Printing Deck Planking

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Having dug out a rather ancient liner hull that I built many years ago to 1:150 scale I am looking at methods of planking the deck. The scale is far too small for individual planks and I have previously had success with rulling thin pencil lines on ivory coloured thin card which, when varnished over looks OK at that scale.

Being lazy I was wondering if there is an easy method of printing lots of parallell lines using my inkjet printer and then cutting off suitably shaped pieces to stick on the decks.

Anyone tried this?

Colin

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Has anyone tried this?

[Len OchiltreeParticipant @lenochiltree67043]

Would just using the Underline facility do the job ? if you alter the non existing Font size maybe you can alter plank widths, but what do I know!.

 

Len.

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

A friend’s wife has sent me a spreadsheet which may well solve the problem. Technically the planks are a bit too wide but it’s not all that noticeable and it’s very neat..

 

Colin

[michael kemishParticipant @michaelkemish72883]

Try using micrsod excell

Play with formatting the cells, (width, height, line weighhts etc.)

Mick

 

[Jim DewarParticipant @jimdewar]

I have used matt overhead gels with some success.  Not always easy to come by these days but I believe still available – I recovered a pack from the office waste bin.

 

In my case I was making a solar powered paddle wheeler (See photo in my albums or You Tube : Search for Tabletop Waterways) and needed a light durable material do print the cabin and rail detail.

 

Use a graphics or paint software program (you could also get the grain effect, caulking,etc.).

 

Once printed I painted the reverse side with enamel to make the gel opaque and then used a matt acrylic varnish to protect the top surface  (trial this out some will smudge the ink).

 

Although my paddler doesn’t get a lot of rough handling it has lasted well and brings back the idea of the printed tin-plate models almost a century earlier – that’s progress!

[Laurent Gontier-VersaillesParticipant @laurentgontier-versailles47241]

Hi Colin,

 

all by hand, much easier than on PC, scale 1/100:

Regards,

 

Laurent

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Very neat Laurent, I did the same thing on my old SS Granada model to the same scale but not as neatly as you.

 

 

 

The spreadsheet I have does do a good job at 1:150 scale though so I’ll stick with that as a labour saving method. Not that  I’ve got into the workshop lately!

 

Colin

 

 

[Author]

Posts