WORKING SHIPS

TORY : Can you E-MAIL me through finescale modeler ? I would like to get together with you on the " SHELL WELDER " "Tanker-builder - gjgeracci846@satx.rr.com. P.S. Darned nice model of her !!

I can't figure out why the picture I imported from photobucket is a bunch of digits instead of pixels....any suggestions?? It will display if you click on it....

Tory-

Nice job on the Shell Welder, really an "attention getter". I had one and sold it, unbuilt, now wish I hadn't.

We had buckets of acid to paint on the rust, the ships were coated in RAM which had to be painted with 7 layers of grey paint, I forget how it went but there was 4 primers and I forget what the other 3 were called. But I too spent many hours painting acid or paint on the sides of the ships I served on.

The feathering of the surrounding area was nearly impossible where the edges of the chipped paint were nearly a quarter of an inch thick. So, you would continue to chip until the paint got thin enough to feather. I don't know which took more effort, the chipping or the sanding. Of course they wouldn't provide us with power sanders, but needle guns were nice when available. Then there were the airedales with their deck crawlers! I hated those things.

i957.photobucket.com/.../07379_s.jpg

During my "deck ape" days we would

A -scrape the rust down to bare metal

B-feather the surounding paint with sand paper

C- brush apply "green death" wash to the bare metal(sometimes we had "blue death", don't know if there was a difference, they both stunk out loud).

D-when green death was dry(usually with-in minutes on sunbaked metal) brush apply "Red Lead".

E- when red lead was dry(didn't take long) apply appropriate pigment finish coat ( oil based hull white, deck grey, buff spar, gloss black, racing stripe CG red/blue).

F-repeat process day after day.....

We had a 5 year seaman that ran the paint locker and he was skilled in the ways of adding "dryer" to the oil based paint so it would dry in a matter of an hour. As a kid I used to marvel at the way they kept the CG cutters  so white and clean....after I enlisted I found out how....

Mike, knuckle dragging deckie  

I was a red lead slapper, myself. 

One more little tidbit on this subject.  (I've mentioned it a couple of times before on the Forum, but those posts are long buried.)  During WWII the U.S. Navy used a zinc-chromate primer.  (Before the war it used red lead, but I guess there was a lead shortage during the war.)  As anybody who's served, or known anybody who's served in the Navy knows, chipping paint and repainting is a daily part of shipboard routine.  ("If it moves, salute it.  If it doesn't move, paint it.")  My father, who served in an attack transport in the Pacific, said that at any given moment somebody would be painting something somewhere.  (The great exception was the exterior of the hull, which was only repainted when the ship was in port.)  And the primer took some time to dry.  So at any moment there would be at least a few spots of primer waiting for the finish coat somewhere on the topsides of the ship. 

Dad described this color as a dull, sulfurous-looking yellow.  He talked about one instance when "some of our great geniuses" tried to save themselves some work by mixing the primer with the grey finish coat.  The result was "a nauseating shade of green," which their chief promptly threw overboard.

I once built a model, based on the old Revell kit, of Dad's ship, the Bollinger, and gave it to him for Christmas.  I'll never forget the look on his face when he put on his bifocals and saw those little yellow splotches on it.  I've put them on every American WWII model I've built since.

Hi everyone I sometimes like to build ships but usually modern aircraft and saw this thread, personally I used to be in the Royal Navy and I served on board HMS Illustrious, Southampton and York. I remember they used to get very rusty at sea, especially after a tour in the Mediterranean or Black Sea. not so much around the waterline but the top of the hull around the forecastle of the ship and quarterdeck. bollards, capstans, anchor cables and breakwaters in front of the 4.5 inch gun and Sea Dart. The vents were always rusty and the top of the funnel was always dirty due to the fumes being blown down over the ship in bad weather. the Non slip surface is rusty around the edges. ladders etc war ships at sea get really rusty, dirty and grimy. The Illustrious was also really quite dirty and after the gulf tour was unbelievably rusty and they had one side of the ship painted for our return to Portsmouth. From a distance they didn't look too bad but up close you could really see it. Also the Paint was a satin finish. Nearly every time I have made a warship I have always put rust and grime all over it, I really think it brings the model to life. Beneath the waterline I remember from when the York was in dry dock, the bottom of the ship was covered with rust and algae they had to blast it off with a power hose. and a few months later the cosmetic work was done while the inside was being refurbished still.

tankerbuilder

Goshawk :

   I cannot access the pictures from this computer . Now , Question . Do you know where I could trade into an UNBUILT " SHELL WELDER " ? I built one years ago .

