Using wood as decking for a plastic hull model?

[Scottish Guy]

Dear fellow builders, I´m new to the forum and returner to model building (my last build was 25 yrs ago). I would like to gain some skills to build my dream sail yacht from scratch one day. I got advised now to start with a wooden model kit. But since my last plastic build was 25 yrs ago I was wondering if a mixture from both worlds would be a good idea. To get back into scale building but also to start with wood.

 

Therefore I thought to get (can get it "cheap") a Revell Cutty Sark 1/96 but using wood for the decking (not for the hull). DO you think that would be of advantage or even advised or should I just start with the wooden kit as advised or just start with the plastic kit frist again?

 

Looking forward to your hints, advises and thoughts. Thank you in advance...

 

Micha

[John Fox III]

While no expert on this subject, I see one problem with covering plastic decking, and that is thickness of the deck. It could mis-align parts that are later attached to/through the deck. I routinely plank solid hull and framed miniatures with maple veneer that I sand down to just 0.010" thick, which might work.

Anchor's A Weigh!

John Fox III

[Gregory]

Check out HisModel and Amazon.  I see they have wooden decks for Cutty Sark.

[GrandpaPhil]

The Encore kit of the Olympia came with wood decking.  It had me shave the wood grain off the plastic deck before applying the wood decking.

[Scottish Guy]

11 hours ago, John Fox III said:

While no expert on this subject, I see one problem with covering plastic decking, and that is thickness of the deck. It could mis-align parts that are later attached to/through the deck. I routinely plank solid hull and framed miniatures with maple veneer that I sand down to just 0.010" thick, which might work.

Hi John, I was more thinking of replacing the entire plastic deck with a wooden deck. So not just put a wooden deck onto the plastic, which as you stated may cause problems because of the height, but really leave the plastic deck and create / build one out of wood and put this one in. But thank you for the idea of sanding it down.

Someone else made the suggestion that there are ready wooden deckings, especially for the Revell Cutty Sark 1/96. I had a look at those as well, unfortunately the wooden decking is almost the same price than the model kit. So not sure if this would really be an option.

[BETAQDAVE]

13 hours ago, Scottish Guy said:

Therefore I thought to get (can get it "cheap") a Revell Cutty Sark 1/96 but using wood for the decking (not for the hull). DO you think that would be of advantage or even advised or should I just start with the wooden kit as advised or just start with the plastic kit frist again?

    Perhaps I can provide some personal insight on this concept Gregory. See my build log for the whaling bark Wanderer in the Kit build logs for subjects built from 1851 – 1900. The 1/87 scale plastic model kit is made by Aurora and I am heavily modifying the kit, by replacing most of the plastic parts with wood, including the ships deck.

[wefalck]

Well, at 1/96 scale most woods would have really a too coarse grain, particularly those commercial decks made from veneer.

Unlike wooden shipmodels, where the builder may want to show his woodworking etc. skills, plastic models usually are finished to show how the ship (may have) appeared in real life.  Mixing visible wood with plastic may look incongruent in style.

 

My personal choice would be to replace the injection moulded deck with some styrene, lightly engrave the plank seams, lightly scrape down any raised burrs, and build up the coamings etc. from styrene strips.

Then paint the deck in wood colour (I use these days mainly Vallejo acrylics), seal this paint with gloss varnish, take a black 0.1 mm felt-tip pen and draw out the seams, wiping off any excess immediately, so that the black only stays in the engraved lines. Seal again with satin varnish and then slightly tint each individual plank with veery light washes of burnt umber. Afterwards apply a very light white wash all over. The result should look like this:

[Scottish Guy]

Thank you all for the answers and really great ideas / tipps. I think I will stick to the regular plastic deck and just use the model kit to get back into building at all. Then I will get a wooden kit and start with the wooden kit.

At least that are my plans for the moment... still considering not to start immediately with a wooden kit. Just don´t know which one to choose lol

[wefalck]

I you go that down that road, you should at least scrape/sand off this complete unrealistic woodgraining that these kit manufacturers seem to be so fond of. Afterwards, you may need to (re-) engrave lightly(!) the plank seams.