Do you own a scanner? If you have a scanner you can scan the part, print it to the exact scale, then make a very accurate template for the decking. Since most deck parts are relatively flat, you should be able to get a decent scan. I used to do that with pinball plastics when making new decals.
If you don’t own a scanner, then forget everything I just said!
Bob
Thanks Bob. Yes I tried the scanning of the part early on. The issue I had wasn’t so much with the scanning but the printing. The printer only prints in black and you couldn’t make anything out other than the general shape of the part. I just bought a color printer for decals maybe I’ll give that one a try and see if I get better results.
I have one cut. I just need to drill out the holes from the bottom once it’s glued down. It’s very difficult to do. There are some areas that are over cut, not rounded and such but I don’t have a laser to cut them with! I think if I put some similar color to what the wood is underneath in the areas that are rough it may look OK from normal viewing distance. I have one little slice that I may add when gluing it down. I haven’t made a final decision on if I’ll proceed with the rest of them yet. It wears me out concentrating on this tiny stuff and one wrong move with the knife and it’s trash.
I cut another deck. I believe this is the largest one. Made some errors, one big one, but I covered it up the best I could. Once they are glued down I still have to address the rest of the holes and also a bunch of indentations that have to be removed along the sides.
I have cutting the decks on hold for now as there is a rumor that Scaledecks may be producing a set. That would be a wish come true for me because I can’t stand cutting them and they don’t come out that good. I’ll try to do some other stuff for a while and see if they actually make the decks available. I started to put some color on the hull.
I see the learning from my mistakes statement is being put into practice. I shot the hull in gloss black to enable me to affix the hull decals. I didn’t know I had to do that on my first ship but I do now. I actually can’t wait to cover it up with flat clear as I am not a fan of gloss black on anything.
Well I got my first experience with decals today. I think they came out pretty good for a first try. The only thing is I may have messed up the order of doing things again. I still need to paint the white stripe between the red and black of the hull. Of course this will require masking over the decals. I shot the whole hull with a couple of pretty heavy coats of acrylic flat clear, especially where the decals are.
If anyone reads my posts and has any input on whether you think these decals will survive masking I would appreciate your input. I could probably get around the name on the side of the bow by putting paper over it and then the masking tape. The draft marks are another story, I have to mask right on them. I’m hoping having the clear over them will be ok since my paint doesn’t pull up when I mask things….at least that was my thinking.
I wound up putting paper under the tape where the decals are. Not the best stripe but it was pretty hard to mask. The decals survived though.
I’m trying to do other things that having wood decks doesn’t interfere with as I wait to see if Scaledecks produces a Lusitania deck. The last thing I want to do is cut all those decks and then have beautiful pre made ones come out a month after I glue mine down
So I’m going to mess with some painting. I know it takes longer, costs more money in paint and tape, but I just prefer the look of a sprayed on finish as opposed to a brush. Personal preference.
I guess I’m wasting a lot of time masking since I will be putting wood decks on. My thought is it can’t hurt because even the pre cut wood decks always have a little space around the objects they are cut to fit. The plastic is pretty close in color to the wood decks so I figure the plastic color will hide any space better than black.
More masking and painting on the Lusitania. There are a bunch of these skylights to do. So far I’ve done one!!
On this one I tried to make the frames a darker gloss brown. I think it looks good. I’m going to do the rest of the skylights that have frames this way.
I was trying to figure out how to paint the thin window frames on the white skylights without brushing them as I know they would look inconsistent and I would probably get paint on the clear if I brushed. I took the back side of a 3M sanding sponge and brushed it with white paint and then lightly dragged it over the raised detail of the frames. It took several times from different directions to cover them all but it worked out pretty well. The 3M sponge is halfway between rigid and flexible if that makes sense and seemed like the best thing to use. Then I just masked everything up and sprayed the rest. When you are not good with a brush and not very experienced with one I guess you have to come up with an alternative plan. I think the sponge sucked in enough paint also to not glob it onto the clear part. I also found out the clear parts do not like to take primer or paint very well. I’m learning new ways to do this all the time.
Well, Excuuse Me!
