painting the "Undersides"

[geoff]

I have just reached the stage where I need to paint the undersides of my Jotika model of the HMS Supply. In the instructions it states the colour should be "Off White"? Do I add a little black to the white paint? Also were ships of this era really painted white below the water line, or just models to look nice?! Any help/comments appreciated. Geoff

[S.Coleman]

I have Used a tiny bit of yellow mixed in to offset the color. It has seemed to work for me. As for the reason for hulls to be painted I'm not too sure.

[demonborger]

Off white is a creamy colour. If you add black it will go grey instead which is not what you want.

 

The white paint was a mixture of various substances that created a coating that would prevent marine organisms from attaching the the hull and attacking the wood. 

[geoff]

many thanks folks! I have some Ochre Yellow. I will experiment before committing paint to model ! Geoff

[mgdawson]

Hi Geoff

 

As I understand it, ships, prior to copper sheathing were not 'painted' as such, they were coated in various mixtures of tar, oil, resin, tallow and pitch to try and prevent the growth of barnacles and weed on the hull as well as trying to impede the attack of toredo worms.

 

I'm not near my references at the moment but from memory the yellow tinged white was tallow with some sulphur added, a common mixture in the mid/late 18th century Royal Navy before they switched to copper.

 

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me could pipe in here.

 

Mark D

[popeye2sea]

The material was called "white stuff" and I believe it's makeup varied from place to place but could be made from tallow, pine tar or resins, sulfer compounds and fish or whale oil.

[dgbot]

A color I have used before is Antique White by Polyscale.  I never like mixing paint.

David B