Copper tape on the Bounty and Victory

There have been extensive threads in both the General Discussion and the Painting and Airbrushing forums lately.  So you might want to check out those too to get more viewpoints.

I always prime. Sometimes I will just two-coat color and call the first the primer, but there' s a problem in that I'll mention in a bit.

Manufacturers used to make a habit of trying to cast models in a color that at least to kids would look ok unpainted. I certainly built my share of those including the big Constitutions, Cutty Sark and about a fleet of gray steel ships. The apex I suppose of that theory is Matchbox, whose kits came in three colors.

It's not so common anymore, but USN ships do tend to get molded in gray.

And airliners usually are white. The problem with painting a color coat directly over is that if it's close to the plastic color, it's very hard to see where you've missed.

So it really helps to prime in light gray over most colors or white over light gray. Then you can more carefully gauge where you've sprayed or brushed a solid coat.

The next major advantage is that if you've done any amount of sanding or filling, it's much easier to judge the results under a flat coat of a solid light color. You can only really tell if you've smoothed things out right after you've put down a coat of paint, and it might as well be primer since it's probable you'll find that it needs more sanding.

The third good reason is as John says, colors are formulated to be accurate against a white background. That's always been the standard of the print industry, and when you are shading or trying to get semi translucent (a redundant phrase), it's critical.

To that end, if there are decals to be applied, they are printed under the same rules, but they are on transparent carrier film almost always, so the edges don't show. If you are building a model with any real color, it is a very worthwhile task to prime in white or light gray and then mask an area the shape of the decal before putting on the finish coats. It's not hard- make copy of the decal sheet at full size ( I always scan my decal sheets and save the files ( for personal use only)) and use the copy to cut out a piece of tape. It's ok to undersize it a bit, just not oversized.

Then do the darker top coat colors and remove your masks, then decal.

I hope this is helpful. I tend to prime all the parts on the sprues first thing. Since good primer is readily available in rattle cans, it's quick.

About the only downside I can think of is that you cannot get a bond with solvent based plastic cement through paint. Superglue works fine, but the joint strength then becomes a function of the primer bond to the plastic. For small parts it's not a problem. For big joins like hull halves a few strokes with a foam rubber backed abrasive stick ($0.99 at CVS) does the trick.

the one significant deviation from the above is that for some reason metallic colors look better over gloss black.

The simple answer to your question is:  you don't have to, but you can if you want to.

Modern hobby paints are formulated to adhere just fine to styrene plastic.  Some people have the impression that acrylics don't stick as well as enamels, but it's not quite that simple.  Enamels dry from the inside out; acrylics dry from the outside in.  Enamel may take longer to "dry to the touch," abut when it feels dry it really is dry.  (Technically that's not actually the case.  If paint ever completely dried, it would fall off.)  Acrylic paint dries to the touch faster; it may feel dry after just a few minutes.  But it won't really "grab" the surface for a couple of days.  

I painted my little Bounty, and the other models I've described in the Forum, with acrylics.  The oldest is now almost forty years old, and the paintwork looks good as new. 

Primer isn't necessary to make the paint stick, but it performs a couple of other useful functions.  The big one is to make the entire surface one neutral cover (usually grey), which makes it easier for the different-colored finish coats to cover.  Modern hobby paints generally give excellent coverage, but if, for instance, you're going to apply yellow paint to the dark brown plastic of the Revell Bounty, the yellow will have an easier time if you put a neutral grey on the plastic first.

I've been reading for a long time about the advisability of washing parts before painting them.  The logic makes sense, but I have to confess that, in fifty-eight years of model building, I've never bothered to do it - and my models don't suffer any visible effects. 

Q: do you prime first when painting plastics?

If you haven't all ready wash the plastic to remove 'release agent' and oils accumulated from handling. I wash all plastic parts with TSP + dish soap in warm water before starting any kit.

Aluminum foil adhesive (plastic model specific) is a excellent product and details will not be lost. Check our candy chocolate bars for different colors of copper wrap foil, the paper backing can be burnt off with a lighter.

I actually toured the Bounty its last public tour before its ill fated voyage home in 2012 at the Tall Ships festival in Pictou, Nova Scotia. Shame the ship was lost.

That does help, thank you. I have The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships; outstanding.

One final painting question: do you prime first when painting plastics?

