Hello all,
I'm starting this little build because I enjoy anything American Civil War. It's just after the Christmas rush, and I have a little time on my hands, so here's a neat build of a Confederate "Maury" Gun Boat. I'll be using one of the kits I manufacture, so I'll make no comments to fit, accuracy or quality, since that should be left to others. Moreover, I need a box art shot for the kit, so you are folks who I hope may benefit from this as much as I.
Known as "Maury" Gunboats, the Hampton Class of which 100 were planned, were the brain child of Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury, CSN. These gunboats were a manifestation of a recurrent theory of "overwhelm by numbers" by naval strategists over the years that Maury subscribed to. One advantage to this theory was that wars could be fought economically with small gunboat "mosquito" fleets proposed by Maury. Unfortunately, such mass production of "standard ships" was not accomplished until 1918.
CSS Hampton along with Nansemond were the beginning of the wooden gunboat fleet, but before construction could begin in earnest, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and others were burned on the stocks before completed at Norfolk Navy Yard when operations were moved up the James River. Maury, in command of the Hampton, participated in several river actions including the battle at Dutch Gap, operations against Fort Harrison, and the actions at Chaffin's Bluff. Hampton was burned by the Confederates as they evacuated Richmond,
Painting the deck was first on the list after construction of the rudder and prop. I shot a coat of hull red that mixed using a 50/50 mix of Model Master Insignia Red and Rust. It is know that Confederate vessels were painted either red or black as an anti fowling coating below the waterline. Since there isn't any documentation to definitively call out the color, I decided on red to give a little color to the boat.
The deck was painted using a light teak brown to begin with mixed together from MM Brown, Yellow, Camouflage Gray, and just a touch of red. I sprayed a thin coat of the dark color first and let dry for 24 hours. It was then time to apply the second color to make the planks stand out.
Using the same color as a beginning point, I mixed a slightly lighter shade for color number 2. I then cut a bunch of THIN Chartpak Crepe tape in different lengths to represent the planking and stuck them to deck in a uneven fashion.
Now all I had to do was spray on a THIN coat of number two, and let dry fro an hour or so. Removing the tape was easy. Just use an Xacto knfe with a number 11 blade to pry the end of the tape up and a small set of tweezers will easily remove the tape. The result is a little too stark, but I had allowed for that.
You have choice here. On a smooth surface like injected molded plastic, a light dusting of color number 2 would blend everything nicely, but I have s surface with molded in planks on resin, so I decided on a chocolate brown wash to make all the planks pop out a bit more and tone down the lighter planks at the same time.
Before adding the wash, I sprayed the deck with a clear gloss coat to help the wash run smoothly into the plank seams and only slightly tint the deck planking colors.
Here's the finished deck. We are all ready to begin adding parts and finish painting the hull. I know it looks like a lot of wood here, but it will be broken up quite a bit by the addition of the two guns, stack, rigging and other deck equipment.