I need help and I need a lot of advice. I hate to say it, but I committed one of modeling's most awful crimes: I tried to rush finish my Habakkuk for an upcoming contest this past Nov. 14th and I made mistakes.
But the night before the contest, I said "To hell with the Habakkuk!" and went to the contest as a spectator instead and did not enter anything. The Habakkuk sat at home.
A lot of people were telling me not to rush, including my own mother, but I didn't listen that well, and now I paid the ultimate price by having a godawful flight deck which I'm about to explain.
When I made the flight deck, I used thin Evergreen sheet which had to be laid in 6 sections since my local hobby store doesn't have Evergreen sheet in 3' lengths.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/ ... C02484.jpgI then sprayed it with Testor Dark Sea Blue which is the closest I could get to Deck Blue 20B. Since the Sea Blue was a gloss, I would then have to dull coat it, which I did. Everything (paint and dull coat) was left to dry for a very long time before I wanted to do the flight deck markings. Now here's where my major mistake comes in: I then started laying 3M "low tack/adhesion" blue painter's masking tape down to do the flight deck markings. As I was trying to position the tape so that I could get a nice straight line, I soon noticed that the tape was pulling off the dull coat layer off of the flight deck! O.O CRAP!
If I wouldn't have rushed things and been so stupid, then what I SHOULD have done was the following: Paint, then markings, THEN dull coat. As I was explaining my situation to other modelers at the contest (and getting critisised), one person suggested taking a product called Gojo which is a pumice hand cleaner and spreading that on the deck and letting the ingredients work on "lifting/stripping" the paint/dull coat off the deck. After trying to remove as much paint/dull coat as I can, I'd then have to sand down the Evergreen decking again before trying to reapply my paint/dull coat again.
The only other option if I didn't do the above is to completely buy new Evergreen sheet and build a new flight deck. But the person I talked to seemed to think that the Gojo solution would be the easier and faster method to use.
So I have to ask: Does what I just explained for solutions work ok or does anyone have any other suggestions?
Problem #2:
I was also critisised for painting my Habakkuk wood hull and the wood grain can still be seen in areas through the Haze Gray or red paints. Well, why can't I just leave my wood hull as is because according to the Habakkuk article written by William J. Wallace in that Warship magazine, he wrote the following:
Quote:
The outside hull would be insulated by a complex 9in thick composite material, made of plywood and insulation boards (masonite type) in 27 layers. This tough outer shell would dovetail together and be attached to the hull by 1ft 6in dowels embedded in the ice.
Therefore, why can't my wood hull stay as is to "represent" that outer insulation layer? But I was told instead to completely strip off all the gray and red paint, sand smooth the entire wood hull AGAIN and then repaint everything.
Problem #3
Same modeling friend also did not like the way I had my display base as shown below.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/ ... C02485.jpgHe suggested removing all the pics and text, and instead building/displaying a 1/700 WWII AC and put that next to the Habakkuk for scale purposes. He suggested painting it black to act as a "silhouette" so to speak. If I did that, then I probably wouldn't put much detail on the AC and would skip tiny details like the 20mm guns and other small stuff. It's only the main hull, superstructure, and perhaps a few other main pieces I'd have to build/paint.
But if I do this "silhouette", then where do I add my other pics/text, if I do? I'm not going to remove the cross section that I built. That will be staying on the base.
What does everyone think? Should I do a "silhouette" or not?