If you want to start boning up on the Victory, you really need to start with two books.  (They're available from various sources online - including used copies - or maybe you live near a library that has a copy of at least one of them.)

The first is C. Nepean Longridge's The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships.  Contrary to what the title implies, it's all about how the author built a huge, 1/48-scale model of her.  (It's now in the Science Museum, in London.)  It contains lots of excellent drawings, by the famous draftsman/historian George Campbell.)  The rigging diagrams will be particularly helpful - as will the verbal descriptions of how virtually every line leads.  (The Heller rigging instructions are a mess.)

The other, more recent work is by Alan McGowan and John McKay, H.M.S. Victory:  Her Construction, Career and Restoration.  This one commands some pretty high prices on the used book market, but if you can get access to a copy you won't regret it.  It contains a good discussion of how the ship was built and what she did, and it's supplemented by photos and superb drawings by Mr. McKay.

On a slightly less lofty level is John McKay's own book, Anatomy of the Ship:  The 100-Gun Ship Victory. This one was published some years before the McGowan/McKay volume, and it has some mistakes in it.  But it's got some highly useful photos, and Mr. McKay's drawings are, in terms of drafting quality, some of the best I've ever seen.

There are literally dozens - maybe hundreds - of other books about this ship.  But those two/three will get you started.

Hope that helps a little.

That is inspiration, thank you. I was out of town over the weekend and thought about modeling constantly.

jtilley, I know you guys weren't trying to talk me out of it, just making sure I was aware of the challenge. I had a fit of despair, which happens too often with me and shouldn't have posted. I look forward to any advice you may share in the future. I'm doing the bounty first as a primer, but also accumulating Victory knowledge. I've been reading through some books that are mainly for wooden modeling, but they are giving me a more solid grasp on how things should work.

For sure the Victory I have has given me a great deal of satisfaction.

In no particular order-

when I enquired on this forum about good references, I was recommended to Longridge's "Anatomy of Nelson's Ships" along with two other books; the first of which is anything but. It's a blow-by-blow description of how he built a model of that ship on 1/48 scale. I happened to get a copy from Alibris that had the Campbell drawings folded into it. There's enough in those last three sentences to send any fan of Napoleanic warships towards years of research.

The second was finding the Pete Coleman site. To repeat; they were hacked and the founder of the site (not Pete Coleman), much appreciated, had passed away and all of his considerable wit and knowledge contained in his posts disappeared with the original site.

Based on that information, I started with the job of painting and coppering the hull. Black is Pollyscale "Engine Black". Tilley will be interested to know that I recently bought 4 bottles of the stuff. If he and Mrs. Tilley should ever be so gracious as to come to dinner at my house, I'll bring out a bottle from the cellar and gift it him.

The Nelson beelines are a devils brew of two colors of Pollyscale. I do not recall the mix, it's in that site somewhere, but it's probably something like 4 parts Santa Fe Reefer yellow to one part Pacific Fruit Express Orange. I'll try to find it.

Just to set the table, I spent a good season on the lower gun deck. Mooring bitts from chunks of basswood, gratings from plastic mesh, capstans from drawer knobs, anchor cable and messenger, vertical stanchions and the manger. All just dumb stuff but utterly (yes pun intended) fun to do.

I will post a photo like that every week for the next year if it can convince you to do the model. It's a great project, and it just needs to be given a space to age as you model more manageable projects.

I (we) hope you take her on.

Kolvir, I don't think either GMorrison or I intended our comments to lead to depression or discouagement.  And I certainly wouldn't suggest that you sell your Victory kit.  (If you ever decided to buy another one, heaven knows what it might cost.)  We just think modelers are entitled to know what they're getting into - especially in the case of a big project like that.  A serious model of a ship of the line entails, by definition, an enormous amount of fine work and repetition (which, I've found, is the biggest deterrent to getting a model finished.

