Granado by RMC - FINISHED - Caldercraft - 1:64

[RMC]

Nothing seems to have gone smoothly on this build, though most of the wounds have been self-inflicted, though not this one.

 

The white paint for below the water line is causing problems.  The admiralty paint dries far too quickly to get a smooth result, and in taking off a piece of masking tape, the paint (four coats!) came with it.  When (if) I have a reasonably acceptable result in brushing on the paint, I will use an acrylic spray to finish.

 

I have bought some acrylic thinner and may mix it with the paint it to help prevent the drying problem.  Advice on this would be appreciated.

[OrLiN]

Hi,

The only way I have found to stop this problem is  -

1.   Remove the tape while the paint is still wet.  This means re-taping for every coat and is not really the way to go.

2.   Use household paint.  You can buy tester pots from the best quality ranges and these are sufficient to cover large hulls.

      They can be applied in thin coats, have a good matt finish and I also use a small hard bristle brush with a "stabbing" motion

       to give a stippled finish.  Make sure that the paint is acrylic.  The ones that I use are quick drying but not as quick as Admiralty Paints.

       If you can find one, use a low tack masking tape.

       I have been using this sort of paint for 30 years and with no problems.  It comes in a great variety of shades. I have never found it necessary to thin this

       paint.  The one I am using at the moment is manufactured by CRAIG & ROSE  -  1829 range of vintage colurs and is described as Chalky emulsion.

 

        www.Craig & Rose.com

[OrLiN]

Hi RMC,

 

Attached shows the paint in question applied to  Panarts  16th scale lifeboat.

This needs a quick de-nib with 600 grade wet and dry then one coat of white.

Using this colour as an undercoat  (three coats) tones down the white and I think 

gives a more natural hue.  Get some scrap wood and experiment.

More than one way to get the finish you desire.

 

 

 

 

 

[RMC]

Thanks for your suggestion OrLin. I decided before taking more drastic action, to thin the admiralty paint with Tamiya acrylic paint thinner. It seems to have worked quite well. I have sanded the hull around the peeled paint and so far have applied 4 coats of the thinned paint over it.  The surface now doesn't look too bad (photos later).  I am now running short of paint (!) though there is probably enough for another coat.  If I need more I will use Tamiya acrylic as it is readily available here.  I will then spray it with some leftover Humbrol matt white acrylic followed by polyurethane spray and hope the whole thing looks respectable.  The white shows up every fault unfortunately and there are plenty.

 

The following photos show marking the waterline with Tamiya tape for curves (excellent) and an Amati waterline marker (works well, but probably not worth the price).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometime in the last few weeks I made up the mortars.  Following Rafine's and Joe's leads I stuck a couple of handles on each. Here's how they turned out. There was of course one small disaster. I seem to have lost one of the mortar chocks.  I guess one of the mortars will have to lay down or I'll have to make one up.

 

 

 

 

[Papa]

On my Granado I thought the supplied chocks were too small and I made new ones using scrap wood from one of the parts sheets.

[jwvolz]

Good progress.

 

White is a tough color. Liquitex flow aid which is available at Art stores is a good additive to help slow drying a bit with acrylics and help them level. I fortunately have an airbrush and that is how I painted my lower hull. 

 

 

[Beef Wellington]

Hi Bob, I've experienced the same problem.  I'm sure thinners would work, but I've found using regular tap water can work just fine as well using a larger brush.  Gives a much smoother surface with a longer dry time, of course you need more coats.  Have you decided upon a paint colour? I quite like the Admiralty "Light Ivory" colour which is a little more subdued than plain white, but I'm sure there are other brands.

[RMC]

Hi Joe and Jason.  Thanks for your comments.

 

Joe: I found the acrylic thinner to be quite effective. As well, before brushing I dampened the brush.  The combination worked well.  Unfortunately I only discovered all of this fairly late in the process.  Oh well .....  I have just put on a coat of acrylic spray and things are beginning to look almost respectable. A couple more coats may do the trick.

 

Jason: I'm sticking with the matt white.  However I will cover it with 2 or 3 coats of polyurethane, which if previous experience is a guide, will tone down the colour to be more 'ivory'.  I certainly agree that the brilliant white really just doesn't look 'right'.

[Old Collingwood]

I hand painted my hull using white Admiralty Acrylic paints,  I just applied a few layers drying with a hairdyer between layers, and found it did a good job, no brush marks or streaks, I found best work solution was to mask off where you want the line to and use a decent brush and try to paint in smooth lines from front to back then reverse back to front, but try to avoid over painting while the paint is still tacky.

 

OC.

[RMC]

OC: thanks for your advice. Sorry not to have replied earlier but other things intruded on boating matters.