Who have you been talking to? Yourself? Because self is dead wrong! Why do I say that? Think for a minute. You’ve overcome every hurdle that you met so far. So you keep on building and doing a fine job. Don’t listen to self, he don’t know what you do ! Just keep going and show us this beautimus model you are doing. Put self in the closet if he can’t be supportive, Okay?
Talking to myself is happening more and more as it’s just me and the dog here lol! The more I do the more I am figuring out how to get around things I’m not good at. I can see with this hobby that doing is the key. Once you do something you haven’t done before that lets you figure it out for the next time. I enjoy learning ways to do stuff and then putting it into practice. Yes there are mistakes along the way but that’s fine. I’m really enjoying doing the model building and that’s I guess what it’s all about! Sometimes you just discover something you really enjoy and actually to my surprise I found I enjoy doing this. Much better than watching TV all day while staying at home during our current crisis. Tanker-Builder, thanks for the encouragement!
Hey Chris question - I have a 1/350 USS Alaska and saw that scaledecks does one for that ship too. How do you finish it and attach it ? Ive never done it so curious. Might be nice to have one, but then again im guessing the USS Alaska wasnt a wood decked ship? Tks MM
The scaledecks kit I found online is prefinished in camouflage over wood. It certainly looks attractive enough, if it’s accurate. The other choice would be her 1945 camouflage; Measure 22 which would be solid deck blue over wood.
I do not think that theres adhesive on the back of the deck, other scaledecks do not. You’d best read some reviews of what worked for other people.
My one piece of advice is to test fit and trim a lot. Don’t ever expect the glue to make it stay flat. It should fit and lay flat on it’s own.
Hi Mrchntmarine. I would highly recommend the Scaledecks if you are looking to buy a wood deck. I don’t know much about the other manufacturers but I believe most come with an adhesive already on them that you peel off a protective film and apply to the plastic deck. The Scaledecks do not come with adhesive which I think is a huge plus, at least for me. You can choose what adhesive you want to use with the Scaledecks. I have a Pontos deck that came with a detail kit for a 1/200 Titanic and I’m not going to use it but instead buy a Scaledeck for the model.
Basically they come on a big sheet with all the separate sections precut by a laser. There are a few wood tabs that the laser leaves uncut to keep the whole sheet together. You just have to cut these tiny tabs with a blade and the section you want to use comes free from the sheet.
You then just dry fit them and usually do some very slight trimming here and there to get them to fit perfectly. They are very close to being drop on and glue depending on how complicated the deck is. The backing is kind of a fuzzy material that I think helps with their adhesion as the glue gets a good hold of it. They sit under the bulkheads and most other things on the model which keeps a clean look and I assume probably helps in keeping them from coming up.
It probably helps to sand off any raised plastic deck detail before gluing them down. I take a paint brush and paint the glue on the plastic deck and then drop on the Scaledeck and use a bunch of small clamps to hold it until the glue sets.
They are susceptible to staining if they get wet so you could spray a few light coats of clear on them prior to working with them. I would not put it on heavy as the decks are actually printed with ink and a heavy wet coat of clear I think will cause issues. Just a few mist coats.
I like the fact that you have time to adjust and move them around as opposed to the other brands that stick as soon as they contact the plastic. That is stressful to me. I understand there are ways around that by putting water down first or other methods but I really would rather not have to go there.
I put them on my first model which I linked to here.
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/184366.aspx?page=1
There are a bunch of photos of them being clamped down so feel free to look if you like.
I hope this answered some of your questions. If I can help answer anything else about them please let me know.
MM by the way I used a white glue called Gators Grip. So far that has worked well. I can’t speak of longevity as far as how long the decks will stay down without lifting as it’s only been a couple of months since I installed them, but so far so good. The other issue that may pop up is the tolerance stacking of adding several decks. Even though they are very thin, on a ship like an ocean liner with many decks over each other the thickness of the wood decks may add up and throw off any tight fitting pieces that have to be attached from the side of a model. That is the disadvantage of the deck sitting under the bulkheads. A warship may not have these problems but ocean liners with their many decks of wood sometimes might.