johnegert

Spence--- This question should bring the glue wizards out in force! It sounds like a recipe for a mess to me..... I'm not a big fan of ACA anyway, and mixing paint into it sounds like some heinous, coagulating gelatinous scum. Further, copper plates on wooden ships were not soldered or braised , but rather nailed or screwed, overlapping each other a bit. This caused a whole set of galvanic corrosion problems which were solved by changing the fasteners to copper as well. These were the first real corrosion laboratories--- a fascinating topic in its own right---- starring my hero Sir Humphrey Davy...... another story. With my luck lately, you'll probably hear from a bunch of folk who do this all the time, and will call me a brainless fool, but I'm just not buying the idea.

john

Hank---- I wish I had a nickel for every floquil spray can I've used..... a one-man ecological disaster. The one I particularly liked was "Reefer Yellow" which made a nice opaque undercoat for British yellow ochre. A Semi-load of that engine black as well.....

john

Well, I tried to get some by slandering Ed, but didn't get any---- I'd be jealous of anyone who has some. However, when I start my 1:300 build log, I should rack up a bunch before THAT project is half-done.

john

Mike---- If you Google "HMS Victory Ships boats" you will see the boat chocked on the walkway next to the  Victory that shows the ochre, black and white scheme. But as Druxey says, many colors were seen. Many Victory models, including one of mine, show green in use as well.......

john

Let's not be hasty, Ed....... And, no matter WHAT Ed says, spring for a bottle of Jo's Retarder......

john

Jeez---- I think you're right about me and non-acrylic gouache..... Like you, I first used them to paint Historex figures( we're dating ourselves here) and either had beautiful results or heinous messes without really knowing why. But we obviously agree in lockstep on one thing--- objectively observed fine results are usually achieved by insanely subjective methods, and you ain't going to know what's best for you 'til you try. The first thing I'm going to do is dredge-up a tube of JO's best metallic chartreuse from the drawer and play with it again.

Damn--- talk about running a simple topic into the ground.......

john

Ed--- I think the trouble for me comes because-- unlike "regular" acrylics-- the colors, once dried, reconstitute when wet and my usual oil painting technique of brushing and more brushing rewets the undercoat. A light and purposeful brush technique is the best bet--- not exactly my usual style. 

As for the "evil" designation, I beg your pardon. One of the things about this site I enjoy most is the freewheeling sense of humor that pervades the posts. I have seen numbers of these forums turn into a grim " Don't try to take my model away from me" / " This is too important to fool around" sort of affair. This condition  I have awkwardly tried to do my bit to prevent. There was no intent to characterize you as "evil", nor to start a joke which is subsequently driven into the ground. 

john

The one thing I think I can guarantee about using acrylic gouaches is that you'll either love 'em or hate 'em---- nothing in between. Evil Ed's description is right-on, but using them can be tricky. Even in dampish climates, they dry almost the moment you place brush (let alone spray) to object-- immediately! This may appeal to those of you with attention spans of paramecia, but it makes for exciting, and often frustrating work. It also does not respond well to over coating itself, occasionally picking up the bottom coat and making a wretched mess. Much of this can be solved by using some of Jo Sonja's media, especially her "retarder" and "flow medium", which gives one a chance to do some blending, as well as scratching one's stern. I met Jo Sonja in Kansas City at a convention years ago, and tried to make her fall in love with me by buying a whole set of her colors, and hoping she would take me along to Australia, or wherever she was going. The idea failed dismally, and I still have a bunch of that weird stuff. When it's good, it's very, very good--- but when it's bad, it sucketh.

john

Donaldo-- Vallejo makes a specific paint for airbrushing straight from the bottle---- it works well. I've airbrushed their regular paint, too, but have always thinned and strained. I think what bugs me about this is the corporate double-think and the fact that anyone changing over to Vallejo (or whatever new slime) is looking at a pretty hefty expense to get set up. And, needless to say, Vallejo is not a charitable institution. You'll shell out about $4 for those damn little eye-dropper bottles, and then must add all the media, etc., to keep continuity. Very annoying.... And trust me, geeknoids, I have used every substance from rabbit urine to polio vaccine to paint with over the decades. The only cheap alternatives that work half-decently are those craft paint acrylics--- some of which are darn good, if inconsistently so.

