gjdale

That looks fabulous Glen. Congratulations and well done!

A Minor Setback… In painting these parts, there are a few components that are called out as “unpainted - polished metal”. Okay, no problem…. The parts circled in the photo below are the Crankshaft Sleeves – they secure the Flywheel crankshaft to the Mainframe. These are some of those “polished metal” parts. I thought the easiest way to polish these would be to mount them on a mandrel and then chuck the mandrel in my rotary tool for quick and easy polishing. I found an appropriate piece of brass rod in my stash to use as a mandrel and secured them using a touch of CA glue, figuring I’ll just de-bond them from the mandrel after polishing using Acetone. Great theory. After polishing them, I gave them a good soak in Acetone and then tried to separate them from the mandrel – no dice. Then I remembered that when I was building the steering wheel from my Chris Craft runabout, I had done this numerous times by heating the brass parts to de-bond the CA. Great, I thought, I’ll do that……forgetting that I was working with Britannia metal and not just brass. Here is the result of that ill-fated decision: After calling myself all sorts of names that amounted to: “you fool!”, I had no choice but to make these parts from scratch. Fortunately, I had a piece of ¼” Aluminium rod in my stash that was exactly the right diameter for the outer ends. I was able to take some measurements off the drawings and after about an hour at the lathe I was able to come up with these replacements: Of course, I polished these while they were still on the lathe… Painting has been progressing well, albeit slowly. It seems to take longer to do the masking up than the actual painting as some of the pieces require two or more colour combinations. More pics once painting is complete.

Nice to see you back at this lovely model Bob. I look forward to seeing you finish her.

Seat Structure and Flywheel Assemblies The next step is to prepare and paint a number of parts for the Seat Structure and the Flywheel Assemblies. I also read ahead and opted to prepare a few parts from the next step as these will be needed for the next assembly stage. I spent a fair amount of time today prepping these parts – cleaning flash, test fitting, re-boring some holes, and finally scrubbing with a toothbrush and soapy water. They are now ready for painting. No fancy photos today – we’ll save that until they’ve been painted.

Distractions I have been a little distracted over the last week. My wife decided to re-organise the pantry and in helping her to do that, I suggested that the addition of some “stadium seating” would assist in being able to see/find things at the back of the cupboard, and hence keep it all more organised. I knocked up a quick prototype and was quickly instructed to get on and make a “proper” version. It doesn’t look like much, and indeed is little more than a series of boxes. But while the prototypes were simply pin-nailed together, these are all properly joined with finger/box joints and the front/back panels are all housed in rabbets. And then of course, they had to be painted. Making these gave me the perfect opportunity to test out my recently completed home made edge-sander. I have to say, it works a treat! Once that was completed, I decided to try to up my game in the photography department. I have acquired a new backdrop and dug out some lighting that I had bought some years ago but not used much. Here’s some samples of some testing using the main frame as the test mule. I had to prop it up at an angle to try to get the best view. The blue background, combined with some better lighting, certainly seems to make a difference. So now at last, the build proper begins. And it starts by adding some of those small parts to the Lower Steam Box and the Upper Water Box. You can see that a decal has been added as a gauge face on the Upper Water Box. These are now set aside for later use while more parts are identified, cleaned up, dry fit and painted. Stay tuned…

Glad to see your painting repairs worked out. That’s fascinating about the swastika decals!

Given that you got the ship in AND successfully raised the masts, I’d say the score is now Man 2 - Model 1. 👍 Well done Glen!

Sorry to hear of the mishap with the masking. One trick you might try “next time” is to paint a clear coat along the edge of the masking prior to your colour. That will prevent the bleeding/wicking of the colour and any bleed will be the clear coat.

This should be an interesting project Jeff. I’ve grabbed a front row seat.

I’ll be interested to see your take on this model Mark, so I’ll come along for the ride. Plus, someone might have mentioned you have a well-stocked bar in the corner……

Looking good Mark - I hope it's not too long before we see more of this one. I'm sure you'll enjoy the break while you do the Sphinx.

Thanks Paul and Craig. Craig - after much experimenting I found that the trick with the Stynylrez was to use a 0.5mm needle, with air pressure at 25-30psi and paint flow reduced to a bare minimum. Then, as Kurt and others have suggested, spraying multiple light coats (in the one session). It seems that this combination of the three factors (needle size, air pressure and paint flow) are needed to get a nice smooth application without blocking up the airbrush. It took me a while, but I'm pretty confident with it now and it really does produce a nice even, smooth and durable finish that can actually be sanded if you so desire (unlike some other acrylic primers that shall remain nameless!). For cleaning the airbrush, although you can use water, IPA and/or acrylic airbrush cleaner, I've found the quickest and most effective is to use some lacquer thinner (generic from the hardware store). Of course, you need to take the appropriate precautions with this, but if you're spraying lacquer paints as I am anyway, then you've already got these precautions in place.