I've made this suggestion many times here in the Forum, and those few who've taken it have, eventually agreed with me.  If you want to get into sailing ship modeling, start with a relatively small ship on a relatively large scale.  (My suggestions:  the Zvezda medieval cog or the Revell Viking ship.  I built the latter just a few years ago, and had a ball with it:   http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/p/155395/1701192.aspx#1701192 . And take a look at this thread:  http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/155458.aspx?sort=ASC&pi240=1 .  Getting a few models like that under your belt is a great way to learn the skills, the techniques, and the terminology and also produce some beautiful models to decorate your domicile.  (My observation has been that Significant Others are far  more receptive to sailing ships than to any other genre of modeling.)  Then, if you're sure you want to take the hobby further in this direction, give some thought to the Revell 1/96 Constitution.  In many ways it's at least as good a kit as the Heller Victory, and it's a beautiful, historically significant subject.  (Another good big kit is the Revell Cutty Sark, but it's out of production and hard to find.)

Above all else, make sure the hobby is fun.  If you get depressed about it, something's wrong.

Good luck.

Jtilley, your posts have very helpful. I have a good basis to get a color scheme I can live with.

However the comments about the Victory leave me depressed. I now wonder if I should sell it.

I'm not criticizing your words, just getting discouraged.

thanks kolvir

Coleman's site is http://pete-coleman.com/forum/

A couple of things.  About that 1/64" copper tape:  I don't think that's real copper.  It looks like the standard plastic pinstriping tape that car modelers use.  If so, I think you'll find that it's too thick to work as hull sheathing.  But maybe I'm wrong.

Regarding a color scheme for the Bounty:  I spent a great deal of time digging up every scrap of information I could find about her when I was working on my model.  That was a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure nothing else has turned up since.  (Mr. McKay's Anatomy of the Ship volume has come out since then, but it doesn't contain anything I didn't catch.  In fact, Mr. McKay missed a few crumbs that I found:  the fact that the center window in the transom was, in Bligh's words, "a sham window.")

When it comes to color research, sailing ships in general aren't like modern warships, aircraft, or armor.  For one thing, the documentation isn't as good (and gets worse as you go back in time).  For another, there weren't any standards or official colors. 

So far as I know, there is no contemporary painting of the Bounty.  That's not surprising.  She was only in the Royal Navy for a few months before she set sail for the Pacific - and never came back.  It seems that the only contemporary illustrations of her are those two sets of Admiralty draughts that I described in that other thread. 

I did find a handful to references to colors in the documents.  There's one entry in Bligh's log that refers to "blackening the bends" (i.e., the wales - the thick belts of planking around the hull).  And one to "blackening the yards."  And when the ship got to Tahiti, Bligh ordered the figurehead ("a pretty figure of a woman in riding habit") "painted in colors, and they [the natives] sat staring at it for hours."  That's it.

Beyond that we have to rely on contemporary practice, in the Royal Navy of that time ships were issued four colors of paint:  black, white, red, and yellow.  The white was a thin, non-durable paint like whitewash; it seems to have been rarely used on exterior surfaces.  All the colors were supplied in powdered form, in small casks; when the carpenter had to paint something he mixed the powder with oil (probably linseed oil) in whatever proportions he liked.  The yellow was a relatively dull yellow ochre, and the red was red ochre.  On my model I think I made both the red and the yellow too bright - especially the red.  It's been established that the red paint was a general purpose, cheap, durable primer that was used on all sorts of things to protect them from the weather.  (The old story about the red camouflaging blood apparently is a myth.)

Any other paint had to be paid for out of the captain's pocket.  Bligh wasn't a wealthy man (he was just a lieutenant, after all), so it seems unlikely that he spent much, if anything, making his ship look pretty.  I gave my model a blue strake at the top of the wale, but in retrospect I think that probably was a mistake.  Blue paint certainly existed (based on Prussian blue powder), but it wasn't cheap.

It was customary to either paint the sides yellow or simply treat them with oil - which started out as a rich, medium brown and darkened over time.  Black trim on the wales and the outsides of the bulwarks was also common.  The yards were, like the log entry implies, often painted black - as were the tops and doublings on the masts.  The pictures in that other thread show how I put all this together, but there's plenty of room for interpretation - and personal taste.

That's all I have to offer on the color scheme of the Bounty - and, realistically, I really don't think there's any other reliable information out there.

