Olympia bilge keels

True, lots of time PE is not an improvement.

Great technique on the cut away. learned something there.

Any benefit to putting some support strips on the deck?  Could help with the sanding and make the decks stronger during the build...

I agree the PE parts are hard to install and don't look very good but they improve somewhat once painted because the contrast in thickness isn't as obvious.. As for sanding the decks, I didn't. It became obvious that it would be difficult at best so I tried putting the new wood pieces on without sanding and they went on perfectly.

rossjr

Any benefit to putting some support strips on the deck?  Could help with the sanding and make the decks stronger during the build...

The problem is there are a lot of bosses as part of the casting. I can see the reason for some of them, but not most.  They prevent you from merely holding the part down on a flat sheet of something, and would also make it hard to put supports in many of the areas, though a few would be possible. I am indeed looking at where I could add a few supports, as I am concerned that deck structure could indeed bow inward and give a reverse camber to the decks.  I have never used the self-adhesive wood decks, and wonder how much they stiffen the deck.  My suspicion is not very much.

The wooden deck is paper thin and adds no support at all. Because it's so thin and has complete adhesive coverage on the back it isn't necessary to sand the deck. I found a small amount of flexing in the finished deck when attaching some parts where the fit was tight but nothing to ultimatly be concerned about although I was worried at first.

Don:

Remember I mentioned breaking a PE part? It happened again with a deck railing part (A3). There's a semi-circular bend to be made and the tool I was using to match the circumference wasn't as close a fit as I thought (or it sprang back more than anticipated) so it took 3 tries to get it right. The piece snapped at the end of the bend which caused no problems (I've been lucky twice now) but I'll certainly be more careful going forward. I also tried the white glue method you suggested and liked it so thanks for the help.

How do you like the wooden decks? They're a huge improvement over my attempts to paint plastic to look like wood but still don't look real to my eye.

jeffpez

Don:

How do you like the wooden decks? They're a huge improvement over my attempts to paint plastic to look like wood but still don't look real to my eye.

I am just about ready to apply them, but have not put down one yet. I want to paint the superstructure assembly I have with the buff paint, as I fear masking the wooden deck pieces. I know folks who have had troubles with other brands of wooden decks, so I do have some trepidations.   Once I get a coat or two on the subassembly I am working on now, I will put down the first of the decks.

I am going to do the last of the color schemes, the one it has now, with all upper works in buff over the white hull.  Unfortunately, none of the photos I found online show the deck.  I assume during the GWF era, peacetime, it would have been pretty clean and well maintained.

B sure to stain it first. I dislike the things, but they look terrible in their natural state.

What stain do you use? Do you put any finish over the stain? Does any of that cause warping? I thought the color looked as a somewhat worn deck exposed to salt water was supposed to look. My concern wasn't so much the color but that they somehow still look artificial. Please, tell me more.

Got another issue, guys.  Among the PE parts is a beautiful boarding ladder.  I would like to show it deployed.  But the normal situation for having that rigged and deployed would be in harbor, right?  So an anchor should be deployed, shouldn't it?  I am thinking about having an anchor glued to the display base with the chain up to the deck lead.  Would that look too funny?

Might not a launch pull up next to the ship while it's offshore but not at sea and the anchor is therefore on deck? Being a former army guy I have no idea what I'm talking about but it's good enough for my purposes. My anchors are now installed on deck and I also plan using one of the boarding ladders. As you said, they're too nice to ignore.

Pay attention to PE part B13. It's a platform and ladder that goes over the forward bridge deck. I never saw any reference to it in the instructions but if you look at the color picture on the upper right corner on the page following step 17 it's clearly shown. It's a nicely done part that looks great when attached but it's probably easier to do so before installing the foremast (something I didn't do).

jeffpez

What stain do you use? Do you put any finish over the stain? Does any of that cause warping? I thought the color looked as a somewhat worn deck exposed to salt water was supposed to look. My concern wasn't so much the color but that they somehow still look artificial. Please, tell me more.

I use light gray, but thinned so that the brown deck and gray stain get a warm gray color. The colors are usually called "driftwood" or "boardwalk" or some beachy thing like that.

I just think that the grain is way too out of scale, and there's no variation in the deck plank colors, which is not really what I see in photos or on board the real thing.

Oh do the boarding ladder! There's no water, no dock, so the thing is pure fancy anyways. But they do look shipshape.

Funny, rarely see models with them stowed either.

Do your anchor thing without gluing it. I think it'll look silly but that's only my opinion.

bondoman

 

jeffpez:

 

What stain do you use? Do you put any finish over the stain? Does any of that cause warping? I thought the color looked as a somewhat worn deck exposed to salt water was supposed to look. My concern wasn't so much the color but that they somehow still look artificial. Please, tell me more.

 

Yes there's usually warping, but I always have that problem regardless. One big problem I have had with the very few decks I've tried is that they get cut too tight to the plastic, and either don't fit or get warped when pressed down. And there's no easy way to tell where to trim ahead of time.

 

I use light gray, but thinned so that the brown deck and gray stain get a warm gray color. The colors are usually called "driftwood" or "boardwalk" or some beachy thing like that.

I just think that the grain is way too out of scale, and there's no variation in the deck plank colors, which is not really what I see in photos or on board the real thing.

I do believe Bondo the correct term is Accomodation(spelling?) ladder for use in the Embarking and disembarking of boats and gigs while at anchor in a harbour. You could do the same thing under weigh but it is a wee bit trickier.

bondoman

Oh do the boarding ladder! There's no water, no dock, so the thing is pure fancy anyways. But they do look shipshape.

Funny, rarely see models with them stowed either.

Do your anchor thing without gluing it. I think it'll look silly but that's only my opinion.

 

If you rig the accommodation (aka boarding) ladder, you really ought rig at least one of the boat booms out.

Note that you could show the ship moored to a mooring buoy--these are about 10-12' across, and stand 3-4' out of the water--although, once fastened to the ship they tip about that whole height back toward the ship.

Which brings us to how mooring rodes work.  You set out a rode at a minimum of 1:7.  So, in a 100' of water depth, you'd have 700' of chain rode up out of the locker (the saltier measurements would be 16 fathoms of bottom depth and 117 fathoms of rode--really 8 fifteen-fathom shots of chain to the stopper on deck). 

So, really, the chain hangs down at only a light angle until it curves in a lopsided catenary before laying along the seabed out to the anchor.   (This is another plus for modeling a mooring buoy; they can ride to a short scope.)

Anyway, away from salty reality, and back to the semi-reality of ships on pedestals over wooden bases.

A person could take and solder or epoxy some stout chain (like 2x or 3x the ship's to scale; ergo, foredeck chain at 48 link per inch, use 20-26 lpi for the buoy). and stand that up from the base.  perch a mooring buoy up top, and secure anchor chain through a hawse-pipe of the bull nose.  All cool stuff, and eye-catching.

Now, the business of showing an anchor on the base comes--to my thinking at least--from sailing vessels with long bowsprits, and having a base long enough to 'protect' those spars a bit.  I think those anchors look best with either a neat hole in the base for a fluke of the anchor to fit in loosely.  But, it will emulate a "dug in" anchor neatly.  Alternately, but a dowel in the base to hook a fluke around, since the stock is going to hold the shank up off the base.

That's my 2¢; others' differ.