Staining rigging to match the miniature model

[BrankoSNY]

Hello, here is my latest video about rigging and colormatching when building from scratch.

It is important for the aesthetics of and authentic feel of your model ship that all raw surfaces are stained to match the original colour, and not have one element looking glaringly different from the others. Even if it seems a small thing that many will not notice, you will know and you will not be satisfied with your project. 

Here in this video, I am using a tradtional stain/dye...black tea. It has been used for hundreds of years to stain and dye all sorts of things. Today we use it here to stain the small wooden parts that are secured to the ship. The rigging thread I have used is dark, soo that it complements the dark stain on the hull and decking I have made. This creates a weathered, authentic look on all parts of the model. 

Depending on how dark you want the stain, you can merely dip it in the black tea, or leave the parts in the liquid for a few seconds or minutes longer. Be sure to dry them completely, before you add them to your rigging. 

securing your bullseyes to the rigging can be a little fiddly, but keep going, keep trying, eventually you will do it easily. 
Thread it on to your rope and move it into position. Tie a knot. Then, create a loop and hook it over the bulleseye, pull the rope to tension, do the sme again, until you have completed five such loops, securing each at the base of the bullseye. Then ,move on to the next one. it is a process, but with practice, you will, like me, get the muscle memory nd your hands can complete the task for you. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZpmWWOIe18&list=PL5g6B09m0wL3EOzxDgJNi9-IqQeWs-rMM&index=9&ab_channel=BrankoStipanovic

[mtaylor]

Not to pick a fight, but I would not suggest tea.  It is acidic and will over time destroy the rigging.  There are an abundment of cloth dies available if dying your own rope is what you want to do.

[Jaager]

Mark is correct and on target.  Using tea or coffee is very old tech. It is in some of the very old 'how to build a ship model'  books and I am guessing early articles in the NRJ.   The organic acids in the extract make it an ill advised way to simulate Pine tar.  It may or may not be a significant risk, but why introduce potentially destructive factors when there is no need.

 

Liberon and others make a pH neutral dye - it comes as crystals - an extract from Walnut husks  -  the solvent is water.   The shade and intensity can be controlled by the concentration of crystals in water.

 

Also a possible dye agent can be made from mixing red and black stamp pad refill liquid.  There is always Rite.   Wood dye can be diluted. 

 

We also had a recent kendo fight about how close to black was standing rigging before the petrol era (Drake's well - 1859 - PA, USA)

but I still vote against using the 000, 000, 000 black common with kits. Dark, dark, dark walnut is not so kitschy.

It was fairly convincing that running rigging should be some shade of straw color.

 

[Gregory]

Are the alcohol based dyes like Fiebing's  a potential problem?

[Jaager]

Just now, Gregory said:

Are the alcohol based dyes like Fiebing's  a potential problem?

Knee jerk response - probably not.

For wood, aqueous aniline dyes are stated to penetrate wood more deeply than alcohol based dyes.

The water will raise wood grain -at least on first exposure - and alcohol does not.

At full size furniture scale, the depth of dye penetration is probably an important factor.

At the scale of a wooden ship model, I strongly suspect that any difference between alcohol and water based dye is too slight to matter.

This would make alcohol based dye a preferred agent for a model being "painted" with wood.

For fabric fibers, the density is magnitudes less than any wood, so alcohol should penetrate with no problem.  As far as I know, no low molecular weight alcohol has any negative effects on natural plant fibers.   Just keep Clorox away from silk.

 

In my shipyard PVA is the only man-made synthetic material that is allowed.  (I have more than enough linen yarn, cotton thread, and silk.)

I have no idea what would color Nylon, polyester, polypropylene, or Dacron or whatever synthetic is now infesting current model rope stocks. 

[mtaylor]

2 hours ago, Jaager said:

I have no idea what would color Nylon, polyester, polypropylene, or Dacron or whatever synthetic is now infesting current model rope stocks. 

To the best of my knowledge, the synthetics can't be dyed.  They're a filiment and not fibers.  

[Louie da fly]

My feelings exactly.

 

Steven