waterlines

There is easiest way, because you're trying to draw straight lines on a curved surface (the ship's hull), but with my 1/700 scale ships, I've had pretty good luck with a pair of dividers (to get a constant height from the bottom of the hull to where I want the waterline to be), a soft pencil (to mark said line) and slow and careful application of masking tape (essential to getting even a kind of straight line).

Where things get really interesting is around the stern. There, it's just a question of taking your time with frequent checks to see if things look right and squared-up from both sides and the rear.

Do a search in here for other threads on "painting waterlines" or "painting bootstripe" and you will find solutions that are far more creative than mine.

The old traditional way to do it is to set the model firmly on a solid, flat surface (being careful to set it absolutely upright and with the intended waterline parallel to the surface), mount a pencil on a block of wood in such a way that the pencil point is at the precise height of the waterline, and scribe carefully around the hull.  It's sometimes easier (assuming you're doing this job early enough in the proceedings) to mount the hull upside down.

A modern tool that can come in handy for this job is a laser level.  Such a tool projects an absolutely straight, horizontal, bright red line at any surface in front of it.  Just set the laser at the right height, turn it on, and mark along the line with a pencil.  I bought my laser level from Sears four or five years ago for about $35.00; I imagine similar tools can be had for less money now.  It comes in handy for lots of other stuff:  aligning masts, hanging pictures in the living room, etc., etc.

Another fine tool is the Accuscribe, a plastic device with a pencil and metal scribe.  The three arms allow you to adjust the height of the marking device.  If you turn the upper arm (with the pencil) around to form a "Z" unit, you can mark off the waterline; you may have to put a blocl under the base piece to getthe correct height.

Here's a little something I put together with items I already had at home.  This was inspired by Prof. Tilley in a previous discussion.  (Thanks!)

Parts you'll need:

1. Carpenter's triangle (available at WalMart)
2. Sharpened pencil
3. 'A' clamp
4. 2 small binder clips

Assembly -

   Step 1:

   Step 2:

   Step 3:

    Step 4:

Finished!

Hope this helps.

What a great idea.   I'll need to stop at the local Harbor Freight tools for an inexpensive plastic carpenters square to use in the model room (the metal one nees to stay in the garage/workshop).

Thanks