Bob Cleek

As you probably know, artists' oil paints are formulated to provide the maximum drying time in order to provide the artist with a paint they can work with, moving it around on the canvas for as long as it might take them to complete a painting. Artists oils generally use raw linseed oil (also called "flax seed oil" under which name it can be found in any health food store.) ("Boiled" linseed oil is raw linseed oil to which driers have already been added to speed up the drying process.) The proprietary driers you are using, such as Liquin, do speed up drying time, but nowhere near as much as would be desired for regular painting rather than artists' oil paints. You want the more powerful stuff, generally sold in hardware and paint stores as "Japan drier." Follow the mixing instructions on the Japan drier container. Think of your artists' oils as "concentrated paint, just pigment and linseed oil, which should be considerably thinned with turpentine, mineral spirits, or acetone, (depending on the user's preference... like a barbecue sauce recipe) and Japan drier to speed the polymerization of the linseed oil base. By adding the correct amount of Japan drier, one can accelerate the drying time of an oil paint as much as is desired. It appears from the manufacturer's literature that Liquin is only intended to modify the artists' oil paints within in the much narrower spectrum of drying times required for classic artists' oil painting techniques, rather than for fast drying times appropriate for modeling.

I followed up on your introduction of Liquin.  The Liquin fine detail has one characteristic that is counter to what a model ship wants.  It is a gloss product.  The original Liquin is low gloss - which is not great - but better.  The increased viscosity in the light version is produced by the clear carrier solution.  When it evaporates, most of what produces the increased viscosity is gone?  By using tubed artists oils, the concentration of pigment is under your control.  An increased pigment concentration would have an increased viscosity that remains after polymerization.  But now that I think on it:  impasto is not a good approximation of an adzed planking surface.

As you probably know, artists' oil paints are formulated to provide the maximum drying time in order to provide the artist with a paint they can work with, moving it around on the canvas for as long as it might take them to complete a painting. Artists oils generally use raw linseed oil (also called "flax seed oil" under which name it can be found in any health food store.) ("Boiled" linseed oil is raw linseed oil to which driers have already been added to speed up the drying process.) The proprietary driers you are using, such as Liquin, do speed up drying time, but nowhere near as much as would be desired for regular painting rather than artists' oil paints. You want the more powerful stuff, generally sold in hardware and paint stores as "Japan drier." Follow the mixing instructions on the Japan drier container. Think of your artists' oils as "concentrated paint, just pigment and linseed oil, which should be considerably thinned with turpentine, mineral spirits, or acetone, (depending on the user's preference... like a barbecue sauce recipe) and Japan drier to speed the polymerization of the linseed oil base. By adding the correct amount of Japan drier, one can accelerate the drying time of an oil paint as much as is desired. It appears from the manufacturer's literature that Liquin is only intended to modify the artists' oil paints within in the much narrower spectrum of drying times required for classic artists' oil painting techniques, rather than for fast drying times appropriate for modeling.

Not sure that shellac over oil is such a good idea. Keep in mind that it takes days to months for the lineseed-oil to fully polymerise, depending on how fat or lean you applied the oil-paint. Until then volume changes of the oil-paints can/will occur. Shellac per se is brittle and a pure shellac varnish may crack. That is, as pointed out above, varnishing is normally done months after applying oil-paints and these varnishes are normally mixtures of different resins that show a behaviour more similar to that of polymerised oil-paints.
 
Apart from the fact that indeed one can simulate wood grain quite nicely with oil-paints, I wonder why mix paint systems and use oil-paints at all? I think the wood planking can be simulated well with acrylic paints and then one can use acrylic varnishes to achieve the desired surface sheen.
 
If it was me, I would either use all acrylics or oil-paint and a varnish from a reputable artists' supply house. Three different paint systems over each other calls for trouble, keep it simple. 

Yeah, the third one in the picture is very smooth and dried well. The Golden MSA spray is easy but expensive. In addition, shellac is very good with lacquer spray. I'll apply matte transparent lacquer spray over the shellac layer at the very end of the building. I won't forget to test it before I apply the last spray.  
 
