How to weather a wood deck having raised panels

Wooden decks have their fans because they look good when everything goes well. They also have their detractors at least on Model Warship. Some folk have problems with the adhesive in the short run and the long run. The decks are not always cut precisely to fit the plastic. And you will get arguments about whether or not they're colored correctly. The decks I've seen would be darker than what I'm looking for on Konig. As for price, I've asked about Pontos because they're new in the game (I think) and do have good prices. Not so with everyone: one new company will sell me a Konig deck for $60 - the model cost $50.

All genres attract good modelers, but the ship gurus are extraordinary craftsmen who think little of doing major surgery on a model to compensate for a slightly fat funnel. The scratch building that goes on is remarkable. But no matter how good one is, if you do a complex ship, put on all of the available PE, metal barrels and wooden decks (not to mention stuff like replacing masts with brass and then sanding them to get a taper) and you are looking at one big project. (Ship builders are also the primary market for complete resin models.) I wouldn't call it expensive. If you went all out on a kit like the Hasegawa Mikasa it would go nearly $200 for all of the goodies. But it would take up more time than three or four aircraft (unless you build bi-planes: ship guys have been known to build biplanes.). I'd guess that there are more "ship only" modelers than in other genres, although I know a lot of plane/armor guys that don't build ships ever. I like them all. Probably means I'll never get good at any of them. But it also means that I wouldn't want to spend three months on one project. I'm enjoying Konig greatly, but already have my next two projects planned. Anyway, if I can become a competent ship modeler I'll be very pleased. Very good would take a miracle. But that will probably mean that I won't ever get all of the latest and greatest gadgets helpful for contests or simply have the desire to create the absolutely best model possible and heck with the time involved. But I have the greatest respect for purists: for one thing, it's the hard-core that push model companies to produce the high quality kits available today.

Eric

Maybe a little off topic, but Pontos Models came out with colored and weathered painted decks. Could be a start of a new trend. And they're not expensive.

That's a useful technique to know.  Thanks.

Loving  the tonal variation on your deck!! May have to borrow your idea somewhay for my Chih Yuen deck!!

Got some advice on ModelWarship as well as here and junked the plans of using ultra thin masking tape. Sounded just too boring and I was a little afraid of residue. Cooked up a pretty decent base coat (more tan than in the photos) and created three extra tones of it mixed very thin. Used my razor tool and painted just above the deck - the paint flowed down quite evenly. Like all of my models it looks better at five feet, but it does break up the base coat ok. And I got half the deck done in about two hours, I'd guess a fraction of the time it would have taken to cut all that 1/32" graphic tape. Obviously a steadier hand will do better than I did.

Eric

You might be right, but I'm not sure. Heaven knows lots of good models have been done with a well painted deck with maybe some light weathering. But there are some pretty good modelers that like the masking tape painting method: Rusty White (http://www.steelnavy.com/wood%20deck.htm) , Andy Elwood who is doing the Konig - build feature for ModelWarship (http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/ships/sms/sms-konig/350/sms-konig.html) and Charles Landrum who did a jaw-dropper Arizona for RollModel (http://www.rollmodels.net/nworkbench/onlinebuild/arizona/arizona1.php).

Think you're right about light decks. Not so sure that during wartime that German warships would have been spit and polish - they were training and on missions often in the Baltic and sitting in port in that neck of the woods would be adding instant weathering. In any case, although it maybe a stupid waste of time, what I've seen of the masking tape technique looks pretty interesting. Below is a pic of the Texas showing a "clean" wartime teak deck, and bits of Rusty White's New Jersey and Elwood's Konig. Judge for yourself.

Eric

I have the Konig kit, and will be starting it in a month or two. I plan to just get a reasonable wood tone (uniform) on the deck(s) and let it go at that.  I get the impression the more teak weathers, the more it gets uniform.  Weathered teak is pretty grey, not very wood-like anyway.  Don't know if during WW1 they were able to stone it frequently enough to keep it from looking very weathered.  It spent a lot of time in port, so I suspect they were able to keep it pretty well stoned.  So I plan to shade it somewhere between a wood color and a gray.