The Ship Model Forum

I peeled off the old numbers and applied the new ones at the bow. All experimental.
Tom

Tom,

I don't recall if I mentioned this before, but an excellent way to make painted lettering is to cut the letters/numbers as you did for the photos and use them as a mask. The reverse of a stencil.

1. Paint the area on the hull to be lettered the color of the letters (white) and let it dry thoroughly.

2. Attach the adhesive backed letters.

3. Spray over the letters with the hull color (gray) and let it dry.

4. Peel off the letters.

This produces lettering that is only as thick as the paint, with no visible raised edge or thickness.

Phil

Phil:

Yes you mentioned this technique before and it is a very good one. I used it making a 1:100 LCVP mounted on a curly Maple base for my Dad's Birthday, marked as one of the boats on his ship (they carried two LCVP's as well as a couple of 40 ft boats). This effort is exploring a new set of techniques for me with regards to stencils and whatnot. Their are two ways one can do this, as you describe, with a "male" stencil, or with a "female" stencil,. Each has advantage and disadvantage. The male stencil has all the pieces attached, such as an "A" or a "P". the female requires separately placing the cutout parts back in place.

Getting used to the materials! With the "female" stencil one could do shading by first spraying the black then shifting the stencil and doing the white. I just got some thin stencil material and will experiment with this.

Regards: Tom

Some experimentation with the stencils: Some more work required !
Large fore numbers via a female stencil. Aft letters and numbers via the "Phil" method. Perhaps I need to clean the surface beforehand with alcohol as the stencil did not like to stay burnished. The letters/numbers placed on a patch of white paint have a better adhesive and tend to stay put. However, lessons learned, let the white paint dry for a long long time as it seems to want to get lifted partially by the letter adhesive.

Tom

Tom,

I have used rub-on letters for the "male" stencil, and they do not have a really strong adhesive, especially if you do not burnish them really hard. You do need to burnish the edges to get a good seal so paint doesn't flow under them. But if you apply thin coats of spray paint perpendicular to the surface this won't be a problem.

Also, the white paint must go on a clean surface. If you plan on doing this from the beginning the white paint can go onto clean bare material and not over an existing coat of paint. You could use steel wool to roughen the surface. This should give better adhesion.

Phil

Phil:

Of course all good points! Sometimes the choice comes down to what letters or numbers are involved. A letter such as "A" or a number like "6" works better as a "male" stencil since there isn't floating piece. Female stencils allow a pre ordained precise spacing whereas the male requires individual spacing. There is a transfer tape, which might solve this issue, haven't experimented with this as yet. A female stencil could also be used to achieve the shadow lettering effect by shifting the stencil.

Cheers: Tom

The machine will print nicely 8 pt (less than 3 mm) letters and numbers. This is currently about the smallest I can work with practically. Here I have added draft marks fore and aft. For the Eh Pee Eh I may try making a stencil with the proper spacing made in rather than trying to manually space each letter.

Tom

I added draft marks to the port bow of the APA, a considerably more tedious operation than the LSM since there are some (almost) 50 characters to place at each location bow and stern. By the time I get this done I will have figured out a more efficient way of doing the deed. It's called experience?

Photos later, maybe!

Regards to all! Tom

On the APA I masked and painted the four large hull numbers yesterday. As it turns out on curved surfaces the vinyl rather than the stencil material works much better as a mask as it is more flexible and has a tougher adhesive, making a good seal. Port side draft marks finished and now to do the starboard numbers. "Weeding" out the very small 8 pt numbers is slow and tedious , with some numbers (for example "3") are more problematic. The depth and especially the force settings on the cutting machine must be very precise! Larger numbers are not as fussy.

Cheers: Tom

Quite so! For large stencils, such as for a T-shirt per se, it's not too difficult. For very small 8 pt lettering the cutting adjustments for depth and force are very critical. The letters will either not separate or will be displaced and deformed by too deep or too dynamic of a cut. Some letters are more problematic such as six and nine, however they are interchangeable. There are small tool sets designed exactly for this task, though for the 8 pt critters I mostly use the tip of a #11 Exacto blade. Hopefully Won't need any moe of these tiny letters.

Today's progress? Finished the attachment of the draft marks and re marked some of the ships landing craft. In the movie, the LCVP's also had a small boats number in the upper corners of the ramp. The 8 pt lettering works well for this.

Tedious! Tom

Today (rainy) I'll try to get out a photo of the new numbering and the draft marks. I will extend the draft marks up a little further, hard to imagine that the ship might ride 10 feet deeper than the normal loaded waterline. I suppose that being a military vessel, damage control could use that information for stability calculations. I removed both LCM's to re number as well as all the aft boats. The forward one's in davits might be problematic.

Dang, new technology coming along! At least number shading wasn't in use at the time! Anybody know if APA's sported a plimsoll mark during the war?

Cheers: Tom

Nice job Tom!

Thank you Pascal!
Bow hull numbers (done with stencil) and draft marks. Draft marks are 8 pt, measure out to about 1.9 mm high. Placed individually as press applies. To apply the stencil I had to remove some of the padeyes and replace after complete.

Tom

A very meticulous job!

Today, practicing my pistol for the upcoming senior games... Also re numbered the ships boats in Navy Stencil Font, 24 and 18 pt. lots of boats! The only orthoscopic surgery required was on the insides on the boats on the boat deck in front of the bridge, somewhat inconvenient from all the davits and rigging in this area. Managed to wreck the search radar on the mainmast with an errant hand. So dismounted and rebuilding. Harrumph!
Cheers Tom

Today I did the ships name on the stern in black, using the Dr Phil masking method. As ships names are usually welded in plate and then painted, using stencils as press applies might have been better if I had a flat black vinyl.

Tom

Tom,

The numbers & ship's name look good - quite well done and precise. Looks like you've got the hang of the stencilmaking/press ons fairly well in hand!

Good work!

Hank

Tom,

I have seen some ships where the names were made up of flat plate letters welded to the hull. But during WWII I think it was more common in the US Navy to just weld a small (1/4 inch) bead outline of the letters and numbers onto the hull plating. This served as a guide when the hull was repainted. The waterlines, boot topping outline, plimsol lines,ship name, etc. were all done this way. This prevented "creep" of the important markings when the hull was repainted.

However, each shipyard had their own "right" way of doing things, so I suspect there was a mixture of both techniques in the fleet. But for mass produced ships the bead weld would have been faster and cheaper.

****

By the way, the draft marks on the bow and stern were checked on the morning and evening watches in port, and when cargo was being loaded and unloaded. Damage Control Central used the readings to recalculate loads to correct the ship's trim.

I agree that it was unlikely for the trim to be so unbalanced to make the bow or stern ten feet too deep unless the ship was sinking (serious battle damage). These readings could be used to determine if there was a chance of saving a ship and how much fuel, water or ballast should be shifted to counter flooding, or if the ship should be abandoned.

Phil

Phil:

Thank you for the information. Boot tops and ships draft might change during the war as (mostly) top weight was added. AA, Radar and whatnot. Battleships for example had an optimum combat draft in their fighting instruction. Of course we usually fought where we were with what we had. I was looking through my dad's WWII album and as head of the Repair Devision he was blessed with a good number of very experienced Chiefs of long pre war service. Serious men with arms full of hashmarks. The men who knew their job, even measuring the ships draft daily, this passing down to the oil king and everyone connected with preparation and operation at sea. On the APA the stern overhang might make such observation more difficult.

Do you have any idea if any USN ship carried a plimsoll mark?

Cheers: Tom