pingjockey wrote:
Carl, your build looks awesome! I have tried to put a kit together all at once before painting, but when it came time for the decks it was a complete disaster, as I never seem to be able to completely mask the superstructure. How do you manage?
Ping,
I read about your cat's work. It happened to me a long time, ago, but with more of a happy ending. There were no teeth marks, but my cat got a hold of an engine cowling for a plane that I was doing. I looked and looked and looked for it, with no luck. I had to give up on the model. Then, about 4 years later I found the cowling under my TV's entertainment center when I was moving into my new house. I looked under there at least twice, before! I still have that plane model kit, but haven't done anything with it.
I hand brush the decks on my models because I suck at masking and the paint always rips off and I have to touch it up, anyway. So, if I get deck paint on a bulkhead with my brush, I don't mind having to go back and touch up the bulkhead, afterwards. I use thinned acrylic paint and they seem to be rather forgiving in this respect.
I use small brushes as well as superfine applicators from Microbrush to get into the tight areas. (I have cut the handles off of my brushes so that they fit under my magifying lamp.) Sometimes, I�ll leave off the railings in really tight areas and put them on afterwards. And sometimes, I�ll paint the decks before any railings. Depends on my mood, I guess. Here, I have left off a lot of the small deck equipment so as to accommodate the deck painting, i.e. small boats SLQ-32, MACKs, hose reels, etc.
When the railings are in place, they act as a barrier to stop my brush�s edge from going over onto the bulkhead below it acting as a mask. However, the inboard sides of the railings need a little touch up, afterwards. Once again, I don�t mind this.
On this Belknap model (USS Josephus Daniels CG-27) I am depicting the non-skid patterns. I have applied the Grimy Black, first and then I cut and attach Pactra masking tape strips over it and then paint the lighter Gunship Gray. I�m in the middle of doing this, now.
I think that I�ll have to airbrush the helo deck instead of hand brush because of the tiny holes that depict the tie-downs. I don�t want to loose this great detail that JAG put into this kit. I don�t plan to mask anything. The only thing that I�m really worried about getting this helo deck color on would be the hull and I�ll just have to keep the airbrush perpendicular to the helo deck�s surface. I think I�ll use Gunship Gray on the helo deck and then apply a black and maybe a brown pastel chalk dust on it, just to make the color a little different from the other decks.