I was interested to learn recently, on Wikipedia, that there have actually been four movies based on the Bounty story.  The first was a 1920s silent flick, "Mutiny of the Bounty," that starred, in his first movie roll, a young, ambitious actor named Errol Flynn in one of his very first roles.  I haven't seen it; I have no idea what it used for a ship.  The Nordoff and Hall novels were published in the 1930s.  The second movie, the 1936 "Mutiny on the Bounty," starred Charles Laughton and Clark Gable. As I understand it, the producers modified an old wood schooner to look more or less (but not quite) like the real ship. The third movie, in 1962, starred Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard.  For that one, MGM made a big deal about building an "exact replica" in Nova Scotia.  It was, in fact, far from exact; it was delliberately made 20 feet too long, and most of the deck furniture on it was pure fiction.  And for some reason or other the producers painted the hull blue.  (There's no historical evidence to support that.  I've seen quite a few paintings of blue-hulled Bounties, but all of them were done after that movie appeared.)  This was the ship that recently got sunk in the hurricane.

The most recent movie, "The Bounty," starred Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson and was released 1n 1984.  Another ship was built in New Zealand for the purpose, and it did look quite a bit like the real ship - but, as I noted on that other thread, the designers used the wrong Admiralty draught.  I've had one near-encounter with this ship.  When I was in San Diego about thirty years ago there was an item in the newspaper about how the feds had seized the ship on drug-carrying charges.  I don't know what's happened to it since; as I understand it, it wasn't built to last more than a few years.  Apparently it's still operating out of Hong Kong:  http://www.thebounty.com.hk/icms2/template?series=607 .  It has one big virtue over the 1962 version:  the color scheme is completely believable.  (The movie claimed to be more accurate than the others, but the script contained some howlers you could drive a truck through.)

That's all I can tell you about the color scheme. 

Finally, I agree completely with GMorrison:  the Heller Victory is a hugely challenging project that takes a very long time and, to be completed successfully, really requires considerable experience - and knowledge of the subject matter.  I agree with a lot of other folks that it's just about the best plastic sailing ship ever.  But it suffers from a lot of problems.  Some of those just have to do with accuracy (the empty shells that pose as the ship's boats), but others make the kit more difficult - and require the builder to know how to fix them.  Example:  the kit (incredibly) provides no means of attaching the yards to the masts.  And the hundreds of blocks and deadeyes in it are virtually unusable.

I've forgotten the date when I joined this Forum, but I think it was about ten years ago.  In that time the Forum has carried at least a dozen threads started by people who have been working on the Heller Victory.  So far as I know, none of those models has been finished.  On the other hand, during the same period I've admired lots of finished Revell Cutty Sarks and Constitutions. 

has anyone got an address for the pete coleman site

Right- I had to find it again. See insert above. Pacific Union College focuses on the genealogy- a bunch of the names on its contact list show why!

I don't study the Bounty, but it seemed to be a new source. Let me know what you find.

I think you forgot to put the link in.

Already signed up for Colman's site. It was kind of a pain, but the site is really, really good.

Real quick- Victory modelers should visit the Pete Coleman site. Don't be put off by the need to join your way in- they had a bad experience and it's just a basic precaution. As far as that model goes, I would recommend any modeler to build lots of other models before, during and hopefully if still standing; after that build. It's a nice model for sure, but realistically takes years and years to build. I'm on about year 5, but because I have a life I'm on the upper gun deck. I've long ago decided that if I every even get the lower masts stepped and rigged I will be satisfied with it.

But back to the Bounty. There's a Pitcairn Island Study Center I found that would seem to have a wealth of information.

Here's the link again.

library.puc.edu

It happens to be close to where I live and I mean to get up there at some point to see their artifacts.

Sorry, I meant the Bounty colors.

That we could be so lucky as to have the resources the Victory has available for all our builds. I was in Britain thirteen years ago, before I really had the ship modeling bug, and I didn't go to Portsmouth and see the Victory. Sill kicking myself hard.

This looks like it might help:

http://www.hms-victory.com/

Groot

I found the tape at:

www.hobbylinc.com/.../s8.cgi

I'm still struggling with the paint, I'm going to a LHS somewhat close to get some help.

Can anyone point me to a source for a paint scheme for the ship? There is the wonderful ship here mentioned in the post above and I found another almost as well done, but they differ somewhat and both differ from Revell's instructions, which seem unreliable. I'm getting very indecisive which way to go with paint and painting, which is driving me nuts. When I used to paint miniatures for wargames I could never decide on a color scheme.

I firmly believe that it's up to the individual modeler to decide just how much detail is enough.  

