Had never planed on using anything over the top?
Believe me, David, clear coat is a good thing!
PS-or don’t believe me-post a question-it’s true!!
what is it? a spray can? I was/a, using dull coat as a protective barrier for the copper paint.
Yes Testors Dullcoat works welll-just use light coats after much agitation (not you-the can) as you work and don’t use after rigging (creates a dust magnet).
Hi David, I hope you don’t get to frustrated, there will always be more ships to build and this is just a learning curve, so don’t be to hard on yourself, your ship is looking very very good.
To finish these plastic sailing ships, you need to look outside the traditional hobby suppliers and at automotive finish and art suppliers for good masking materials, paint finishers, and most important, brushes.
About your masking tape, what kind did you use? The best kinds are high quality drafting / commercial artist tapes and automotive pin stripe tape. Tamiya tape is good too but I cannot get it to fit the fine contours that Heller sailing ship hulls have.
Also, get a few sheets of Frisket paper. This is a masking paper that is also very thin, yet can be cut and fitted into contours quit easily and won’t harm finished surfaces.
My experience with liquid mask has not been very good either. IT does not create a good demarcation, nor is it very easy to remove from painted surfaces. I just tried it on a 1/350 Trumpter Arizona with horrible results. A good tape, a lighted magnifier, some patience, and a very sharp edge is the best thing.
Also, feel free to mask off the area’s that need touch up, and get a very high quality sable brush, thin you paint, and do light coats on your touch up areas, after this and a clear coat, you will never know that it was touched up.
For clear finishes, many of us use Future, and for an enamel finish, I like Floquile’s dull coat. It can be thinned with Floquile Thinner for really light coats. I also use Graumbacher or Liquitex acrylic satincoat as well, again, it sprays on and is easy to reduce and looks very good. It also will not colect dust or hair which why artists use it on paintings as a protectant.
Hope to see more of your progress.
Scott
I’m using the Tamiya stuff, and in fairness it is good tape, it’s just the hull detail stops it from making that “perfect” edge.
I’m about to start masking up the other side, so I will try a few different things, some have worked on the sails(scrap) that came with the kit, they have some surface detail, so allow me to see whats what.
It just really gets my goat, most things I do, I do with a very high degree of precision, it’s my job, so when faced with something as “simple” as painting a straight bloody line! it pains me when it goes a bit adrift,lol.
To top it all, after I’d finished yesterday, I was cleaning up and spilt black enammel over the stern part of the kit which WAS a nice flat yellow[V]
It was at that point that I dropped brushes into the jar and just walked away! So that now needs to be stripped and resprayed. It just seems to be never ending,lol, I was warned that tuhis kit was not for the faint of heart, but my god is it a battle of wills atm.
Vapo-make your own tape and remember that overspray is like atmosphere-it gets everywhere-so be careful. Someone mentioned in this thread that there are more ships to build: “If thine eye troubles thee-pluck it out!”. Don’t turn this hobby into a herculean labour. If this kit is a pain remember that no medals are handed out to those dying with their brushes in their hands, Not that i advocate giving up but I have done it to save my sanity (oops-too late),
Edit: perhaps I mean just putting it aside for a bit.
I’m having that battle with a 1/350 Bismark. I would think after 20 years of building sailing ships that this would be a walk in the park, a two month build. WRONG! I’m now into my 6th month and it almost went into my “wall of shame”.
I mean, how hard can a few black and white stripes be?
And painting the dark grey on the tops of the turrents, ARRGH!
And after two hours getting the PE just right on one of the float planes, yup, all the little struts and cubanes, I go and drop a paint bottle on it while putting it away.
Oh well, I still have two more.
I build in a basement with a 8x10 concrete wall that remains clear for those “late night therapy sessions”.
But still, I am liking the looks of it, although it is not close to being a good as other builds, I’m still having fun tinkering with it. I have put it away a few times but it lies there, on the shelf, taunting me, so I take it off the shelf and put it back on the table just to be able to knock off one of the PE radars while grabbing a pair of tweezers.
This is the same model that survived my basement flooding in June with minimal damage.
Yup, building these can be quite rewarding eh?
Scott
Keep in mind that the real Victory of Napoleonic war would have been at sea 11 month out of each year she was in commission, being battered by sea and weather. Her paint would have been constantly touched up by a hodge podge of yellow and black paints from large number of different and disreputable sources, dilluted to different degrees based how much paint there is left, how large of an area needs to be painted, and how much turpentine remains in the ship’s stores. The edge of the stripes would have been eyeballed by sailors sitting on planks hanging over the gunwales.
Yes, a slickly painted Victory looks more impressive to the casual observer. But a indifferent paint job where areas of the same color really consists of patch work of slightly different tints and shade is far more realistic.
Ships seem to be rarely built and finished with the same degree of weathering that armour and aircraft get, I can understand why. To me, ship models are more snapshots rather than recreations, not sure if that makes sense? It seems more appropriate that a model aircraft should be weathered, it just looks wrong on a ship to me at least.
Dan! never, I won’t quit on it, I may ignite it, but I won’t quit till the flames die out!
I guess it is my first model since…well, a while[;)]
And I had never used an airbrush before at all, in fact the last model I did, possibly got painted with a finger,lol
But still, I know what I am aiming for, but it just eludes me atm, we’ll see how the other side goes. Like I said, she can allways sit with her starboard side against the wall[:D]
Well, I for one intend to weather my Victory - which leads me to this question; Would the copper be copper coloured or should it be greeny coloured like the statue of liberty?