 I still have some problems with admiralty paints lack of adhesion, even after a great deal of surface preparation and allowing 24 hours to dry.  It makes masking over it difficult.  The white painting is now finally complete - the required masking finally successful.  I am now waiting for the black trim on the stem to dry before taking off the masking tape there.

 

In the meantime I have done some work on the mortar housings.  The sides are made of three layers each one shaped in a rough octagon in a single piece of walnut.  This leaves the end-grain showing on four surfaces which does not look 'right'.  I have used some 0.5mm veneer to cover the end-grain and here is the result.

 

This shows the end-grain.

 

And here is the veneer.

 

 

 

 

[Jobbie]

This looks beautiful.  I’ll pull up a pew.

[RMC]

Thanks Jobbie, there's plenty of room.

 

Painting the white stuff below the wale is, I hope, complete.  It has proved to be very time-consuming and frustrating.  For those who may follow, I suggest the waterline be masked about 1mm below the low point of the wale, rather than flush with it.  The latter requires the making tape to be tucked over the lower side of the wale which makes it difficult to make it adhere properly.  It makes the tape stick to both the side of the wale and its bottom, and if my experience is a guide, the tape doesn't like to do that.  Taping about a mill. or so beneath the wale will enable the making tape to have a good grip immediately below it.

 

Below is the result of 5 coats of admiralty matt white acrylic (brushed on and sanded between each coat), one coat of Humbrol spray acrylic (I only had enough for one coat, but by that time the whole thing didn't look too bad), and 3 coats of spray polyurethane.  If I had my time over, I would have bought another can of Humbrol for the lot. 

 

Incidentally Jason, the poly does tone down the brilliant white to be a pleasant ivory colour. The black paint on the stem has yet to have polyurethane applied, which should give a better finish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Old Collingwood]

Looking really nice.

 

OC.

[RMC]

Thanks OC.

 

The mortar housings are proving to be very tricky - particularly the removable canopies. Shown below are canopy components - the lower one is taken from the walnut ply as supplied which is quite coarse and unlike any of the other timber in the overall assembly; the upper one is that component with the same wood veneer I applied elsewhere.  The point is there are five different wood textures/colours  which makes the whole assembly look like a dog's breakfast.   I have used the veneer in an attempt to make the finish/colour a little more consistent.

 

Here are some stages of the construction.

 

 

Getting the middle supports for the canopies correctly positioned is tricky indeed. Here I a couple of pieces of timber strip which were (i hoped) the right thickness (about 1.5mm) to raise the supports to the correct height. The piece of timber towards the top of the photo is to keep the support square and vertical.

 

Here is one of the semi-finished canopies. The top has not been sanded, nor has a coat or two of polyurethane.  The light strip in the centre is an experiment and has not been fixed.

 

 

This shows both the light and the matching centre strips. I will probably discard the light strip, though I don't think it looks too bad.  Once the required touching up is done at least two coats of polyurethane will be applied to everything above the first three layers of timber.

 

 

 

[Beef Wellington]

Looking really good Bob, great paint results and good choice on the veneers, the problem you identify seems endemic to precut kit parts.  Turned out really well after your extra work.

[RMC]

A belated thanks Jason.

Here are the mortar housings finished but for a bit of touching up, and a couple of coats of poly.  Fitting the side housing covers was quite time-consuming, but came out reasonably well.  Matching timber again proved a problem, but I promise this will be my last whinge about it.  The polyurethane should improve the appearance.

 

 

 

 

A rather strange thing happened with uploading a couple of the these files.  I was notified that the uploads had failed so I tried again without looking to see if indeed nothing had appeared.  When I eventually looked, there are all the files, 'failures' and all - failure into success - who would have thought .... If only it worked like that in life.   In the circumstances I will leave well alone.

 

[RMC]

The mortar housing are now finished and installed.  The deck planking has begun. Here is part of the process.

 

 

This stuff gives quite a good appearance when finished.  Application on one side of the plank is sufficient. A little CA on the ends prevents bleeding into the grain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by RMC

[RMC]

The deck planking is proceeding reasonably well.  The centre section is still to complete, but so far it doesn't look too bad. It will be interesting to see how the centre section goes, especially how it meets in the centre of the deck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RMC]

The mortar housing and bed are now finished.

 

Here are the housings. Fitting the lids was quite time-consuming The eyelets are positioned in the way shown in the 'Anatomy of a Ship'.

For those who may follow, the eyelet at the rear of the forward housing shown below should be VERY well recessed.  Mine originally protruded about 0.5mm too much which caused it to foul the mortar bed.

The trunnion brackets in the following photos are only dry-fitted, and there is some touching-up to do.

