Yacht Atlantic

I usually seal/protect my enamel basecoats with Future/Klear, which is a "gloss" finish. Helps me get decals in place and provides a good surface for pinwashes and other weathering techniques. I then seal the weathering with another light coat of Future. To reduce the final "gloss" (shiny) finish, I then give the model couple passes/mists with Testors Dullcote. Let dry few hours, look under white light, repeat as necessary. Will not get you 100% accuracy and can be tedious, but it straightforward and easy to perform.

I agree, straight gloss at this scale would look fairly tacky for the hull, but a semigloss or satin finish would work, or, try the waxing technique that Prof Tilley suggested.  Decks of course should be matte, and the bottom too, which makes a nice contrast to the shiny bits (such as the varnished woodwork, etc)

I'm not going to get into an argument with searat12, but I'll offer this observation.  Gloss has scale - because the light sources that make the observer aware of it don't.  Veteran ship modelers generally lean away from glossy paints because the highlights and reflections they produce can destroy the "scale effect," especially on small scales.  The smaller the scale, the more unrealistic a gloss finish is likely to look.  Donald McNarry, who works in extremely small scales (and who, if I believed in bestowing such titles, I would unhesitatingly label the best ship modeler whose work I've ever seen), emphatically asserts that he always uses flat paints - even on such vessels as yachts and ocean liners. 

But he's talking about models on scales like 1/600 and 1/192.  The grand old "builders' models" of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century steamships almost invariably were painted with glossy paints (partly, it must be acknowledged, because good flat paints were rare in those days), and most modern observers would, I think, agree that they look fine.  A fifteen-foot-long model of a spit-and-polish ocean liner would look weird if its hull and superstructure weren't shiny. 

Some time back I built a model of a late-nineteenth-century pilot schooner.  Those little ships were well maintained; photos make it clear that they frequently had very nice, shiny paintwork.  I initially painted my little model of the Phantom (1/96 scale) with flat acrylic, but I concluded that the hull just didn't look right.  As an experiment, I gave the flat paint a coat of Renaissance Wax.  (Renaissance Wax is a high-quality "microcrystaline" product routinely used in museums to protect artifacts.  It isn't cheap, but it's good:  http://www.woodcraft.com/product.aspx?ProductID=08G22&FamilyID=3235 .  Here's a cheaper version that - though I haven't tried it - I suspect would work fine:  http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=20090&cat=1,190,42950&ap=1 .)  I just rubbed a little bit of the wax on the painted surface - which I'd let dry for several weeks - with a soft cloth.  I'm pretty happy with the result, which I think is visible in a couple of these photos:  http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/JohnTilleyPhantom/index.html .

Another approach is to use flat paint and coat it with a gloss or semi-gloss finish of some sort.  Testor's makes a nice semi-gloss clear laquer for the purpose, and any decent paint store can provide quite a variety of such substances.  (Always, of course, test the finish on a sample of the paint you're using before you risk it on the model.)  Yet another trick:  get a bottle of gloss black and one of flat black, and mix them.  By varying the proportions you can get any degree of gloss you want.

My suggestion is to vary the amount of gloss according to the scale.  But it's your model; what's most important is that you're satisfied with it.  There are, thank goodness, no "rights" and "wrongs" when it comes to this sort of thing.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck. 

Searat12:

 

My first impulse was exactly that. Nice bright gloss paint. The only reason I asked is some of the models I've seen of it are not gloss and the pictures of the replica on the web site I posted show the hull in what appears to be a dull black hull and dull red bottom. Unless I find anything else I'll use gloss.   Thank you.

 

Michael Lacey

caramonraistlin wrote:

Greetings:   I have the old ITC kit of the Atlantic that I'm planning on building some day and I have a couple of questions if anyone can help me. I know the color she was painted in and am I correct in assuming it was flat and not semi gloss or gloss? Also does anyone know of a set of plans I could get for it? I plan on using any of the blue jacket accessories to replace or add to the rigging details. Any help would be appreciated. Also while searching the web I noticed in March of 2008 a Dutch yacht company has built a replica of her and posted pictures of the completed hull floating in a harbor. It is quite impressive. Evidently they plan on offering cruises on it and also racing it from time to time. Web site is: www.superyachttimes.com/editorial/2/article/id/1489   Sincerely   Michael Lacey

You might want to get a copy of the book 'Atlantic, The Last Great Race of Princes' by Scott Cookman, which is an excellent history of the ships, people, and history of the great race in which Atlantic came out the victor.  As for colors, this being a yacht of the highest order, flat or matte paint is hardly the thing!! Try at least a semigloss at least, as this ship was crewed, and sailed by the very best of the time, and everything that could be polished, was polished, everything that could be waxed, was waxed, to the very highest shine possible....

Bluejacket has a solid-hull wood Atlantic kit:   http://www.bluejacketinc.com/kits/atlantic.htm . I'm pretty sure the company would be willing to sell you a set of the plans.  I don't know how detailed they are.  I believe the kit is a revision of one that's been in the Bluejacket catalog - and that of its predecessor, Boucher Models - for a long time. 

Taubman Plans Service (http://www.taumansonline.com/) lists a set of plans for her at a reasonable price.  I think these may be the Bluejacket plans; I imagine a phone call would clarify that.

I've got a soft spot for this particular ship.  While I was working at the Mariners' Museum (sometime between 1980 and 1983; I don't remember the exact date) we got a call telling us to send a truck to the Metro Machine Company, in Norfolk, which was in the last stages of scrapping the Atlantic.  (She'd been rusting away on the Norfolk waterfront for quite a few years.)  The museum had arranged to take possession of the last few feet of her stern.

It was a miserable, damp winter day (must have been January or February of 1982 or 1983, I guess).  All that was left of the grand old ship was a pile of nondescript junk - and the stern, which was sitting vertically in the mud beside all the junk.  Metro Machine kindly used one of its cranes to hoist it onto our truck.  The stern is, I believe, still on exhibit at the museum.  (When we got it the "ATLANTIC" letters on the transom were missing.  My boss managed to find them; I'm not sure how.  Apparently they'd been removed some years earlier and were in "private collections" around Tidewater Virginia.) 

Before we headed back to Newport News, I did some kicking around in the scrap pile and found a relatively undamaged piece of teak deck planking.  It was on the verge of being burned, so - with the boss's approval - I rescued it.  It's still in my office.  One of these days I want to make a half-model of the ship out of it.  (One of these days.)

Over the next few days I spent some time in the museum library looking up articles and pictures about the old ship.  She was indeed an impressive vessel.  One detail that particularly interested me concerned the fastenings of the deck planking.  The iron, T-sectioned deck beams were punched with little holes, and the deck planking was held down to them by thousands of round-headed brass wood screws inserted from below.  No bolts, nails, bungs, or any other fastenings were visible on the surface of the deck.  This is one ship that could be accurately represented in model form with no planking fastenings.

I haven't seen the old ITC kit in many years, but I know this ship would make a beautiful model.  Good luck.