I used to go along with the old theory that "if you were so far away from the real [ship/aircraft/tank/car/etc.], that it looked as small as your model, you wouldn't be able to see [the detail in question], so you ought to leave it off."  I dropped that argument when I got acquainted with (a) photo-etched detail parts, and (b) the models of Donald McNarry.  But even he made compromises.  (His blocks don't have sheaves in them, and his 1/64"-wide deck planks don't have spikes in them.)  Somewhere or other, every modeler reaches his/her limit.

What we can do is learn all we can about the prototype, and make an informed decision about what to include, what to omit, and what to represent.  Through most of the period when metal hull sheathing was in vogue, the copper (or "yellow metal") plates were nailed to the hull with copper nails (iron ones would induce galvanic corrosion when submerged in salt water) over a layer of felt or, later, heavy paper (like tar paper, I guess.)  The nails would be whacked in with a hammer that was considerably bigger than the nail head.  The result would be a shallow dimple, with the nail head projecting very slightly in the middle of it.  (That's what we can see on the few surviving ships that have metal sheathing.)  My guess is that the nail head wouldn't project more than about 1/4" from the surface of the copper.  On 1/100 scale, that's .0025".  Mighty small.  And the nail head (allowing for a little spreading under the  pressure of whacking) surely wouldn't be wider than an inch (.010").  There we're into the realm of visibility on 1/100 scale - but pretty inconspicuous.

When C. Nepean Longridge built his famous 1/48 models of the Cutty Sark and Victory, he made himself thousands of little copper nails and pounded them in individually.  He was a retired doctor with, apparently, nothing to do besides work on models.  I freely admit that I'm not up to that job.

Bluejacket offers individual copper plates on 1/96 scale with diamond-shaped nail heads photo-etched on their surfaces.  To sheathe the hull of the company's 1/96 Constitution with those plates would, by Bluejacket's calculation, cost $225.00. That's on top of the $650.00 price of the kit itself.  I'm sure the company isn't getting rich off such things, but $875.00 is simply beyond what I'm prepared to spend on my hobby.

I really like the appearance of the nail heads that are on the big Revell kits - and, for that matter, the smaller ones too.  In the Goode Olde Dayes, Revell's copper plates weren't represented by raised outlines; they were molded in such a way that they actually appeared to overlap.  Admittedly they looked far thicker than they should, but to my eye the effect was excellent.

I also like the appearance of the "dent" effect - though of course it isn't entirely accurate either.  As for the question of how difficult and time-consuming it is, all I can offer is that it wasn't as hard, and didn't take as long, as I expected.  If memory serves (as it frequently doesn't these days), I spent less than a week of evenings coppering that little Bounty model.  I suspect any modeler with the necessary closeup vision (which I'm not sure I have any more) and a little patience (less than you might think) could do it at least as well as I did.

Kolvir - may I ask where you found that super-narrow copper tape? The smallest width I've found is 1/4".  G.Morrison - thanks for the link.  Those adhesive-backed copper sheets look very promising.  It's going to be a long time before I tackle another copper-sheathed hull, but I've got my eye on the Mocel Shipways Flying Fish.

For what it's worth, my own favorite model paint is PolyScale, which, dagnabbit, is no longer being manufactured.  I've been trying out Vallejo recently; so far I like it almost as much.  And the color range is enormous.

I'm definitely going to copper my Victory, especially after seeing yours. I've found copper tape down to 1/64".

For the bounty, I decided I am going to paint the hull. I've got the AotS book for it and am going to try and get the rigging authentic. I want the Victory to be my masterpiece and learn from my mistakes that I make on the Bounty. Not that I want the Bounty to be just an experiment. I bought it because I thought I needed a simpler model first instead of jumping right into the Victory(got the Victory first at a clearance sale), I still want the Bounty to be done to the best of my abilities, meager as they are.

Right now my problem is deciding on the right paint. I haven't modeled in many years and that was mainly pewter miniatures. My paint from then is gone and I can't get that brand(Ral Partha) anymore even if I wanted to use it again.

It's a good time to set some numbers/ facts straight, mis-quoted by yours truly:

The copper plates on the Revell CW Morgan are 7/32" (5.5 mm) by 1/16"(1.6 mm) at real size.

The Heller 1/100 Victory has cast plates, but not nail heads; John is correct.

