap wood glued to what I was calling the keel notch. The instructions actually call it the mast slot - my apologies if that was confusing. I don't need to do the mast yet but I want to get the wood glued to the mast slots before I forget to do it. Due to that I need to decide whether to go with an octagonal foot (per the plans) or a rectangular foot (what most seem to be doing). If I go octagonal then the slot side pieces will be different to accomodate the additional sides. You are right when you say it will end up hidden under the deck, and personally for the foot I couldn't care less which way I go. My biggest concern was how to cut a nicely centered and even sided octagon or rectangle in a dowel. As druxey states I really should start with a square beam rather than a round dowel. The plans call for the mast to start out octagonal, then round, then octagonal so learning to make this cut is something I need to do. At the moment I just don't know how so I am asking for help.

I feel for you jazzchip! And I can relate. I am on my first build as well. No other modeling or woodworking experience. I went with a Model Shipways kit (Niagara) because after some research it seemd like they did a relatively decent job with instructions. Well if this is decent I would hate to see poor! The instructions (at least there are some) are at too high a level - they just glaze over a lot of steps. The plans use the description "typical" to describe a lot of structures. If you have never seen one before, what is typical? I am very grateful to the folks here at MSW. There are numerous build logs for Niagara and I have been going mainly by their pix.

druxey - I am beginning to see the wisdom in that. I actually followed that advice fo the rails. I have not installed any of those parts and as a result I really don't care if anything gets on to the base ceiling strip while I am messing with the bulwarks. A lot less fuss. As a newbie, I didn't realize how strategic a paint job can get.

I am painting the bulwark area on my MS Niagara. There several colors required and some very small areas to be painted including some 1/32 strips that are red with dark green planks butting up to them. I am using masking tape (Tamiya) and am having to trim many spots with an Exacto. Unfortunately, the knife (or more likely me) is leaving some slice marks in the wood under the tape. So question 1 is are there any better ways to trim the masking tape? Also, I would like to apply 2 coats of paint but I am a little nervous about leaving the tape on while the first coat dries. On the flip side it took 90 minutes of masking to do a 5 minute paint job so would rather not pull off all the tape, let coat 1 dry, remask and paint again. How safe is it to leave masking tape on a painted area? I would like to use some sort of straight edge when trimming tape. However with the model on a stand, a straight edge (small ruler) in one hand and an Exacto in the other ain't easy. Are there better ways of accomplishing this? Thanks in advance....

A lot has happened since my last entry. The outward bulwark planking is complete. I've done some filling and began the masking/painting of the bulwark planking. The outward planking went quicker than the inner where I was a adding a few of the plank end cover strips and then doing the planking for those areas. On the outside I did all the cover strips and then went back and laid all the planking. I seem to have a bad habbit of completely finishing out a small section of an area then moving to the adjacent area and completely finishing that out. I'm finding that to be very inefficient. I did learn an interesting technique when going about filling the gaps and uneven planks. I am using Tamiya grey putty as my filler. Rather than just dabbing the bad spots, I appplied a thin layer to an entire section. Before the putty has completely dried I wiped it down with a paper towel with some lacquer thinner. I wiped until I could just begin to see the wood coming back. The last few strokes were made following the grain in the planks - left to right in this case. Interestingly, the papar towel has enough roughness in it to leave a faux woodgrain. I thought it looked fairly realistic, and with more practice could get even better. There's a pic of this below. After all the filling it was time to get around to some painting. I was excited to get started with this - new airbrush rig. With all the ports and different colors Niagara requires a lot of masking. I was hoping to be able to use frisket in some places because it is applied quickly. However, I was never able to get a good straight edge so I ended up doing the obligatory masking tape (Tamiya) and trimming. As was noted in a post in another forum, it was 90 minutes of masking for a 5 minute paint job! I'm really pleased with the airbrush system. I got an Iwata Power Jet Pro compressor (very quiet!) and an Iwata Eclipse and Badger 200NH airbrush. I've still got a lot to learn, but man, the smoothness of the paint layer is wonderful! The Tamiya the paints that were included with the kit needed some mixing. The J.H. Green was darker that I wanted so I ended lightening that up with some yellow and white. It's still dark but better. The Yellow was almost a lemon yellow so it needed some adjusting. Adding fairly large proportions of White and Buff got me close to what I was looking for. All those colors are the flat finish. So I've painted the inner bulwark and today am masking the outer. I hope to get some paint on that this afternoon. The pix show quite a mess on the strip I used for the port ceiling. I have not yet added any part of the railing yet, so I still need to add an inner and outer side cap strip (Black) and then the actual railing (Buff). I went the route of leaving the railing off during all the bulwark planking and painting. This left a bit more room for fat fingers and I also didn't have to worry about masking it. It was a good move.

I did do some painting today and very much as Ulises said - it took almost 90 minutes to mask and trim (with tape) and about 5 minutes to paint. It came out pretty well but there is some touch up to be done. I should have some pix in my build log tomorrow.

There's bound to be a simple way to do this. The MS Niagara plans say to cut an octagonal foot and a matching brace. I think all the pix I have ever seen show rectagonal foot as wide as the keel with the braces being just flat scrap glued on each side of the keel notch. Either way, how do you get a nicely centered, even cut on the dowel? Firstly how do you measure it out and secondly how do you cut it? Inquiring newbie's want to know. I imaging I'll just go for the rectagonal cut, but I'd like to know how one would get an even sided octagonal foot? If I am not mistaken, there are several parts that are called for being octagonal.