 Hank!! What are we going to use for huffing purposes now that Diosol is going bye-bye??? I used to come out of my workshop slobbering and staggering after a Floquil spray session!! Ah, Sic transit Gloria mundi, baby......

john

Wellllllllllll, I didn't know that Testors was owned by Rustoleum......I don't think I've ever used a Rustoleum product that worked right for me....I don't know why--- some sort of Kharmic meltdown issue. The miniature figure wizards have gone over to Vallejo acrylics in a big way. I have an assortment of their colors and, given my phobia about acrylics generally, they are good paints. The one replacement we will be hearing about for Floquil is Scalecoat enamel, which the RR goofs have been using for years, which I have never liked to use. But we are definitely getting hemmed in a bit.

OK, Brethren and Cistern---- Time for you all to buy your beginning oil set and start peeing with the big dogs!! Rembrandt, Van Gough, Leonardo..... and ,of course, The Great American Lout.

yours truly, john

Oh, Man...... Here we go. Madame Anja is going to throw my butt so far off the site after this post that I'll be lucky to be building ships from walnut shells, plasticine, and toothpicks..... All that follows is opinion, needless to say, with the odd fact creeping in. First, I HATE acrylic artist paints. I hate the colors, texture, dry time, smell, feel, taste, and everything else about them. For some genetic reason, I was born to play with oils-- paint it, wipe it, smear it, lick it, snort it, shoot it--- whatever it takes. The colors are infinitely better, there are dozens of interesting media, and they give you time to adjust color, shading, highlights, etc.

OK,OK--- my kink. But there are some principles that apply, regardless of paint type. As Brian says, choosing colors needs care, and will require mixing, more than likely. Those bulwark reds and Nelson Fashion ochers, ie., need a lot of thought to look right, and as is being spoken-of in the weathering thread, all colors change with time and weather--- quite dramatically. All kinds of fading and patination occur quickly in the marine environment--- do we want to show that, or not? Black ain't black and white ain't white, and all stops in between..... Second, this business of gloss stumps me, as well. In my brief spate of film work, there was a guiding rule---no gloss. If you intend to photograph your model in any serious way, gloss is ruinous. Also, it's understood that gloss makes a model look smaller. Eggshell is as glossy as it should get.  Even you guys who polish the hell out of your coppering--- I don't get that at all. But, as always, different strokes...... What I want to see is a piece of craftsmanship that crosses over into art--- I want the model to say something, not just sit there as an ornament on a shelf. I want the viewer to be sucked into a story, a dream of another time and place, a world within a world. I mean, we work our asses off on these filthy things for years at a time--- don't we finally want them to have a life of their own, greater than the sum of their parts?? Greater than their creators??? There is a magic that is possible to achieve in this avocation. In the 60's, I worked one summer for a ship modeler in Laguna Beach, Ca, named Ed Sims. He could be cranky, and generally treated his potential customers like idiots, but there is a ship of his for sale on line, and when I look at it with its blue green copper and carefully faded paint, I think what a great man Ed was. These are legacies of beauty, folks.

All right, all right---- I feel the hot breath of the dominatrix Anja and her cat-o-nine, ready to turn my quivering flesh into strawberry jam. Set up the grating, boys!!

john

Mark---- Those sets seem kind of pricey--- a simple small exacto handle with a hefty supply of #11 blades should get you going--- available at Wally. In addition to the good stuff mentioned above, I'd suggest some good quality small needle nose pliers-- try Xuron-- a pair or two of tweezers-- stolen from the Admiral's make up drawer--- a cheap plastic architects scale which gives you the 1/96 you need, a box or two of single edged razor blades, a pack of wet-or-dry sandpaper in various grades, and a bunch of fingernail files, also from the Admiral's stash--- unless she has locked the drawer after the tweezer heist, and some basic rasps including round for solid hull shaping. Tools are a fetish, and most of us web junkies have a ton of useless stuff---- until that magic moment when a freak need arises and you can dig into your box and come up with a single purpose bit of arcana that does the job. I feel SO smart on those rare occasions....

john

Gleason,

  Check page 9 of the completed kit builds here at MSW for the 1/150 model done by Fortres.... He substantially improved the kit in several aspects--- the basic kit is a little crude. I think you should view it as a starting point for a better model by engaging in a study of the voluminous sources available for this ship. If you're trying to hold down costs, consider Stephen Biesty's "Cross Sections-- Man-Of-War". It's sold as a kids book, but is quite a fascinating and thorough depiction of an "MRI" of the Victory. As has been noted here often, Longridge's "The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships" is the Big Daddy of Victory books, but is pretty costly. I seem to be destined to bitch about the kit-built stem basketry and the stern galleries, even of costly kits. These two areas will require some judicious tweaking to make an accurate model, as will some other features..... BUT, the research to recreate the current look of the ship is close at hand. I'm not sure if it will work properly, but I have bookmarked " Chris Watton's Bucket" which I hope you can google. It's a marvelously detailed bunch of photos of the mighty prototype.

