Black stripe on hull, measure 22

[stevezaj]

About how wide is the black stripe on a 350th scale USN measure 22 ship? Also, I'm using a trumpeter kit with the hull in 2 parts, upper grey, and lower red. I'm building a full hull ship so the black stripe goes on the upper grey portion only? Thanks.

[Timmy C]

The black waterline stripe (also known as boottopping) had no relation to what camouflage scheme the ship wore.

The top of it was theoretically where the ship would be at its heaviest, and the bottom of it where the ship would be at its lightest. This differed depending on the ship. A battleship would have a much wider stripe than a destroyer, for example. The width, and location, of the stripe could also differ depending on time period as the ships got heavier and the possible variation between upper and lower waterline depths changed. There's also the formal 'design waterline', which you can find on most General Arrangement drawings but it doesn't tell you how wide the stripe was.

Whether it goes on the upper hull or the lower hull of a Trumpeter kit depends on 1) what Trumpeter decided to use as the split (the top of the stripe, the middle of the stripe, or the bottom of the stripe) and 2) whether Trumpeter bothered to do the research to accurately determine the location for 1) or whether they just eyeballed it and called it a day.

As far as most of us are concerned, either try to find some historical drawings that indicated where the line was and transfer that onto the model, or find some good photos, or just take Trumpeter's paint guide as "good enough" and make it your reference on the model. For me, I'm lazy, and would rather only do one mask rather than two, so generally put the waterline stripe on the upper hull if the split supports it (the upper hull being flatter makes it easier to tape up than the lower hull as well).

[stevezaj]

Thanks!!

[FFG-7]

what ship?

[stevezaj]

Trumpeter 350th DE uss England.

[FFG-7]

that split of the hull is the waterline being 10ft from bottom of hull. the bootstrap is 2' above & below the waterline making it 4ft wide.

[stevezaj]

Great, thanks.

[FFG-7]

you are welcome.