The Ship Model Forum

Perhaps he needs to call in Spider Man for some webs

Thank you very much Vladi, EJ and Eberhard!

wefalck wrote: Fri Jan 16, 2026 6:44 am Perhaps he needs to call in Spider Man for some webs

EJFoeth wrote: Fri Jan 16, 2026 6:29 am The mesh in front of the prop needs to be built from the tiniest wire?

The theoretical idea is to build a jig for the rigging of 4 propeller guard grid sections and use the thinnest non deforming wire i know, such as 10/0 (0.02 mm) nylon ophtalmic suture as I am not mastering the sprue-stretching technique despite the excellent tutorials by JB and practice. Used that nylon wire in the past for the 1/400 88mm German naval gun and proved to be very useful. I know of the existence of 11/0 nylon sutures but don't have any experience with those, don't even know where to get them. Am still not convinced that representing that grid in such a small scale might be feasible though. Must experiment and see. If unfeasible i'll rely on Eberhard's tip

EJFoeth wrote: Fri Jan 16, 2026 6:29 am Well, airbrush might actually leave that a hole!

I thought of brush-painting because was really impressed by the excellent results on very small parts by Marijn, Joelle and Jim Baumann. But you really have to be something else to pull this off. Still puzzled on what to do.

Propeller guard test-fitted. Prepared the ring out of 0.01mm-thin brass shim (1.2 mm diameter, 0.25mm large)

Just out of curiosity, where did you find 0.01 mm brass shim? I think the thinnest I have seen was 0.05 mm thick.

A few years ago bought some assorted shim from a company named Pendragons, if i remember well. The thinnest shim is 0.02-ish mm. When i need a lesser thickness i sand it down to 0.01 mm with 1500-grit sandpaper, checking time by time with a digital caliper until i reach an even 0.01mm thickness (never went further, not sure the digital caliper can measure less than that). Then i polish it with 2000 and 5000-grit sandpaper. i place the small strips of shim to be sanded on double-sided adhesive tape to make sure they don't move. After the polishing phase i accurately clean the shim(s) of the adhesive residuals in pure alcohol. Very time consuming and feasible for limited surfaces only. Effective in my case because i only need minimal surfaces for my projects. The good thing is that differently from Aluminium foil, very thin brass doesn't crumple when manipulated.

Addendum. Found the link: https://vintagepensacsandparts.com/prod ... rass-shims

Thanks, that's interesting approach

I am amazed by this fantastic, meticulous work in this microcosm.

Thank you Joelle!

0,01 mm brass sheet... That's a whole new level of finesse!

If you ever take this model to a show, how are you going to display it? Under some kind of magnification, I guess?

Thanks Marijn!

marijn van gils wrote: Sun Feb 01, 2026 4:58 am If you ever take this model to a show, how are you going to display it? Under some kind of magnification, I guess?

Oh, no idea. Too early to say

Love that prop guard.

Thx Dan!