In addition, I've read some strict scoring standards regarding scale model contest. When judges of model contests grade scores, they also check the wood grain pattern because it sometimes makes an inappropriate scale effect. For example, large and complex wood grain patterns of the cherry wood POF model are a penalty. It is a reason senior modellers are looking for non-grain woods such as boxwood and pearwood. It might be too quick to be picky about my materials, but several inexpensive plywood based wooden model kits I've built frequently showed odd grain patterns that didn't look well. "The builder's model" scheme is my favorite. 😎

At scale model viewing distances, wood grain isn't going to be apparent. 
 
I'd suggest you also try putting a coat of shellac over your oil paint wood color, let it dry well, and then hand-rub it for a very smooth surface. The tests will be the best proof, but I think that the alcohol solvent in shellac will have no effect on the oil paint beneath it, while the mineral spirits in even a traditional varnish may soften the oil paint beneath it unless the oil paint if well-cured.

At scale model viewing distances, wood grain isn't going to be apparent. 
 
I'd suggest you also try putting a coat of shellac over your oil paint wood color, let it dry well, and then hand-rub it for a very smooth surface. The tests will be the best proof, but I think that the alcohol solvent in shellac will have no effect on the oil paint beneath it, while the mineral spirits in even a traditional varnish may soften the oil paint beneath it unless the oil paint if well-cured.

Henry, Richard,
It turned out the problem was self inflicted. I used the smallest thread on hand (DMC Cordonnet #100), which was way over size. The solution: separate the 3 strands that make up the #100. I have no idea if these are the right size, but at 1:60, they represent 8.5mm dia rope. This looks a whole lot better.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Regards,
Grant.

I'm not entirely sure what you refer to as serving.  Serving is sort of an outer covering applied to rope to keep the wet out of the strands.  It is part of a system of coverings; worming, parceling, and serving.
 
Seizings, on the other hand, are what is used to join two ropes, or two parts of a rope together side by side as in forming the eye at the top of the shroud pairs.
 
I don't know what scale you are working in, but seizings were traditionally made using marline or other small stuff, so you will want to use the smallest line you can find. On my 1:100 scale model I am using fly tying monofilament.  A typical round seizing was 7 or 9 turns followed by one less riding turns over them and then two crossing turns around the whole and between the two parts of the rope. The end of the seizing line was secured with a knot or hitch around the crossing turns.
 
When putting the seizings on the masthead eyes for each shroud pair, the seizings should be put on so that the seizings do not overlap the one below.  The idea was to prevent the seizings working (friction) against each other. The first seizing will come just below the bolster. The bolster is a piece of quarter round moulding on top of the trestle tree to ease the bending of the shroud eye over the top.
 
To seize in a dead eye on the lower shroud there are three seizings. The first is called the throat seizing and it lays horizontally and holds the parts of the shroud together over the top of the deadeye. No crossing turns are used for a throat seizing.  The second seizing is called the middle seizing and it is a round seizing clapped on midway between the deadeye and the end of the shroud. The last seizing is called the end seizing and is clapped on just below the end of the shroud.  There is also a whipping put on the end of the shroud to keep it from unlaying. Sometimes the end of the shroud is leathered (capped).
 
Regards,
Henry

You got hit by the outer edge of that canister shot.  I was aiming at the general sort of inquiry we get -
 
We in absolute agreement on this.    

 

Thanks to Bob Cleek's idea, I began antifouling work. A mineral spirit, which is the best for enamel, didn't work, so I'm using lacquer thinner, which is stronger. The lacuquer thinner also removes acrylic paint base, but the coated paper hulls bear it well, fortunately.
 
Also, thank you for your concern for health. I have a fan-ventilation paint booth and am wearing a big gas mask. It is the best way to protect myself in the given situation.
 


I found appropriate oil varnishes. The second picture shows exactly same surface that happened to the hull. I bought a new cheap lacquer spray from a different company, and I guess a different ingredient caused the issue.
The first picture is a Golden MSA lacquer spray, which is the most expensive one. It works just as well as my old, cheap lacquer spray can from different company. 
The third picture is a Zinsser dewaxed shellac liquid. It also made a durable surface with no issues.
 
This is only 12 hour short term test. I'll be watching how they're changed.
 