   When we moved to ATLANTA for the wife's medical school , it was nowhere to be found . I would like to build another .I would have to trade into it  , as ,what's on E-BAY are beyond my budget . You can E-MAIL me through this site . Thank You  , Tanker-builder

I'm pretty sure I have a spare kit, shoot me a PM and we can discuss off board.

Tory

Mike; I just read your comment on weathering ; could not agree with you any more ! I'm an old retired navy man and have yet to meet a pristine seagoing vessel.

                   Halfbeak

Goshawk :

   I cannot access the pictures from this computer . Now , Question . Do you know where I could trade into an UNBUILT " SHELL WELDER " ? I built one years ago .

   When we moved to ATLANTA for the wife's medical school , it was nowhere to be found . I would like to build another .I would have to trade into it  , as ,what's on E-BAY are beyond my budget . You can E-MAIL me through this site . Thank You  , Tanker-builder

I did some light weathering on my Shell Welder.

If I had built it as a waterline model in a simulated sea with crewman I would have weathered it a little more heavily.

Tory

  I have to pipe back in ,right here .You are dead on ! The models that fired my desire to model ships were the fine " BUILDERS " models or YARD models as seen in offices in shipyards etc . I just was saying , though , that when we weather a model ship in a diorama it looks way better .

  There are some who do PARTIAL  dios and that is a good way to use that stand and bring a weathered model into the picture . I am waiting for someone to do a ship , weathered on one side and the other side pristine .I have seen aircraft like that and it's neat .   Tanker-builder

The ship model I weathered the most is a European small Shell tanker kit. It was supposed to be in service in the North Sea and Baltic.  Pics I have seen of ships in that area, especially smaller ones, shows them pretty heavily weathered, so I really went to town on it :-)

Indeed....if anyone is familiar with the Ferreira..they might have a clue that the Portuguese worked her hard and maintained her little...but your idea is a good one........Thanks.

Rob

Don't forget to include that picture with the display.  Otherwise, you'll be accused of overdoing it, I'm sure.

Gene Beaird,

Pearland, Texas

I have built many train dioramas and this one would be sweet...we never see one of the Cutty cut down.

Rob

WOW !

   Now that is weathered ! Many would think ,if it was not getting ready , or had just returned from a voyage , that it was derelict ! I haven't seen any  models weathered that much .

   That would NOT be appropriate for a ship on a beautiful brass stand .That's a diorama waiting to happen. Are you gonna do it ? I will await your futhure work . Tanker-builder

My next project will be converting another CS model to be the Ferreira...and what weathering fun will I have then...talk about a working ship..here is a picture of the ship during those days.

That would definitely be worth trying to duplicate.  I don't think I could do it justice.

Good point and well executed......Here is a fully weathered CS in drydock.......is it not worthy of replication?

I think the choice to either weather the ship or leave it looking pristine should be left up to the builder.  Their model, their choice.

I have spent my whole life around working ships; draggers, trawlers as a teenager and then worked as a marine engineer on oil tankers after four years at the maritime academy.  I finished my marine engineering career inspecting ships for the US Navy.  Because of this I was very fortunate to spend a lot of time around many different types of vessels,each weathered to a different degree.

However, when I build ship models, I like to make them look like the "builders models" that I would see at the ship yards and company offices.  For me, I appreciate the form and details of beautiful ships and I don't want the weathering to take away from that.  Although I do have an appreciation to those modelers that can weather a vessel realistically.

Just my two cents.

Cheers,

Wayne

Further research does reveal your point and I will make the changes...note the slight green areas as well....over the brown shade.   good observation.

This is true and once a metal has been introduced to sea water the oxidization has begun...if it has been a virgin to sea water and only introduced to air it will indeed oxidize differently...but hey..we can only do the best we can with what we got and what we want our models to look like.....irregardless to reality.  However the purist will rarely stray away from reality.

what do you know about ships anyway!!  HE-HE-HE, talk at ya later, Sir.

True fact.    

My impression is that both copper and bronze and various similar alloys weather differently in air than they do in water.  So one has to decide if ship model represents ship still in water, or in drydock :-)