I mangled to catch up with the recordings of both this and Kurt's photography workshop over the last few days. Well done and thank you Kurt and Toni for sharing your knowledge and experience.

Great to hear that your Bluenose is once again underway. Looking good.

Well, the mail system has finally caught up and I at last have some progress to report... Paint Trials – Completed The paint trials turned into something of an ordeal. Much research, watching YouTube videos, and a PM conversation with Kurt Van Dahm while waiting on several deliveries of paint and assorted supplies, including a new airbrush… I was keen to try using the Stynylrez in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions – that is, by using a minimum of a 0.5mm needle. What better excuse to buy a new airbrush? After some research, I settled on the Procon Boy PS290 from the Mr Hobby range. It has a ‘gun’ style trigger, and I also bought the aftermarket handle that makes it more comfortable to hold. I’ve read (though I can’t verify) that these airbrushes are made in the same factory as the Iwatas, at a significantly lower end cost. I have to say, I’ve been very pleased with it. Another thing I learned watching YouTube was the value of using plastic spoons as test mules for paint. They have a decent area to show the colour, without being so large as to waste paint, and they have a ready-made handle to hole while painting. The challenge was sourcing them! Not so long ago, these would have been in abundant supply in local supermarkets but not anymore as they have all gone with eco-friendly bamboo etc. I did manage to find some online, quite inexpensively, but the minimum order was 144 (although that was made of three packs of 48 spoons – go figure!). I used quite a bit of my Zero red paint and was unable to obtain any more – the one Australian importer has been out of stock of a lot of the Zero paints for some time now. I was concerned that I would run out of this colour before finishing the model, so I needed to find an alternative in ready supply. That led me to discovering the SMS range of paints. These are actually an Australian brand, developed by a modeller for modellers. I bought a bottle of their Premium Red, and it looks to be the perfect shade – happy days! I also discovered that MIG/AMMO paints manufacture Alclad paints under licence from Alclad and I was able to obtain some “Polished Brass” under this brand name. I was very keen to obtain some Stynylrez in the colours of Dull Pink and Pale Mustard (actually a yellow). I was unable to source the Pink individually (out of stock everywhere) but did manage to find it in a mixed dozen small bottles – an expensive way to obtain it, but it also gave me a few other options for down the track as well as extra white, black, and grey. I did manage to find a solo bottle of the Pale Mustard from yet another supplier, so eventually was able to continue the paint trials. So now the paint trials continued in earnest. This included perfecting my technique for laying down the primer – my thanks to Kurt for his advice via PM exchanges here. I must have used about half of my stash of 144 spoons during these trials, trying to find the right combination of primer and colour coat. The picture below shows some of the final results. The top row is some of the primers. From left to right: Stynylrez Dull Pink, Pale Mustard, Oceanic Blue (I just wanted to see what this one looked like for a future model), and Alclad Gloss Black base. I tried the Stynylrez Gloss Black but didn’t like it as much as the Alclad. The bottom row are my final colour choices for this model. From left to right SMS Premium Red over Stynylrez Dull Pink, SMS Gun Metal over Alclad Gloss Black, Alclad/Ammo Polished Brass over Alclad Gloss Black, and Alclad Copper over Alclad Gloss Black. All the metal colours have been clear coated with Alclad Aqua Gloss in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions. The Red has been given a coat of Alclad Clear Kote Light Sheen (I was after a satin finish for this). It was the better part of a month’s work – trial, re-order, trial, etc to arrive at this point. And here are the actual parts for the Mainframe painted in their final livery. The biggest challenge here was masking the mainframe itself to separate the red and brass colours. A little patience and a lot of Tamiya tape and it all went well. Photographing the painted parts was also a challenge and I'm afraid this picture doesn't really do them justice. I've watched Kurt's presentation from his workshop recently and I think I need to do some more experimenting with photography! Hopefully, the build will progress a little more quickly from here!

Hey Slog, Nice to see you back at the bench. Hopefully, with the new job we’ll see some more regular updates of your fine build.

Congratulations on completing an outstanding build Ryland. You can be justifiably proud of your achievement.

Thanks Craig and welcome aboard. Progress is being held up at the moment waiting on delivery of more paints for testing. The COVID lockdowns give us more time for hobbies, but at the same time they slow down the mail system considerably (mainly due to overload from all the people with more time on their hands - sort of a Catch 22 situation really!).

Welcome aboard Gary. The paint trials continue. I’m still waiting on another delivery this week. Hope to have the paints sorted out by this weekend.

Wow! You had me holding my breath for a while there Glen. Glad you were able to recover the situation. Hope it all goes well with the next attempt.

Nicely done Andrew. I’ll bet there were some nervous moments in that little job!

A lucky escape Ryland! Glad to hear no significant damage was done.

Congratulations Alan! Very glad to see that your perseverance has paid off so well.

Glad to be able to help Glen. The finished ship is looking good. Can’t wait to see her go into the bottle.

Thanks Kurt - just registered. 😊