How to paint hard to reach areas

[Brinkman]

Hello all, I'm nearing completion on the hull I'm building and have tried to wait with painting for as long as I could to minimise wood dust on painted surfaces.

 

I have painted some areas before mounting parts that will partly cover them. But I didn't do it everywhere.

 

Do you have any tricks and tips for painting hard to reach areas? I'm using oil based paints.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Brinkman

[DaveBaxt]

This is an interesting question and I look forward to a few good answers. Nice work by the way

[robert952]

Me, too.  Following along to see what the more experienced folks have to say. 

[Chuck]

Well, simply put...there is no reason to wait in order to paint.   Its best to have painted those areas before they became hard to reach.   Usually that is best when planning.   It is much easier to do a bit of touch up later and dust can be cleaned away without hurting the painted surfaces.

 

Having said that...I do keep several brushes of good quality in a cup of water all the time.   I do this to actually force the tips of the brush to bend and keep the bend.  This allows me to apply a bit of paint to the tip of the brush which can be used to get in some tight spaces.  But not that tight.   It is always best to paint parts before they become inaccessible. 
 

I have other brushes with even more of a bend.  These are three I had readily at hand.
 

[druxey]

I hate to see good brushes abused that way but, when needs must....

 

If using oil based paint, another technique is to use sanding sealer on the area, then paint. Any spot of unwanted paint can easily be scraped off when thoroughly set.

[Thukydides]

There is no easy answer to the question if it is already assembled. You can try smaller brushes, adjusting the angle you are painting at etc... In general my advice would be to paint off the model or paint earlier in the process before you make the area hard to access.

 

 

[Glen McGuire]

5 hours ago, druxey said:

I hate to see good brushes abused that way but, when needs must....

Hey Druxey, you are not gonna like what I do!  For my ship-in-bottle work, I am often trying to get a dab of paint or glue into a hard to reach place.  What I do is take a fine-tipped brush with a long metal ferrule, and then bend the ferrule to the angle I need to reach the nook or cranny.  I will also use a cuticle trimmer and nip the bristles down to a few strands if necessary, depending on how tight the spot is.   

 

In the example below, I cut off the end of the brush and glued it into a dowel rod so I could reach way inside a bottle.  Obviously that step would probably not be necessary for what Mr. Brinkman has in mind.

 

[GrandpaPhil]

Also, paint from the inside out.  That way you can cover up your earlier mistakes as you paint.

[DaveBaxt]

Some really good tips coming in. Great thread.

[Bob Cleek]

That's some beautiful work! Even at large scale (1:12 ?), real clinched-nail fastened clinker planking is quite an accomplishment. I'm looking forward to your posting the finished model! 

 

Ditto to what everybody else said. I will only add that it's unclear whether you intend to "paint" the entire model with opaque paint or plan to leave a fair amount of the interior finished "bright." (Meaning that the wood would be finished with some sort of clear coating such as shellac, varnish or an oil. I've done my share of refinishing traditionally-built full-sized boats of that type and, as you probably know, even "in real life" that sort of finishing job is a real challenge to get the less accessible areas covered. It's for this reason that most clinker planked traditionally framed boats often have their interiors "washed" with what we call "boat soup" here in the U.S. (i.e., a half and half mixture of linseed oil and turpentine, with a dash of pine tar) instead of being coated with glossy varnish or paint. Wiping on a flat (matte) sealer coat of a clear oil-based finish is a lot less of a chore as it rarely requires more than a wash-down for preparation and the "soup" can be wiped on with a sponge or rag without worrying about brush strokes and cutting-in where opaque paint edge meets the "bare" wood. (When refinishing the oiled wood, which is required periodically, a thin clear coating can actually be wiped on right over the edge of a painted area and then wiped off the paint before it dries without any masking required at all.) 

 

For a model, gloss finishes are generally avoided, so you might want to consider applying some sort of thinned clear "wipe on" finish on the inboard areas, just as is done with the full-size prototypes. Thin clear (sometimes called "white" or "bleached") shellac (e.g. "2 or 3 pound cut"...the consistency of water) or even well-thinned varnish, linseed oil, or clear polyurethane coating could be applied relatively easily using cotton tipped swabs or, better still, those foam tipped applicator sticks they sell for applying cosmetics. The foam swabs will carry more liquid than the cotton ones and not pose a risk of leaving bits of cotton on the surface. A well-thinned coating material can even be "flooded" into the nooks and crannies and the excess that collects in the corners wiped or "blotted" up once the coating has soaked into the bare wood. You might even consider pouring a considerable amount into the bilges and just sloshing it around and then draining off the surplus and wiping up the excess on the surfaces thereafter.