 
It is a bit off topic. I applied shellac to any wood parts before I applied an oil based gel stain. I believed that the wood conditioner would make surface more flat, so I could paint it more uniformly. In my opinion, the method of applying shellac is determined by the purpose of the painting. I want to remove the grain pattern on a wooden model, so I use shellac as a wood conditioner. If someone wants to show explicit grain patterns of raw wood, shellac isn't good choice. Making furniture is most likely the case in my thought.

I think he wants to stain the wood and then put a high gloss lacquer over it. Not something I'd advise, but any stain would have to be applied before any shellac. No?

Yes, we do agree that shellac works well as the last layer of the coating system. 
 
I mentioned stain because I thought he was working on real wood and not card. My mistake. Stain could go over shellac, but it wouldn't look the same as stain on bare wood. This is because the grain structure of the bare wood absorbs the stain at differing rates and enhances the figuring of the wood. Shellac can do this to a certain extent (especally a darker shellac,) but if the shellac is put down first, it soaks into the wood and any stain will only uniformly darken the workpiece. I agree using shellac before a dye would be a bad thing for the reasons you stated.
 
My use of the work "stain" wasn't careless, it was just wrong, since I thought it was wood to which he was applying the finish instead of cardstock.
 
The ship modeling world would be a better place if we could just convince our colleagues to only use shellac and artists' oils and avoid all the "better living through chemistry" that seems so fashionable these days. Not likely we'll live long enough to see that happen though.  

Yes, we do agree that shellac works well as the last layer of the coating system. 
 
I mentioned stain because I thought he was working on real wood and not card. My mistake. Stain could go over shellac, but it wouldn't look the same as stain on bare wood. This is because the grain structure of the bare wood absorbs the stain at differing rates and enhances the figuring of the wood. Shellac can do this to a certain extent (especally a darker shellac,) but if the shellac is put down first, it soaks into the wood and any stain will only uniformly darken the workpiece. I agree using shellac before a dye would be a bad thing for the reasons you stated.
 
My use of the work "stain" wasn't careless, it was just wrong, since I thought it was wood to which he was applying the finish instead of cardstock.
 
The ship modeling world would be a better place if we could just convince our colleagues to only use shellac and artists' oils and avoid all the "better living through chemistry" that seems so fashionable these days. Not likely we'll live long enough to see that happen though.  

Yes, we do agree that shellac works well as the last layer of the coating system. 
 
I mentioned stain because I thought he was working on real wood and not card. My mistake. Stain could go over shellac, but it wouldn't look the same as stain on bare wood. This is because the grain structure of the bare wood absorbs the stain at differing rates and enhances the figuring of the wood. Shellac can do this to a certain extent (especally a darker shellac,) but if the shellac is put down first, it soaks into the wood and any stain will only uniformly darken the workpiece. I agree using shellac before a dye would be a bad thing for the reasons you stated.
 
My use of the work "stain" wasn't careless, it was just wrong, since I thought it was wood to which he was applying the finish instead of cardstock.
 
The ship modeling world would be a better place if we could just convince our colleagues to only use shellac and artists' oils and avoid all the "better living through chemistry" that seems so fashionable these days. Not likely we'll live long enough to see that happen though.  

I think he wants to stain the wood and then put a high gloss lacquer over it. Not something I'd advise, but any stain would have to be applied before any shellac. No?

It's difficult to tell from the photo exactly what's happened to the finish, but from what I can see and you've described, it appears that the spray lacquer employed a very "hot" solvent which reacted with the oil paint, "skinning over" (drying quickly on the surface with greatest exposure to the air) and when the lower level of the lacquer dried, it "shrunk" and created the "crackle" finish on the drier top of the lacquer coat. Such problems are almost always the result of incompatible coatings with different drying or adhesion characteristics. 
 
It may also be a function of the incompatibility of the acrylic basecoat and the oil paint over it. Some reaction between the "hot" lacquer solvent and the oil paint causing the oil paint to soften may have resulted in the oil paint being pulled away from the acrylic base coat as the oil paint dissolved by the lacquer solvent shrunk when the solvent evaporated.
 
The different result you had when you tested the coatings on the "coating paper" may have been due to the paper's porosity or surface flexibility permitting the lacquer solvent to evaporate without creating tension between the lacquer and the lower coating layers.
 
Another possibility, and this is a wild guess, is that the drier you used on the oil paint reacted with the lacquer solvent, causing the lacquer to dry more quickly than it should have which caused the crackling in the lacquer.
 
