Suitable large brushes for static boat hull

[John Arnold 3Participant @johnarnold3]

By the way my nearest model shops which sells the brands you have recommended and which you have posted links to are around 600 miles (in/near Melbourne) from where I live (in the Blue Mountains near Sydney) so impossible just to drop in and pick up more supplies. I do like those shops ranges of products and have 'bookmarked' them for future reference.

Also I have NEVER seen Model Boats Magazine in newsagents where I go. Yes I know I could subscribe

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

John,

No worries, mate — you are ever so welcome!

Mind you, I cannot promise to keep up this level of advise; as luck'll have it, I've had more time lately than I usually do, and so have been able to go a wee bit overboard on the postings …

As for editing your posts, for a short time (I don't know exactly long, but maybe half an hour to an hour) after putting up the original posting, one finds a clickable "edit post" in the blue bar at the the top of the post, to the left of the date and time. Click that, and you get back to editing mode. Once the time limit has expired, the post is locked. I believe that the forum moderators (Colin and Graham) can edit it for you even after then, but would assume that that'd have to be for a more major error, not just to correct some faulty spelling or typing.

Among the main uses of airbrushes are indeed exactly those areas that you mention, and painting large r/c models like I do will indeed tend to stretch them to more or less the limit of their capacity. It certainly is a large and pretty complex field, though, which, together with the often serious price tags involved, is one the reasons why I'm wary of trying to push anyone in that direction. It is not that it cannot be done, but to reasonaly sure of success a fair amount of reading up and thinking things through is seriously recommended.

Yes. Canned air, aka a licence to print money. It works after a fashion (although there are technical issues involved, mainly linked to the drop in temperature in the can as the air is released), but they will of course always run out at just the wrong moment of a painting session, and, what's worse, it very quickly gets horrendously expensive. A 6oz can will set you back $25.99 (!!!) at Metro Hobbies (**LINK**) and will give you only a fairly limited painting time (how much would of course depend on what pressure you're painting at). Buy 27 of those cans, and you will have spent more than I did for my near-top-of-the-line compressor! And if you don't need the large amounts of airflow that I sometimes do, there are perfectly good compressors for half what I paid.

Good luck with your testing! I forgot to mention that I also tried out various brushes when painting yesterday, and I think that for painting the hull, you could do worse than to get the best quality synthetic hair water colour brush in a flat #10 or #12 that they sell at that art supply shop near you. It will be much less expensive than sable, and should do you just fine.

I am very lucky to have three excellent model shops within half an hours drive from home, one specialising in plastic kits, one in RTR and ARTR r/c (both surface and air) and one geared primarily towards the scratch build r/c plane crowd, but with a selection of wooden boat kits and ARTR planes thrown in. Between them, I can buy all my glues and paints and much in the way of materials (styrene, plywood, brass and aluminium) and also r/c equipment over the counter, and of course get good advise on what to buy.

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 26/01/2018 07:37:33

[John Arnold 3Participant @johnarnold3]

Thanks Mattias for that information.

I had NOT looked at the blue bar at the top of the post. With other forums it is at the bottom and I only looked there (I should not assume that all things are equal .

Without looking I assumed that canned air would be expensive and could run out at the wrong time during painting, I had not considered the drop in temperature.

Another model boat shop I found in the UK is .Cornwall Model Boats and they sell quite a few different Bluenose II kits from easy small ones (preformed hull) to larger more complex ones. Yes being able to talk with someone over the counter is great.

I'm off to my local Art Supplies store for a #10 or 12 brush in the next few days. Maybe also a small pointed brush for those very small parts like pulleys, windows etc.

I too go a bit 'overboard' with my questions. That's the result of me being very new to the hobby (first build) and the scanty instruction manual. For example I just spent some time working out how far the bowsprit projects from the front of the hull as it is not indicated and there are no plans just diagrams which do not show any measurements. I measured the distances in the diagrams and then measure other known lengths (such as the length of the hull) and use that with the actual length of the hull of my model. Maybe I am being a bit over the top but I don't want to find later that say the jibs don't fit. Another thing I am trying to work out is where the second small brass mast hoop goes. There are two supplied (also in the inventory list) yet I can only find one on the bowsprit.

AND I cannot find anything how to attach the Main Boom to the Main Mast OR how to attach the Main Gaff, Foresail Boom or Fore Gaff and Fore Stay Boom. I often look ahead and then start wondering if I should give up.

Never again would I purchase a Billings boat or recommend them.

Hope you now know why I post so many questions.

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

John,

I can unreservedly recommend Cornwall Model Boats as a web shop for boat modellers — I often order stuff from there that I cannot get over the counter here; I've no idea how expensive p&p would be Australia, but within Europe they are very reasonable on that matter.

