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Gloss, semi-gloss, matte, or flat paint - as illustrated by the tramp steamer

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  • Member since
    June 2008
Gloss, semi-gloss, matte, or flat paint - as illustrated by the tramp steamer
Posted by Spotty on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 7:26 AM

One of the things that got me interested in modelling again was a miniture of a 3 island tramp steamer in an "Eyewitness" Boat book.

The finish on it though was not dead flat, but not glossy either. This one is pretty close:

This is a nice ship too, but a bit flatter (or maybe its the lighting)

 

One day I'm gonna build one of these - probably scratch build as I've never seen a kit.

Important to me though will be the finish.

Sometimes models are toooo flat for me. In the same breath though, if they are too glossy they can look cheap and tin like.

I''ve heard of dull coat sprays, and gloss coat sprays. Are there semi-gloss ones.

Is that the way to achive that finish, or should one buff a flat paint, or try to dull a gloss.

 And do you all agree? Which finish is better in the above?

Is it related to scale too? The bigger you get should you go more glossy???

 

  • Member since
    August 2008
Posted by tankerbuilder on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 9:16 AM
 HI SPOTTY !  I am in the process of doing a 1/87 scale model ship for a magazine how to . This ship is painted in flats entirely . The thing I do to get that semi - gloss finish  is to buff out the flat paint with a clean soft cloth . Do not use any kind of compound on it .The friction is all you need . I,ve been doing this for years and I think it works better than what semi gloss paint is available . The paints you can get are ,to me , to translucent . The ship needs to look like it,s been scrubbed by salt water so ,if its not ALL semi-gloss that,s o.k. The thing ALL shipmodelers seem to forget ,even when weathering is that salt water scrubs the paint clean off the ship .I have seen ships come to port missing big spots of paint . This is true of naval and civilian ships . good luck on your build . The bigger theship ,the flatter you need to be ,but ,even new ships are semi-gloss   tankerbuilder
  • Member since
    June 2008
Posted by Spotty on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 10:01 AM

Awesome. Thanks so much.

A buffing we will go, a buffing we will gooo....

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