IMO that's a detail that can be overlooked, however if some wanted to, adding them with a pin would be feasible.

This wanders into the old but never-to-go-away argument among wingnuts. To wit; are the lines between panels on aircraft better modeled raised (old style), or recessed (the current IEAMOP) technology)?

Because nail heads on copper plates on a ship are bumps, not dents.

I have copper tape that's 5/32". Here's the link:

http://www.anythinginstainedglass.com/metals/foil.html

My America:

And my Victory:

Bare Metal Foil sells a copper variant.  It might save a LOT of time rather than strips of tape.

Groot

That is a great thread, thanks for pointing it out.

I'm really leaning now at just painting it and then do the copper for the Victory. Thank you both for your help.

The Forum thread G. Morrison referred to is here: http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/155394.aspx?sort=ASC&pi240=1 .

The Revell Bounty has "planking seams" molded into the hull below the wale.  That's completely wrong; there's no doubt whatever that the actual ship was copper sheathed. 

Assuming you want to keep the "planking seams" on the upper part of the hull (which I don't particularly recommend - but that's another subject), the first thing you need to do is mark the waterline.  (The thick band around the hull isn't the waterline; it represents the wales, the thick belt of planking that surrounds the hull and follows the sheerline.)  The waterline just touches the bottom of the wale amidships.  There are various ways to mark the waterline.  The simplest probably is to glue the hull halves together, mount the model upright, mount a pencil (or scriber) mounted on a block of wood of exactly the right height, and run it around the hull.

Next, sand the "planking seams" off the hull below the waterline. 

In that earlier thread I described how to lay the "gores" of the plating.  You can use the self-adhesive copper tape, all right, but you'll have to cut it into smaller pieces.  (The narrowest copper tape I've found is 1/4" wide.  Typically, copper plates were about 14" wide by 4' long.  The kit is on 1/110 scale; do the math - and get a bit depressed.)  You could try the trick GMorrison suggested, using long strips with bends in them to represent the ends of the plates; I haven't tried that.  In fact, when I built my Bounty I didn't know the tape was available; I cut the plates out of a big sheet, and glued them to the hull with contact cement.)  As I recall, it took me two or three evenings to sheath the entire hull.

I have tried pounce wheels, but I can't recommend them.  In the first place, I don't think any of the available ones has teeth that are close enough together.  In the second place, the dents they leave aren't round; they're like little lines.  I put  "nail heads" in my model's copper individually, with a dull needle clamped in a pin vise.  It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would.  I wasn't absolutely careful with the patterns; I put a row around the edges of each plate, and a few more in the middle.  I don't think anybody's likely to notice the difference.

In fact, those plates are so small that I seriously question whether it's worth the trouble to put the dents in at all.  The big Heller Victory would be another matter, though.  Unless I'm mistaken, it does have the plates molded in (with some gaps due to the limitations of the injection-molding process), but not the nail heads.  (I don't understand that.  Revell put nail heads in the "copper" of its little 1/192 Constitution as long ago as 1956.  But I don't think any Heller kit ever had them.)

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

The bounty doesn't have a smooth hull and I'm not experienced enough to tell if it has enough texture to use the technique you used above. I'm pretty much at a loss on how to do it. Part of me want to skip the tape and just paint it. However, when I build the Victory I definitely want copper and was thinking of doing it on the Bounty as a kind of test run to build some skill. In fact the whole Bounty build is a Victory prep.

In reverse order- the Heller Victory has cast on plate and nail head detail. Used tape just a shade wider than the plates and burnished it on directly. The detail telegraphed right through and looks great. As a side note I took the same approach on the Revell America (1/64) but after a couple of strips it was obvious that the detail was too pronounced so I went back and sanded that down about 75%.

Even that, let along scribing, pouncing nail heads etc, was a lot of work to get to look right.

I've not built Bounty in many decades. There's been good previous discussion here about it. My understanding is that the hull is smooth. Too bad since the CW Morgan has great detail at about the same scale. On Morgan those plates are about 1/16" (1,5 mm) by 1/4" (6mm) in real time. I think that's too small to add nails and at about the threshold of being able to cut plates.

You might consider laying down long strips of tape and then carefully cutting the end joints on the model using a simple little block of metal as a jig.

That tape is available online from stained glass supply outfits.