If by brass hoop you mean part F501, if you look at the drawing in the lower left hand corner of p. 16 of the instructions, and also the photo on the same page (and the one on p. 22), you'll see that there are actually two spider bands on the jib boom; an outer one to which is made fast the jib stay from the foremast and the jib boom stays from the stem, and an inner one that carries the forestay from the foremast and the guys from the bulwarks.

For the gaffs and booms, they are not "attached" as such; they have those plastic jaws glued to their inner ends, and the jaws then rest against the mast and is kept in place by the running rigging (various halyards) and by the sails. In full-size practice, there is usually a parrel (a series of wooden beads or similar on a piece of rope; on a model your size, you could use tiny glass beads, see **LINK**) set up between the two tips of each jaw around the foreside of the mast, to keep the gaff or boom from moving away.

And alas, I fear you are not the first novice builder to have been attracted by the interesting prototype, lovely box art and reasonable price a of Billing Boats kit only to go aground on the treacherous shoals of their infamous instructions.

I would never recommend a Billings kit either, unless it were to a reasonably experienced builder that wanted the short cut of a kit and a very specific ship that only they produce.

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 26/01/2018 08:45:11

Edited By Banjoman on 26/01/2018 08:56:51

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

John,

One more thing, for what it's worth: you might find it useful to have a look at the downloadable plans and instruction manual for the Caldercraft kit of HMS Pickle, available here: **LINK**.

Personally, I think that if there were ever a competition for best wooden kit manuals, Caldercraft would win it, hands down; their manuals and plans are a wonder of clarity, and they have really thought hard about what you need to explain in the most detail to the novice builder.

Of course you can't apply the Pickle instructions straight off the page, as they are for a ship from 150 years or so before Bluenose II, but they are/were both schooners, and I think you'll find much in there that will be helpful in understanding how the rigging of a schooner is set up in general.

Actually, had you asked before you bought, this is one kit I for my part would not have hesitated to recommend for a beginner; that, or one of the beginner level kits from Bluejacket Models (**LINK**) or Shipway Models (**LINK**) in the US, that both have good reputations. In consequence they are also more expensive than for example Billing Boats, but not enormously so, i don't think.

And, having just looked at the Model Shipways page, I note that they have been kind and helpful enough to put up the instructions for their Bluenose kit (the original ship, not the II replica, but they are very, very similar), which are indeed of a quite different quality as instructions go; I think you'll be able to find some useful information in those as well: **LINK**. Alas, the plans are not there, which is, I think, where you would find the rigging plan, but it's more than nowt …

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 26/01/2018 09:12:13

Edited By Banjoman on 26/01/2018 09:12:45

[John Arnold 3Participant @johnarnold3]

Thanks Mattias,

Yes I noticed the image on page 22 well after I posted and that made a lot of sense too.

Thanks for the 'heads up' on how the gaffs and booms just rest on the masts via the plastic jaws. I am starting to feel a lot more comfortable with the model now thanks to your good self. Looking at page 30 I assume that parts marked 'n' are the jaws you mention. Well done and thanks again.

I too have found some other Bluenose II kits from other manufacturers and even downloaded their instruction manuals and was going to search them for how the gaffs and booms are attached (until I read your reply and information).

A little history why I bought the Billings kit.

My wife asked me 18 months ago (yes that long ago) was there something I would like for my birthday. I started to think that I always admired model sailing ships especially 'square riggers'. I use EBAY a lot to purchase all sorts of things so started looking there for model ship kits. I ended up finding the Bluenose and admired its 'lines' far more than a square rigger so settled on that. Because of its scale (1:100) and dimensions I chose the Billings 600 kit (I don't think there were many to choose from if any as I was using the Australian Ebay web site). Knowing what I now now about planking I am glad I didn't choose a square rigger with those tight bends in the planking. Also as I did not want a model which was much bigger than the Bluenose 1:100 I'm not sure if there area any other brands available. 1:75 a bit too big and smaller than 1:100 a bit too small and fiddly. So there it is.

Thanks again for all those links.

John

[S MParticipant @sm83187]

I use commercial primer for steelwork for my priming my boats as it is cheap and self sealing once applied, it can be thinned with the cheapest gunwash thinners and applied by brush, airbrush, or even a commercial paint spray gun which is what I use with much smaller nozzles and cups.

Once dried (5 minutes) it can be wet or dry sanded and as a high build as standard it can cover up small marks without filling and once fully cured it is waterproof unlike car primer which is porous, it does come in grey, white, red oxide, green, blue, and a range of other colours as standard and its cheaper then automotive primer and better.

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