Also, I have a feeling that the top of the copper plating should be some other colour like grey - anyone have any thoughts on this as I may be thinking of the Constitution rather than Victory.
This is my 1st sailed ship so maybe all sailing ship models have such horrible instructions but I have to say, I’ve never come across instructions that cause instant eye strain when looking over them! And the paint guide leaves a lot to be desired!
One last thing, would a ship like this have all the hatches that cover the cannons open at the same time, or could some be open and some be closed?
Cheers,
Steve
Steve-I wonder how copper weathers in sea water as opposed to air.
aha!
I hadn’t thought of that! I’m going to go do some surfing to see if I can find out!
I certainly like the idea of a nice coppery bottom!
Cheers,
Steve
[quote]
Originally posted by Mr_Gardner
aha!
I certainly like the idea of a nice coppery bottom!
Well-some tanning would help! 
We had a good discussion about the color of hull sheathing a few days ago, in the thread headed “Copper leafing instead of paint for plates on hull.” I’ve moved that thread to page 1; it should appear just below this one.
For what it’s worth, I firmly believe that the question “whether to weather” has no right or wrong answer. The old “Board Room style” models are pristine (or were when they were built), and I can’t imagine that a ship model could be more impressive. I’m also blown away by good, skillful application of weathering techniques; done carefully and knowlegeably, they can convey the character of the real ship like nothing else can. I know one prestigious European ship modeling organization bans weathering in its competitions. I have no interest in any group that operates like that. In my opinion such matters should be left to the judgment and taste of the modeler.
As to open and closed gunports - there’s another good application for personal taste. The normal drill would be for the ports to be opened more-or-less simultaneously during an engagement, or during gunnery practice - or when the weather was hot. But there would be plenty of scenarious in which some ports would be open and others shut. The appearance of a model ship-of-the-line changes to a surprising extent if the ports are closed. I’d suggest giving the matter some thought, and handling it however you think looks best.
For that matter, there’s no rule that says both sides of the model have to be identical in that respect. (Running out all the guns on only one side of the real ship would be risky, but since only one side of the model is normally visible - who’d know?)
Actually, running out all guns on weather side of the ship while leaving all guns on the lee side inboard is a common practice when sailing on a boradreach. It improves the ship’s stiffness, reduce the ship’s heel and increases the ship’s speed. Zeolous captains even insist that all members of watches not currently on duty to stand by the weatherside rails to make the ship stiffer still.
On a ship the size of victory, would it make “that much” differance? it’s a Q not saying your wrong, just seems that she’s so big,[?]
Victory is not that big. Her displacement is only about 3500 tons. All her guns on one side would weigh over 100 tons. Moving 100 tons around inside a 3,500 ton ship would noticeably effect the trim.
(note: her often quoted tonnage of around 2200 tons is derived for a formularused at the time to measure a ship’s relative carrying capacity, it does not bear any relationship to the ship’s actual weight or displacement)
Re paint seepage…
I was looking at pictures of the Victory. It seems that the Heller’s molded on wood effect is too deep for a model of this scale - especially, the gaps between planks.
When you look at the Victory as she is now, the sides of the ship look almost smooth with faint lines denoting planks.
I think that the ship should have the wood effect detail sanded off and the gaps filled. I’m doing it on mine and it should cut down on the paint flowing under the mask.
Here’s an example of the smooth effect on the actual ship:
http://gallery.drydockmodels.com/album217/IMG_0454_c
I know you could argue that coats of paint could have hidden the effect but I really think that the models details are too deep.
Steve
There’s no doubt whatever that the gaps between the planks on the Heller kit are too deep - and too wide. If that much space existed between the planks of a real ship, said ship would leak so badly that it would sink.
What this amounts to is what the aircraft modelers call “surface detail.” It’s customary these days for high-quality aircraft kits to have countersunk lines (i.e., grooves) delineating the panels of the fuselage, wings, and other components. Everybody knows that there are no grooves between the panels of a real airplane; the panels butt up against each other. Countersunk detailing is a modeling convention, designed to create an illusion that the model is actually made up of individual components like the real thing.
Countersunk detailing is a relatively recent innovation in plastic modeling. (Actually it’s been around since the fifties, but it only became fairly common in the late seventies or thereabouts.) For a long time plastic airplane kits represented the joints between panels with raised lines, and rivets with raised dots the size of scale watermelons. The typical 21st-century airplane kit, with its barely-visible countersunk panel lines, is far better than that.
Ship kit designers have wrestled with the same problem, with varying degrees of success. To my eye the Heller Victory is one of the better examples. (For one of the worst, take a look at the Heller French ship-of-the-line Superbe. Its hull has “wood grain” engraved it it - but no planking seams. Apparently we’re supposed to believe that the entire hull of the ship was hacked from a single, Brobdingnagian log.) Heller researched the complex layout and shapes of the planking pretty thoroughly. The “anchor stock” pattern of the wales is especially noteworthy. None of those hideously expensive continental European wood kits bothers with it.
If (gawd forbid) I were building the Heller kit I’m not sure what I’d do about the surface detail. I think my inclination would be to sand down the “wood grain” texture a bit; it’s really too prominent. As for the “seams” between the planks, I wouldn’t want to offer a suggestion without doing some experimenting. I don’t think I’d want to fill them and sand them till they disappeared, but I might try filling them partially in order to make them less prominent. This is yet another instance where personal taste has a role to play in this kind of modeling. I want my models to look like they’re made of individual planks - but I don’t especially want them to look like they leak.