This is all speculation, of course. It would take a chemist to evaluate the compatibility of the various coatings used. Generally speaking, "water and oil don't mix," and water-based acrylic paints and oil-based paints and lacquers shouldn't be considered compatible in any event.
 
You may be able to remove a fair amount of the lacquer and oil paint using lacquer thinner to soften it and wipe it off. Similarly, you may be able to remove the acrylic coating with alcohol or some proprietary acrylic stripper. In any event, a gentle scraping and careful sanding down to bare wood is in order. From there, it depends upon the finish you desire. High gloss finishes are usually avoided on models as the high gloss destroys the impression of reality and makes a model "look like a toy," as some have described it. If you wish to darken the wood, as you apparently tried to do, the proper coating schedule would be to apply an oil based wood stain to the bare wood. Thereafter, the wood could be coated with an oil based varnish and after that had dried well, hand rub the varnish with pumice and rottenstone until the desired level of low gloss was achieved. Alternately, a "wipe on" polyurethane finish containing stain might also be used, but only after testing this on the same wood species with which you used to plank the hull.
 
I'm sorry to see the problem you've encountered. Unfortunately, there's a certain degree of alchemy involved when dissimilar coatings are used, particularly when modern synthetic coatings are used. You just never know what you are going to get. Myself, I entirely avoid using "rattle can" spray coatings and water-based coatings on models because I've had similar difficulties to what you've experienced when I've done otherwise. Fortunately, the damage can be undone with a bit of work.
 
 

I've lost count of how many half-full bottles and tubes of hardened glue I've thrown out.  

I find Duco useful sometimes for gluing metal pegs into wooden holes. That's about it. 
 

Speed is a poor substitute for torque.

If you are asking about micro-motor drill motors for drilling holes with small bits, read this thread. It starts out with a discussion about drill bits, but drifts into a discussion about drill motors generally. 
 

In general, avoid mixing too many media, such as acrylics, oil-paints and organic solvent-based varnishes.
 
And respect the 'fat over lean'-rule
 
Using oils over acrylic paint/primer is not a problem. However, you should give the acrylic time to cross-link and diffuse out the water, which takes several days, if not weeks, depending on the thickness of the layer.
 
The 'drying' of oil-paints in reality is an oxidation process of the lineseed-oil. This takes time. One can speed up the process by adding 'dryers', which add as catalysts. Some pigments act actually as catalysts, which is why some colours 'dry' faster than others. By using solvents, such as turpentine, you reduce the amount of binder, i.e. linesee-oil, in the paint, which is the reason, why oil 'washes' dry faster.
 
As long as this 'drying' process has not been completed, which also can take weeks, one should not apply any varnish. After all, the artists of old held the 'vernissage' of their paintings sometimes a year or so after completion. In any case, I would go for one of the classical varnishes for oil-paintings, rather than for other solvent-based varnishes.
 
As long as you stay within the same paint-system 'intermediate' varnishes in general are not a problem, but the same precaution re. 'drying' times apply, when using such 'intermediate' varnishes.
 

I think he wants to stain the wood and then put a high gloss lacquer over it. Not something I'd advise, but any stain would have to be applied before any shellac. No?

As mentioned above, the drying rates are a factor in that craquelure finish. It is unlikely that the acrylic primer was incompatible with oil paint: artists use acrylic primer all the time on canvas and then apply oil over this. The problem lies in either the use of Liquin and rapid drying or reaction between oil and lacquer. If using lacquer thinner, make sure you have good ventilation, no open flame anywhere close by and, if possible, a NIOSH respirator mask. Acetone is nasty stuff.
 
As advised, a gloss finish is not the best choice for a model. I'd suggest acrylic primer and oils paint, but allow the paint to dry slowly using only turpentine with a little linseed oil added as solvent. It's too bad that you had this problem as your paint job looked very well done.

This drill appears to be aimed at the craft market; jewelry, Knick knacks, etc. where things don’t need to be measured.  The tool, therefore, is not fitted with a  chuck to accept different sized drill bits.  Instead the drill uses proprietary bits all with the same sized shank to fit into a socket.  This would seriously limit is usefulness and lifetime.  Which will fail first, the drill or the proprietary bits?
 
Roger