Cutty Sark by uscharin - Sergal - 1:78

[rwiederrich]

6 minutes ago, uscharin said:

Rob, what can I say.  I love doing things the hard way.  Your Great Republic hull looks fantastic.  I searched your build log to find that you used Rust-Oleum Flat Chestnut right out of the can?  I would probably have never tried that, but the results look terrific.  My hull copper has darkened a fair amount over the years so not sure of color choices I might try but paint it will be.  Deeply appreciate your help and guidance!

Ron

That paint coupled with the shiny copper...really lent itself to the aged muntz I was after.   And the paint helps seal the copper to the hull and to each other.  I used light coats so the copper itself would kinda shine through but not.  Its an interesting effect.  I used the old images of Cutty Sark in her drydock long before she was ever burnt and rebuilt. The older picture is a bit faded.

[uscharin]

Rob, tried to pull some of the color back out of your old picture.  Yup, that is definitely the look I'm going for.  Time to experiment a bit before taking the plunge.  When my airbrush arrives and have chosen some suitable paints, I'll begin the selection process.  Makes me nervous but I'm now convinced paint is the only way to go.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 15 by uscharin

[rwiederrich]

49 minutes ago, uscharin said:

Rob, tried to pull some of the color back out of your old picture.  Yup, that is definitely the look I'm going for.  Time to experiment a bit before taking the plunge.  When my airbrush arrives and have chosen some suitable paints candidate pigments, I'll begin the selection process.  Makes me nervous but I'm now convinced paint is the only way to go.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes...you want an even consistent look.....not a look of dilapidation and leaching....that these pictures also represent. Unless, that's what you are looking for....then you need to treat your entire vessel in like manner.  Weathering her consistently.

Edited August 15 by rwiederrich

[uscharin]

Been away from the boat for the last 3 weeks to work on my house exterior before the fall weather closes in.  I'm back.

 

While I was away, my new air brush and paints showed up.  Once I have had a chance to set up the air brush and test some paint options, I'll be painting the copper tiles to look, hopefully, like aged Muntz metal.  I'll cover that topic once I have some results to show.

 

Decided to work on the deadeyes over the last few days.  Modeling them was a bit frustrating as the details I wanted to execute were far too hard on my mental health.  Still, I feel that I was able to catch the spirit of them while making fabrication much easier.  Even though there is a range of eye sizes on the original ship, practicality gets in the way.  I decided to go with 4mm and 3mm eyes and chose Syren's 3D printed versions.  I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the eyes are.  Good job, Syren.

 

I used brass rod for the iron stays and soft copper wire to make the straps.  I burnished the copper wire to somewhat flatten it for effect. and then wrapped the eyes and soldered to brass rod. I don't know what polymer the 3D printed eyes are made of but was worried that they might melt during soldering.  Turned out not be a problem and I didn't ruin a single one.  After soldering I bathed the assemblies in ethanol for a minute or two to clean off flux residue.  Here again, I was worried how the eyes might hold up so tested first.  After a couple minutes I could see pigment getting leached from the eyes and after drying down the eyes shrank slightly.  Not a problem for me in either case.

 

I painted the eyes black using an acrylic enamel spray and then scuffed up a bit with 0000 steel wool to soften the look. My first attempt using a water-based paint failed as the paint would rub right off.  After painting I used an appropriately sized drill bit to ream out paint residue from the eyelets.  I then hand painted the white areas with a water-based paint that adhered nicely to the enamel.

 

All 4 existing pin rail bump outs were according to Sergal plans, which were not correct.  I replaced all 4 after which I located and drilled all the stay locations, which is a tricky and time-consuming process.  There is a small rectangular iron plate at the bottom of each stay that attaches to the iron bulwark.  To simulate that I cut little paper squares from a paper dinner plate and glued in place and then saturated/fixed with CA.

 

During this whole process I discovered all the wash/freeing ports are in the wrong locations.  Not even close.  Oh well, add this to the list of things that I will not be attempting to remedy.

 

 

 

My cellphone camera takes really crummy pictures in low light, so removed the poor ones and adding these for a better look...

Edited September 12 by uscharin

[uscharin]

Today I finally found both the time and nerve to paint my hull tiles.  I purchased a Paasche H model airbrush and a couple Tamiya paint colors for this job.  This was my very first time holding an airbrush so did a little research before the purchase.  I have to say, now that I have one, I kick myself for not getting one years ago.  The airbrush I purchased is a rather simple single-stage high-volume model. It can go down to about a 1/16" coverage to upwards of about 1.5 inches.  I was surprised by how efficient they are with paint and how completely controllable the applications are.

 

My goal has been to achieve a deeply aged Muntz metal look. It has been very illusive.  After some experimentation on small non-copper targets, I decided to mix 1:1 FX-9 to FX-64.  I then thinned 1:1 paint to lacquer thinner.  I used the H-5 head and HC-5 aircap that came with the airbrush, which will throw the most air and paint.  I ran it with my pancake compressor set to output 30psi.  The job took so little air volume my compressor only cycled once at the beginning and that was it.  As you might notice I simply plugged the airbrush line directly to the compressor.  I plan to get a filter for future work.

 

The paint is fresh when the pictures were taken, and I know it will darken over the next day or two. Even after it darkens, I think it will need more work to deepen the brown.  I also want to "dirty" it up a bit as it looks too clean for my liking.  Now that I have an airbrush, shading/adjusting the base coat I put on today will be easy.  I just need to stare at it for a few days and try to figure out next steps.