   I'd say if the size turns your crank, go for it and fix what's wrong with the kit---- a near-inevitability with any kit, really.

john

Dang, Shawn--- I should've checked your log--- You're getting down into my beloved 1/300 territory. Too small for Caldercraft. In addition to the aforementioned stained glass copper, I have used several other methods; copper shim stock of .001 is pretty easy to cut (on a pane of glass), and fairly easy to lay down- no real reason to overlap in this scale). I've also used paper sheets, and copper leafed them. AND, occasionally, I have painted the damn things and then weathered with that blue-green patina of controversial-but-good looking aspect. It seems like a hell of a lot of work, but it becomes sort of a ritualistic/fetishist activity that I actually enjoy. The pattern of laying them down is covered well on this site. Man, that is an old-school kit. Just looking at the instructions and wood sheets gave me a bad acid flashback....but I think there is much to learn by building it and improving some of the vacuum formed fittings. Check Langton Miniatures on Google-- lots of fine parts, figures and kits in 1/300. Rod Langton is one of the Serious People.... Good luck with this--- I'll move my always-drifting attention over to your log.....

john

Shawn,

If you want to give it a shot--- and you really should--- Google up The Model Dockyard, go to Caldercraft fittings, and check bags of 100 for about $3.50 US.

I don't know the scale of your ship, but they have 1/64 and 1/72 sizes. There has been a fair amount of griping about the excessive, steam-punky, size of the nailheads which would give Sir Humphrey Davy a corrosion wedgy, but the 1/72 plates are more subdued. Mick is killing me here---" just run down to your local ship model shop"...... MICK! All we have here are fidget-meister Starbucks and usurious "payday loan" scammers!! That and Walmart and the odd "Good Eats" charnel house..... Ah, but I digress....If your scale is much smaller, try Hobby Lobby for copper strip for stained glass.

I love Model Dockyard. Fast, relatively cheap shipping--- great place.

john

Ah, Friends....... Between this topic and his disastrous Victory thread, I fear it may be time to send the Model Minions to get poor Dafi in hand. As we say in New Mexico, "His goats have left him". Ordinarily, it would not be so worrisome, but I am concerned that he is becoming an organizational blowhole in the tight knit fabric which is MSW. This last business about him disrobing in public, raving about his "main mast", sadly indicates that we must terminate his further activities with extreme prejudice. It is my hope that some institution will accept a greatly toned-down version of his modeling activities, with only limited access to sharp instruments that he now wields with a relish veering into mania, and provide a course of medication( or, yes, some sort of lobotomy) which will give him relief and protect the innocent public from any further horrors. The current Crypto-zoological catastrophe that is "DAFI" must be brought to heel without delay.

john

Richard,

Good concept! You will notice that most all of the Wood Wizards on this site keep a scale figure constantly at hand while building. Without that perspective, it is all too easy to slip into building a model of a model, instead of a model of a ship. In fact, some of the Brainiacs here may have slid a little too far in identifying with the Little People, but that's another story..... "Frame of Reference" is a critical factor in good model building. It ultimately is what distinguishes good modelers from amateurs. Your 1/64 geeks will keep your head in the right place. BTW, Cornwall is a great store---- we U.S. types need to watch the shipping $$ on some stuff.

john

Lion Heart,

     Check New Line and Redoubt miniatures on Google--- a pretty good selection of figures for at least the Napoleonic era. Sometimes these wargame figures can be a bit course, but more subdued painting can help. I bought a 28mm British longboat/landing party from Redoubt, whom I am now trying to squeeze into a Caldercraft pinnace--- a project which is causing a lot of cursing and staggering here at the Ward. All cross-pond dealings have been excellent with them.

28 mm is a popular scale with the Game Crazies, but you have to dig a little for what you need for 1/64, assuming your ship was not manned by a hellbroth of Orcs. 

john

Tomas----

I owned one once, but had to close. The wretched customers spilled glue on everything, often attaching themselves to the glassware permanently. They never had any money, always yammering about "saving for the Agamemnon", whatever THAT meant. Then,one night, I hired the Rolling Stones to play, and the customers walked out because the band refused to play "chanteys and hornpipes". They also had an unnerving tendency for self-mutilation, with one bizzare woman taking an xacto to her own hand....horrible. The last straw: Every time I served a nice tall mug of hot Irish coffee, the bastards would stick planking in it.

