Posted by Don Morlan on July 31, 1998 at 17:22:24 in inet-gw.data-io.com:
In Reply to: Re: Question for Don Morlan ref Deck planking posted by Don Morlan on July 30, 1998 at 15:21:33:
(see bottommost entry for answer)
: As to whether or not I painted the long deck before or after I glued it together, well, I cut off a good portion of that center deck except for thin horizontal support bracings, so the actual area where the two decks join (as you mentioned in your question) is absent on my model.
: The cutouts help conserve the lighting.
: Also, the other decks and the painted planking was all painted before it was glued to the hull. Otherwise it is too easy to get that tan paint on the inner walls of the hull, et cetera. I hope that answers your question.
: Have fun.
*** Today I looked up which paints I used for the decking (per your request).
I used the Ral Partha brand waterbase acrylic paints. The "Leather" is a light tan and is part number 77712.
The "White" that I mix with it is part number 77706. These are suitable for use with airbrush if you think of any other projects besides the decking.
I bought the paints at Hobbytown and even though they are evidently all "independently owned and operated," my dealer says that they should be available nationwide.
Some might say that the colors are a bit rich (not dark, just rich), but I like my Titanic to look new, not like a ship that has had its decks bleached by the sun for several years. On our recent cruise on the Sun Princess, (built in the early 90's) the decks were sun-bleached a very unattractive greyish very light brown. I think this is ugly. The colors I have mentioned above will allow the decking to look like it is made out of tiny, new popsicle sticks, or wooden toothpicks. I think it looks very good. I hope you will agree.
I got my elaborative Krystal Klear "article" featured on the Krystal Klear tab on the homepage here. I guess my ideas can't be too terribly bad.
Have fun and remember that the painting goes a lot faster if, once you have a brushful of a certain tint of that leather paint, that you paint random spaced planks all over until you need to mix up another brushful. I don't know what came over me (probably paint fumes), but when I started this plank project, I would paint an individual plank, mix another tint, then paint another plank- even if building the model is fun, it seems pointless to do it this way.
Looking back, it probably would have taken 4 times as long to get the decks painted. I am glad that common sense later came into play.
P. S. Be sure to buy the W I D E S C R E E N version of the James Cameron movie. Us modelers won't want to miss any of the details.