 

Keep in mind that I'm not saying I've done it this way before on a model, so experimentation is required before you do anything to that beautiful workmanship which cannot be undone, but I've done enough finishing over the years to think it should work fine. I'm not suggesting that you try to put a high gloss varnish finish on it in this manner way at all. This is simply an application method for applying a sealing coat that will bring up the color of the wood and protect it from stains and such. This approach is best done before any painting with an opaque coating is applied to other portions of the model, but you may have to "dance with the girl your brought" and avoid staining what you've already painted with masking tape. Once it dries, a thin application of any good oil-based clear coating should be easy to cover with your opaque paint where the edges of the two meet. Keep in mind, however, that care should be taken to be sure that the different coating materials you use are compatible. Not all are. Here, again, experimentation before application to the model is imperative. Always test coating combinations on a scrap of the same surface material you intend to use them on and let them dry well before proceeding to apply them on the finished work. This is particularly true of any of the more "synthetic" coatings such as the polyurethanes, epoxies, and acrylics or anything advertised as an "eco-friendly" replacement for traditional coatings. These modern coatings, as good as many of them are, often contain exotic chemicals that don't get along with each other and can produce unexpectedly disappointing, if not disastrous, results when they are applied on top of each other.

 

On the other hand, if it is your intention to paint the entire inboard area of the boat with an opaque paint, a "wipe on" solution for the hard-to-reach places won't work, in which case, I wish you much luck and may God have mercy on your soul!  

Edited November 28, 2023 by Bob Cleek

[Brinkman]

Thank you for all the replies! And for the nice words about my model.

 

Yes. I should have painted this before attaching the stringer. I really wanted to see how it looked and couldn't wait to let the paint dry...

 

At least I didn't repeat the same mistake with later parts.

 

Chuck, excellent tip with the crooked tips!

 

Druxey and Bob, at least everything will be painted in the same tar coloured wash. But it's good to know how to protect the surfaces otherwise.

 

Glen, ship in a bottle builders sure has to come up with some ingenious tool adaptations!

 

I think I will try using cut offs from make up sponges held with by tweezers and use a generous amount of my wash and linseed mix and let capillary action transport it where I can not reach.

 

[Bob Cleek]

6 hours ago, Brinkman said:

I think I will try using cut offs from make up sponges held with by tweezers and use a generous amount of my wash and linseed mix and let capillary action transport it where I can not reach.

If you are using a traditional thin wash of linseed oil, solvent (turpentine?), and a dash of color from pine tar or raw umber tubed artists' oil paint, I think you will find the result very pleasing. Capillary action is exactly the ticket. You'll probably find also that the slightly greater amount of wash that finds its way into the corners, joints, and seams and perhaps around the fastenings, will produce a slightly darker color that will add interest and realism to the finished product. It's a really nice model. In my opinion, we don't see enough small working craft modeled. Most modelers seem more interested in building huge historic ships of the line than humble workboats with just as much historic importance.  

[druxey]

You are forgiven, Glen! Although that brush looks a little sad....

[robert952]

My thanks to all who shared. 

 

I will mention something that may be obvious.  But I have been know to overlook the obvious. 

 

Lots of light and probably magnification.

 

Hard to reach usually means hard to see. So, I suggest a lighted magnifier on an articulated arm.  Due to work space limits, this may or may not work. 

 

Alternatively, a head band with lights (with or without magnifiers) are one of those love/hate relations with me. Weight and comfort the big problems in my opinion.  

 

However, I was helping my son with a home project a couple of days ago. He had a couple of LED headband lights that amazed me with their brightness. (Bright enough to easily watch the operation of a dryer vent 25 feet up in the dark.  It wasn't dark when we started the project.)  

 

They were similar to this: Home Depot link to product.  (There's other sources and variations on rechargeable, brightness modes, etc.  I'd bet there's a magnifier headband with super bright LEDs.) The one he had was magnetic and attached to the head band or could be placed on metal surface. It was very lightweight. I am rethinking the headband approach alternative. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by robert952

[Diver]

Hello All.  I am about to paint some parts of my Sanson tug by AL.  I have purchased the AL paint kit and need advice on how to brush paint this model.  The paints are water based acrylic and I would like to know if they should be thinned, and what brushes are best.  What would be used as a thinner for these paints?  Thanks in advance.   Bob

[robert952]

@Diver Short answer, yes, thin the paints for airbrushing.  You might want to check out this thread:  LINK  Bob Cleek (along with many others) has a lot of good info to share in the linked thread.