I don't need that kind of grief....

john

Mr. Bill,

This topic has gone back and forth for many moons, and can still start a fight in a model ship bar. The argument for not painting probably reached its zenith in C. Nepean Longridge's "The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships"----- a necessary library mainstay---- who built his HMS Victory with an express purpose of showing all joinery/ construction technique of the prototype in the model, and was disdainful of covering this mighty effort with paint. Part of the problem, too, was the lack of model-type quality paint, meaning that artist oils or gouaches were all that was available( and which I still use.... another story). The scale model movement gave rise to better paint and a desire to capture the look and feel of the prototype, rather than demonstrate construction methods.

There has always been, as well, a fondness for the look of beautiful natural woods in models used for decorative purpose in a home. The European kit manufacturers catered to this desire with exotic kit woods of strange names, which, though beautiful, were often a major pain in the butt to work with.

So, as always, we have different strokes......... For me, half the beauty of a model is an accurate paint job with tasteful weathering. But then, I went a long time thinking that a model which was not displayed in a fine sea base under full sail was doo doo, so what the hell do I know??? 

john

OK, Uli----- You sell yours, and I'll sell my TWO (a double click on the "purchase" key, which, until lately, I tried to cover up), I'll meet you at the Monterrey airport, we'll hop it down to Cancun, and lay on the beach like two huge marine iguanas 'til our $ runs out.

john

Lextin,

    A good source for cheap drills and other funky-but-useful tools in the US that will not fry your Dad's credit card is Widget Supply. For awhile, I was going through #80's at an alarming rate, found Widget by accident, and now am a regular customer. But I like your innovative spirit, Young Blood!! A lot of fine models have been built by those willing to create their own tools from unlikely materials, so keep thinking as you're thinking. Don't be in any great hurry to be a slave to credit cards, either, like many of us old fools who've sold our souls to plastic!! Plenty of time to worry about THAT problem in your life.

    Oh, Man! Henceforth, call me "The Preacher"........

john

As some of you have reluctantly gathered, I am getting my cheap act together to start a GREAT PROJECT of an as yet unknown nature, and I dusted off my ship book collection yesterday in prep for this mighty undertaking. Two bits of latter-day incunabula came to hand, to wit:

"Hornblower's Ships-- Their History & Their Models" by Martin Saville.

I came late to the Hornblower scene, but went crazy for the whole series once enlightened. ( I am assuming everyone here was not so stupid, and has memorized each pixel of the series, not to mention the books--- if not, jam that Xacto into your wooden leg and IMMEDIATELY buy all 8 episodes) This book is one of the strangest sagas you will ever encounter. It tells the amazing tale of how the HH film models were made and used, generally in a welter of frenzied deadline pressure in a Russian shipyard, where lots of crappy tools and lots of good vodka fueled the enterprise. It is amazing that Saville escaped this hellish scene with a shred of sanity left. I guarantee that you will like this book. HOWEVER, do not pay Amazon nor anyone else the $50 or so for a new one. Why are we not all buying used books? We just foul them with hide glue and bitter tears anyway... Check the used prices for my beloved McNarry "Ship Models in Miniature"--- 19 cents plus shipping-- I should corner the market. BTW, what the hell is the story on McKay's "HMS Victory"? $500 bucks new???

Ah, another heinous digression... but in the Nelson vein, I also unearthed Gene McClure,s

"HMS Victory--- How to Build a Masterpiece in 1:96 Scale". Apparently, this baby is hard to find now. It recounts McClure's build of the old Mantua kit( though most of the kit was discarded in favor of improved parts) and is an immensely valuable log of his build--- if you had this book and Longridge, you'd be good to go. I have become obsessed by the bow basketry and the stern galleries of the Victory, which are the hallmarks of a good(or bad) model, and McClure leans heavily on these topics. His standing rigging is demonic, too-- wonderful seizing techniques.

The loose leaf format is really handy, and if you come across this tome, mortgage the farm and snap it up--Hell, you already sold you kids into slavery to get your Caldercraft Victory... in for a penny, in for a pound, eh??

Two marvelous books. Maybe, as with finches and their never-ending nest building, I'll just keep fetishing over my books and screw actually building anything....

john