Well I tried laying down some tape on scrap wood and then painting on the frisket with a little overlap onto the tape. The frisket takes forever to dry so I gave it overnight. Next day, tried pulling the tape off in the hopes that the overlapping frisket would come off with the tape. It didn't. So I ended up with little flaps of frisket hanging out into the area to be painted. It may have worked better running a knife down the edge of the tape first. It's starting to get more troublesome. Beginning to think I'll just do it the usual way - lots of tape and cutting around edges. The Tamiya tape seems to cut very easily.

David - great idea! I like the way you are thinking. I have finished the outward bulwark planking so I have the starboard bulwark covered. That means tomorrow is a paint day. I will be sure to give your idea a try.

David - what you are referring to is the frisket I mentioned in the OP. It can be applied with a brush, which I like. I am having some problems after the application, cutting straight edges with an Exacto. Same story with the rubber cement. It doesn't peel away evenly at the cut.

Ulises - good point. This is my first paint job so I don't know yet know how the time gets divied out. Philo - I am building the deck outside of the model so that won't be an issue, but I can see how some cutouts might be helpful - maybe even reusable on the port side when I get around to doing that. I ordered some wide Tamiya tape today. This will help make masking large areas easier I'm sure.

I've completed the starboard inward bulkwark planking on my Niagra build - my first. For those not familiar with the Model Shipways kit, the bulwarks and hull planking will all be painted. The waterway & plankshear will be red, the inner bulwark walls are green and the edges around the gun/oar ports are red. I'm hoping to be able to use an airbrush for as much of this as possible. Given all that, I assume there will need to be a lot of masking going on. Some of those areas would be pretty tough to lay down some masking tape so I've been playing around with frisket and rubber cement a little bit to see if I can use that to mask some of the areas as an alternative. Frisket in particular, can be applied with a small detail brush. My first attempt was on some raw scrap wood. That didn't work well as the wood seemed to soak it up and made it difficult to get off. Then I tried it on some primed wood and it worked much better - pretty easy to remove it. So I may use that in some places. I'm interested to hear what you guys think of this and any other suggestions you may have.

It has been a few weeks since I looked at the Niagra practicum - jbshan the site is www.shipmodeling.ca (most of the access is for a fee). I did so today and there are a couple of things I didn't mention in my 1st post. He uses 1/16" x 3/32" planks instead of 1/4" squares - no big deal there. He also uses the same strips to make a deck edging for plank ends to sit on. The edging is part of the completed deck and gets moved with the deck when it is installed in the model. Several of you mentioned the tumblehome, which as a newbie, I had to look up. I think for Niagra this will not be an issue. The bulwark planking either angles outward slightly or goes straight up. I think there would be plenty of room to drop in a completed deck. This is a point I will have to remember for future models. Jaager, your point on experimenting is well taken. What's the worse that can happen? I have to go buy some more deck planking. The experience gained outweighs any negative.

Thanks Mark - good point about using the specific forums.

Seems like it took forever, but I finally have the starboard inward bulwark planking finished. The pix show I still have a few gaps to fill at the bottom and under the rail. The planking at the bow was a lot easier than I expected. I just bent some planking before installing. One plank at the top had to be shaped to fill an arc shaped gap but that was not a big deal. I have been using Tamiya putty (grey) to fill and smooth some other places. I apply it with a small tool, then wipe it smooth with a paper towel and some laquer thinner. This makes for a thin layer that is easily sanded. I would appreciate hearing from any of you that can compare the Tamiya putty with other fillers. Getting worried that I may have built myself into a corner with regards to painting. Like many, I did paint the waterway & plankshear before installing them, but they got messed up with primer and putty along the way. So I have those to paint red along with the edges of the ports and the planking to be green. I would like to use an airbrush so I guess I need to mask and spray the red and then mask the painted part and spray green? I've been playing around with frisket and rubber cement a little bit to see if I can use that to mask some of the areas that would be tough to mask with tape. My first attempt was on some raw wood. That didn't work well as the wood seemed to soak it up and made it difficult to get off. Then I tried it on some primed wood and it worked much better - pretty easy to remove it. So I may use that in some places. The outward bulwark planking is about 1/3 finished. Although it is very repetitive, I am enjoying this part of the build. It's nice to get some of the frame covered up. Niagara is beginning to look a little bit like a boat!

I have been working on my Niagra model (my first). I have a practicum for this kit and the guy building it suggests building the deck separately and then installing the completed deck afterwards. A few of the steps are: 1. Make a copy of the deck from the plans. 2. On the copy, where the bulkhead frames show on the deck plan, glue a 1/4" square strip running across the deck right behind each bulkhead. So you end up with a bunch of strips to use a platform to lay the deck planks 3. On the real model, cut a 1/4" square notch in the keel right behind each bulkhead frame. 4. Build your deck over the plan copy on top of the square strips. 5. When you are done, pull the deck with the strips off the plan copy and install as one piece on the model. The 1/4" strips will fit into the notches cut in step 3. Does this sound reasonable? It seems like it would be a lot easier than reaching into the deck area on the model which already has the bulwark planking almost completed. I'm trying to think of reasons this might not work.

That makes sense. I'm trying to prime the bulwark planks right now so the target is about 1 1/2" tall and about 14" wide. So maybe one low pass and one high pass would be enough. I really thought the quick sprays would do it, but I'll give the pass idea a try.