Micronaut Only Thread

[battlewagon]

Cheers, tstockton.

No worries then, have pressed on anyway. Will try my luck with something else:

Anyone have tips for adding a red band around a single funnel - that in the middle of three on a single, pre-made piece?

A stand-alone funnel is one thing, or even a flanking funnel, but by virtue of being attached to two outside verticals the inner cylinder is very difficult to work with. The band would need to be roughly half way down. Anyone out there tackled this problem? (Suppose I'm hoping for a cunning trick ...)

- U.

If you aren't comfortable with painting this free hand with a very small brush, I would suggest using the masking tape Tamiya puts out for models and mask off the top and bottom of all three funnels and just paint the middle one. I hope this helps.

[tstockton]

Battlewagon said:

If you aren't comfortable with painting this free hand with a very small brush, I would suggest using the masking tape Tamiya puts out for models and mask off the top and bottom of all three funnels and just paint the middle one.

Another option would be to cut thin strips from a waterslide decal and wrap / apply them around the funnel. It's rather fiddly work, but I have done it -- only in 1:1200 scale, not in 1:2400. But I'm sure someone with a steadier hand and a sharper eye than mine could do it.

Regards,
Tom Stockton

[Brigade Commander]

Or do the finish paint job, including red stripe, on the center funnel first then paint the fore and aft funnels afterward. At this stage you would cover over the stray red with the finish coat. Do not know the model but am just throwing the suggestion against the wall and seeing if it sticks. Might be easier than trying to mask but without the model just a guess.

Just my $0.02 worth. Which we all know does not get you very far these days!

[Donald M. Scheef]

In the thread "Ship Deck Decals" GHQ seems to be endorsing Tanner's decals. With this in mind, I am more seriously considering removeing aircraft carrier deck decals from the Consolidated Micronaut Wish List. I won't do anyting for at least a week to allow comments. If I get a number of requests to retain the votes for aircraft carrier deck decals in general then I will keep it on the list. If I recieve votes for specific ship's deck decals I will apportion the total votes among those ships getting votes. If there is little or no response to retain this in the list or if the response is strongly against keeping them the item will go away.

Don S.

[Unfathomable]

One comment and a couple of questions that perhaps someone can help with:

1) Does anyone know the colour of "Etna decking"?

2) The WW1 SMS Pommern has a large, raised deck area beneath her boats. Does anyone know how this was surfaced? (I've been checking and can only find colour reference for a rebuild performed on another member of the class, not the original fit.)

And comments: I'd like so see some version of the decals remain on the list. While I have also ordered full-decks from Tanner, and am looking forward to them, I retain a hankering for independent parts - numbers, lines dotted and full in various colours and so forth - just so I can still (upon occasion!) feel like I'm contributing to the final product. I still feel there's room for hand painters who'd benefit from being allowed to do their own decks while having help with machine-edged designs like emblems, letters and numbers.

Finally, thanks to everyone who offered advice on the funnel question. Managed it freehand in the end; the trouble with most other "methods" is that if I were skilled and steady enough to employ them, then I'd be skilled and steady enough to not need them!

Cheers,
U

[tstockton]

Unfathomable,

Glad to read that you got the funnel stripe finished. I know I could have done mine (in 1:1200 scale) freehand, but with absolutely no guarantee that the stripe would be as clean as I wanted it to be. That is one thing I absolutely love about waterslide decals; one can get them "close" into position and then gently nudge them into their final position before the water evaporates and the decal becomes set in place.

In model railroading (HO scale, 1:87), I've tried dry-transfer decals. And while I like the finished look, I have had some difficulty getting the transfer in exactly the right place the first time. For a sign on the side of a building, I've found that "close enough" is usually good enough. But when I've lettered a freight car -- well, if the decal is off a little bit, there's nothing I can do to fix it -- it's where it ends up on the first and only try. I can either ignore that the lettering is a little bit off, and my eye catches that EVERY darned time I see it... or I can strip the lettering off and try again, using a waterslide decal. So to me, it makes more sense just to use the waterslide decal to begin with.

Sometimes, being a "perfectionist" can really be a pain in the keester!!

I've also noticed that despite my eyesight worsening as I get older, when something is "wrong", I can spot it a mile away in the dark on a foggy night...

Donald et al -- I agree 100% with the assessment that GHQ would do us a tremendous favor in producing decals for lettering, striping, etc. for their ship models, as they have done with their armor and aircraft models. In being a 1:1200 / 1:1250 ship modeler, I've found that in many cases, I can get by using model railroad decals in either "HO" or "N" scale. But it sure would be nice to have the "proper" or "exact" styles needed, instead of "as close as I can get" styles.

I also agree with everyone's assessment of Tanner's wonderful full-deck decals. I tell you, it's just about enough to "push me over the edge" and buy a couple of GHQ's wonderful 1:2400 scale carriers and a few sets of Tanner's decals, just to have some of those magnificent gems! The ONLY reason I haven't so far is I have too many other hobby interests and preferences already, without "giving in" to the 1:2400 scale ship bug as well! "So many toys, so little time..."