 

Test paint the material and various ratios of water to paint to see what give the best results.

[Thukydides]

7 hours ago, Diver said:

Hello All.  I am about to paint some parts of my Sanson tug by AL.  I have purchased the AL paint kit and need advice on how to brush paint this model.  The paints are water based acrylic and I would like to know if they should be thinned, and what brushes are best.  What would be used as a thinner for these paints?  Thanks in advance.   Bob

The short answer is yes thin them, but not having used AL paints I can’t exactly tell you how much, but better to ere on too thin than too thick. Cheap brushes from walmart will work fine if you are just trying to base coat the model. I use cheap brushes for this sort of work all the time and only break out my good ones for the detail work.

 

The longer answer:

 

Acrylic paints are made up of three components: pigment, binder and solvent. The solvent in this case is water so you can thin your paints by adding more up to a point. If you thin them past that point, there won’t be enough binder in the solution to hold the pigment together. This is where acrylic medium comes in. You can buy this at any art store and you can use it if you want to thin the paint even more without losing its properties.

 

For just painting coats on a model you will not however need to thin the paint this much. My suggestion is to test it on your palm. If the paint fills in the cracks (ie you can’t see the lines on your palm anymore) then it is too thick. It will not completely cover on the first coat (especially for colour such as white or yellow). You want two to three thin smooth coats. Make sure they are completely dry and sand off any imperfections between coats. What I will say is that if your paint is too thin you only loose time. If it is too thick you will ruin the model. For model paints such as vellejo or citadel, my rule of thumb is one part paint to one part water, but this will vary depending on the thickness of the paint.

 

Make sure you have used a primer or a sanding sealer first and you have a smooth surface to work on. A good paint job can’t fix a poorly prepared surface.

 

If you are painting both dark and light colours (for example black and white) paint the lighter one first. It will be much easier to paint the black over white than the other way round. Also if you are having trouble with a lighter colour covering you can build up to it by say for example painting on a light grey and then painting white over top.

 

For brushes (I assume you are just painting the hull), I would recommend just pick up a pack of brushes from somewhere like walmart. That will give you a few sizes to work with and since you will inevitably ruin them anyways (I am assuming you are not familiar with painting since you asked the question), at least you haven't ruined expensive ones. In the future you can look into more expensive ones if you want to explore painting a bit more. 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Thukydides

[GrandpaPhil]

I use generic craft paint brushes for larger surfaces, like hulls, and dry brushing.  I use Qualrite Miniature Fine Detail brushes for detail work and miniatures.

[Diver]

1 hour ago, Thukydides said:

The short answer is yes thin them, but not having used AL paints I can’t exactly tell you how much, but better to ere on too thin than too thick. Cheap brushes from walmart will work fine if you are just trying to base coat the model. I use cheap brushes for this sort of work all the time and only break out my good ones for the detail work.

 

The longer answer:

 

Acrylic paints are made up of three components: pigment, binder and solvent. The solvent in this case is water so you can thin your paints by adding more up to a point. If you thin them past that point, there won’t be enough binder in the solution to hold the pigment together. This is where acrylic medium comes in. You can buy this at any art store and you can use it if you want to thin the paint even more without losing its properties.

 

For just painting coats on a model you will not however need to thin the paint this much. My suggestion is to test it on your palm. If the paint fills in the cracks (ie you can’t see the lines on your palm anymore) then it is too thick. It will not completely cover on the first coat (especially for colour such as white or yellow). You want two to three thin smooth coats. Make sure they are completely dry and sand off any imperfections between coats. What I will say is that if your paint is too thin you only loose time. If it is too thick you will ruin the model. For model paints such as vellejo or citadel, my rule of thumb is one part paint to one part water, but this will vary depending on the thickness of the paint.

 

Make sure you have used a primer or a sanding sealer first and you have a smooth surface to work on. A good paint job can’t fix a poorly prepared surface.

 

If you are painting both dark and light colours (for example black and white) paint the lighter one first. It will be much easier to paint the black over white than the other way round. Also if you are having trouble with a lighter colour covering you can build up to it by say for example painting on a light grey and then painting white over top.

 

For brushes (I assume you are just painting the hull), I would recommend just pick up a pack of brushes from somewhere like walmart. That will give you a few sizes to work with and since you will inevitably ruin them anyways (I am assuming you are not familiar with painting since you asked the question), at least you haven't ruined expensive ones. In the future you can look into more expensive ones if you want to explore painting a bit more. 

Thanks for the great advice.