 

There is also a potential problem with the eyelets on the sides of the mortar beds.  If the are to fit into the housings the eyelets must again be recessed (shown below) as there is almost no room for the whole assembly.  I suggest before gluing the eyelets, dry-fit them to make sure the bed, eyelets and all,  fit the housing.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 5, 2018 by RMC

[OrLiN]

Hi,

Good point about recessing the eyelets.  I didn't and it caused all sorts of problems.

Your build is looking good, very good.  Following with interest.

OrLiN

[RMC]

Thanks for the comment OrLin.

 

Progress on the deck planking has been a little more time-consuming than I expected.  Planking from the outside to the centre means the centre plank has to accommodate any errors from both sides.  The planking material varies in width by up to 1/2 mm which doesn't help.  I first planked to within 1/2 a plank's width of the centre line on one side.  This left a gap of about 1.5mm between the edge of the last plank and the centre line. Then, on the other side, I aimed to plank to the same distance from the centre line as the first set of planks.  To do this I sanded the edges of the last 3 planks to be laid so that the edge of the last plank was the appropriate distance from the centre.   Sanding the edges of 3 planks meant the necessary adjustment was more evenly spread and (I hope) less noticeable.  Once I had a gap which was equidistant from the centre line I sanded a final plank to fit.  The centre plank is narrower than I would like, but I've been  told you can't have everything.

 

Here is the centre plank dry-fitted ...

 

and finished.

 

 

 

 There is more of this to do fore and aft, then the tree nails are to be done.

Edited June 7, 2018 by RMC

[jwvolz]

Looking great. Things get "busy" enough on deck that it will be hard to notice the narrow centerline plank. 

[RMC]

The deck planking is finished.  It has turned out acceptably, but I should have taken far more care in accommodating the different width of the planks.  As you will see from the following photos the centre plank varies in width quite a bit. In consolation, as Joe points out, the deck gets 'busy' and with luck it will obscure the mistakes.  Here the deck has been given a coat of polyurethane in the process of drying.  Once fully dry I will drill holes for the treenails then fill with a light brown wood filler.  I'm hoping that any surplus filler can be wiped off the poly without leaving a trace on the planks. Once that is done another coat of poly will be applied over the lot.  At least that's the plan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RMC]

The treenails are proceeding slowly.  In the following photos the holes for the treenails have not yet been filled. 

 

I thought to break up the job a little I would do the surrounds for the various hatches.  The main hatch was quite difficult. It has to be a square with 29mm sides.  Making it square was the hard part.  The cover for the hatch is made of 1.8mm ply, which I don't think is very attractive at all.  I will probably experiment with putting veneer over each piece to see how that looks.  A coat of poly has been put on the new work after these photos were taken.

 

Here is progress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RMC]

The holes for the 'treenails' are finally drilled - not difficult, just time-consuming.

 

The first photo shows the reinforcing of the deck and the main hatch. The reinforcing is comprised of six 2x4mm strips and one 2x5mm strip - total width of 29mm - the same as the exterior width of the main hatch.  However the one 2x4mm strip supplied was of very, very poor quality.  Of the one 600mm strip supplied, about 400mm could be best used as kindling; the remaining 200mm in bits and pieces along the length of the 600mm strip, was only just acceptable after quite a bit of work tidying it up. Nevertheless it was still very splintery.  The whereabouts of the 5mm strip remains a mystery.   Fortunately I had a small bit of 1.5x5 mm strip which I used after sticking a piece of 0.5x5mm strip beneath it.  At least most of the reinforcing (and a slip of the drill bit) will be obscured by the bitts and rigging. 

 

For the elements of hatch, I have substituted strip for the ply supplied.  The strips were not finally stuck down when the photos were taken. For comparison, the ply may be seen in the last photo of my previous post.

 

Now I have to fill the holes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2018 by RMC

[Jobbie]

The treenailing was worth the effort. It looks great, I reckon.

[RMC]

Thanks for the encouragement Jobbie.  It's always welcome. And thanks too for those who have 'liked'.  Filling the holes is in progress which will eventually determine how it all looks.

[flyer]

Hi Rob

 

Your Granado is turning out very nice and you certainly made a brilliant recovery from your problems with the wood for the second planking. You even make me rethink my decision never to show treenails on my models. Although they usually show a bit more prominent than the scale would request they do add a feel of reality to a model.

 

Cheers

Peter

[RMC]

Good to hear from you Peter.

 

I don't know about the recovery.  There are still some wood problems to come, but I will try to replace it from other sources.  It's a pity, because the difference in cost between supplying good quality stuff in the first place, and what has actually supplied is, I suspect, peanuts.  I would certainly be happy to pay more to have the certainty of good quality. 

 

I have now finished the treenails and am happy with the result.  (Photos to follow )  I do take your point however about their scale.

[RMC]

Here are  the threenails finished.  Next, the gunport patterns which certainly don't fit without quite a bit of adjustment.