Best regards to all,
Tom Stockton

[sjolly75 H4]

In the thread "Ship Deck Decals" GHQ seems to be endorsing Tanner's decals. With this in mind, I am more seriously considering removeing aircraft carrier deck decals from the Consolidated Micronaut Wish List. I won't do anyting for at least a week to allow comments. If I get a number of requests to retain the votes for aircraft carrier deck decals in general then I will keep it on the list. If I recieve votes for specific ship's deck decals I will apportion the total votes among those ships getting votes. If there is little or no response to retain this in the list or if the response is strongly against keeping them the item will go away.

Don S.

Don,

I concur that since GHQ is officially endorsing them, and that they are made specifically to fit GHQ models, the WWII carrier decals can go away. However, in their place, you can add Modern US Ship numbers/helo decks and Modern Soviet ship numbers/helo decks!

I really wish I had picked up some of those Seabat decals back in the day!

[Brigade Commander]

Anyone paint up any of the original four Atlanta-class cruisers? I am finding pictures not supporting what I have found written for the camouflage schemes for all four. On the first two, CL-51 Atlanta and CL-52 Juneau, it may just be the interpretation of the schemes by the crew as they paint the ship. On the last two, CL-53 San Diego and CL-54 San Juan, I am not sure "local interpretation" covers the differences!

I have spent the last few weekends viewing pictures in the hope I can find some that give a close enough view to be sure I interpret the pattern correctly.

Just wondering if others have had the same experiences.

[av8rmongo]

It might help to know what you found and what you've seen.

[Unfathomable]

Has anyone decided yet if they're going to do their newly released Austrians in their early green ... or later 'standard' grey?

Don't think I'll be able to resist a splash of colour for myself.

- U

[TAMMY]

It is a choice of colours that I do not have as I will use the ships for WWI scenarios.

In any case, the "Montecuccolin" (a dark grey-green) may apply to SMS Radetzky class and two of the Viribus Unitis class.only as the new light blue-gray was approved on 31 decmber 1913.

[battlewagon]

Oh no!...I'm at it again! I am converting the IJN Takeo kit into a 1944 IJN Maya with the extra Anti-Aircraft mounts in place of the third bow turret. A little sheet styrene, some Squadron putty and a few spare parts from my "boneyard" and I should have a good looking representation of IJN Maya just prior to being mistaken for a battleship and torpedoed in the Palawan Passage.

I have built the forward deckhouse and AA platform from sheet styrene. I cannibalized some small AA guns from a USS Ticonderoga kit that didn't pan out and some spare secondary mounts from another GHQ Japanese cruiser kit. I sawed off a bit of the after superstructure to mount the main tripod mast. I filled in the center part of the boat deck to extend the superstructure aft.

Applying primer tonight and I should have a finished product in a few days. Here are a couple of pictures of my progress so far...Enjoy!

[Mikee]

I've just gotten ahold of an old article written by Falk Pletcher regarding A-H fleet colors. His (one page) article is based on much earlier research by Wladimir Aichelburg. The grey-green color was used in the early 1900s until about the beginning of 1914, when it was replaced by grey-blue. Falk suggests using Humbrol 31 paint for the grey-green, and
Model Master 1728 for the grey-blue. Steel decks, turret roofs and "upper surfaces" in Humbrol 92 or Revell 77. Funnel caps in black; wooden decks are natural; anchors and chains in gunmetal.

I don't remember when this article came out, or what the source is (bad memory), but there is an ad on the page for "WATERLINE INTERNATIONAL," which is "entering our second year of publication." Hope this helps.

[Unfathomable]

Thanks, Mikee. That's really handy info, especially with mentions of exact colours. Being a Humbrol user, I'd already purchased those colours; I hope this means I'm on the right track. I'm definitely going to represent at lest some AH vessels in their rather novel green - the difference is too interesting to pass up.

Meanwhile, a question that's perhaps a little dry, but here goes:

Does anyone know the colours of early dreadnought blast bags? Most of my visual reference shows vessels (Neptune and earlier) with what I'd more likely describe as material joints than 'proper' blast bags. In most pictures they appear dark, not white, though their precise colour beyond that is a mystery to me. To make things more confusing, certain pictures do indeed show what appears to be lighter coloured bags. I haven't been able to determine if this is the light and angle, or if the material used (in presumably frequent replacement) varied throughout their operational life.

The same thing happens to a lesser degree with bridge matting. Sometimes it's dark, other times lighter. In one shot I can see white cracks as if through wear and tear white has been allowed to show through matting which had at an earlier point been simply painted a darker colour. It's far easier, however, to imagine greater ad-hoc changes in matting baffles than in the nature and fit of blast bags.

Anyone know anything about this obscure point?

Cheers,
U

[Mikee]

I've received some new information from Snyder and Short regarding the Austro-Hungarian green-gray color. After Falk Pletcher wrote his article he worked some more on the color. He developed a mix using equal parts of Humbrol matt 64, 86, and 102 that he thought was probably pretty close to the original. I've mixed some, and am painting one of the Radetzkys. Looks to me, at least, strange for a warship. However, it is different!