Richmond

Yes some of those plastic kits have attached instructions which you can download - it gives you another perspective at least.

Here is a link to the Borodino on the Scalemates site https://www.scalemates.com/topics/topic.php?id=23657

Some of these specialty products are a waste of time - but not in this case. I have just purchased one recently having knocked over several bottles. I think AUD 30.00 (USD 20.00) is money well spent with a bottle of Extra Thin retailing at AUD 10.00. For me it will not take long to recoup the costs especially when you bring cutting mats and half built models into the equation.

Have a look at their website - I am sure it can be thinned - in fact I have some Vallejo thinner in my stash

I was referring to their acrylic paint refill pens

Some brands of acrylic paint are soluble in alcohol. One has to experiment. I've had only moderate success airbrushing when thinned with alcohol. They did not cover well and required repeated application. Alcohol speeds up the drying time a bit. The other shortcomings of acrylics remain. If you get chance have a look at Scaleaton and Plasmo's builds on Youtube (both superb modelers) they are not shy in using IPA to thin their acrylics. Personally I prefer Mr Color Leveling Thinner to thin my Tamiyas and Mr Colours. There is a school of thought which states you should thin with own brands - I assume this would only apply to the solvent based acrylics - I believe true acrylics can be thinned with water however I have never used a true acrylic so couldn't say for sure. For those stating that acrylic paints are expensive - in comparison to what ? I assume you are not shooting undiluted acrylics through your airbrush - they need to be thinned - when you bar a jar of acrylic you should get, as a minimum, 2 to 1 use - to me this is good value.

I would hazard a guess that the majority of plastic models are painted with acrylics nowadays and probably masked with Tamiya tape. There are many wonderful examples on here. Tamiya acrylics are my go to paint (they are not a true acrylic) - thinned with Mr Colour Levelling Thinner (you can use IPA) many people are going over to the true acrylics for health /enviro reasons - personally I don't like them but have seen wonderful models produced with them On the assumption you are not cutting corners with cheap rip offs, your issues with your acrylics /masking are probably due to builder error/inexperience There is a good article on masking in the recent journal.

The refill pens this company makes seems to be getting popular - irritating website I'm afraid https://www.molotow.com/

Just noticed this log, wish I had seen it before I started mine. Very nice build and much better colour scheme then the one I selected.

A weekend update No major dramas to report other than poor fitting problems as you will note with the upper deck modules - I probably will not attend to these given the multi colour nature of the paintwork. I may try some weathering Really I just want to put to this to bed and move onto something else (i.e. a modern kit!) One thing I did do was pre-drill all the decks ready for rigging - I will go into more detail when I reach the rigging stage

Superb

Yes, I think it a rebox of the 60s kit below - there have been several reboxes since then - the current one is 2001 (I believe) - its a shame they didn't change the mould ! If I had noticed this before I would have gone with the same colour scheme - I like the yellow funnel and the two tone lower cabin,

Here is my current 'ship' model - the Revell Harbour Tug - this will be out of box build. This is a very old kit - the mould has seen better days - tonnes of flash and very little fine detail - how far we have progressed! I did find some history on these tugs sometime back when I first purchased the kit but for the life cannot locate it again. I believe they were built by /for the US Navy and some several hundred were built. There are photographs on the www of these still in service. Main paint work is a mixture of Tamiya & Mr Colour / Levelling Thinner 50/50 Hand painting for fine details is generally Citadel with a some Tamiya /Retarder - the Citadel is superior to the Tamiya retarder method. Personally I do not recommend using Tamiya /Mr Colour for hand painting. Weathering is through a pin wash - Tamiya Accent brown. Glazed openings are with Deluxe Materials Glue and Glaze - I find this easier to use than the Microscale product as it comes with its won applicator. I have progressed significantly - really its just a case of gluing he parts together. The problem I find with these non naval ships is the multi coloured paint schemes - a lot needs to be painted before they are glued and then you run into issues when you glue the parts together and of course filling. So we have the classic two tone hull - I forego the white stripe - I tried and it was a disaster - too much bleed - Kurts recent article in the NRJ (Aug) will I am sure prove to be invaluable for future masking work. Here are some close ups of the lower cabin showing some of the finer hand painting detail work with the Citadel paints. You should make out the pin wash as well Here is the funnel - this was tricky with 3 different colours of stripes And finally the upper cabin - this hasn't been weathered yet - some of the glazing on the larger openings leaves a bit to be desired.

Those dials /gauges are a wonderful detail