January 2018 meeting

14 January 2018
Meeting hosted by Tijs T. of St. Catharines.
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TIJS brought us up to date with his Chris Craft motor boat build.  The laminated sheets were added to the bottom of the hull and individual planks were added to the sides of the hull with CA glue.

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John began his demonstration by first showing us his model of an 11" Dahlgren Naval Gun (1862), describing the painting of the muzzle to show the burnt effect of it having just been fired.  This was an introduction to the theme of this month's meeting: "weathering" (painting).

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John gave members detailed demonstrations on wash painting and applying/creating a rusting effect.  He explained enamel, acrylic and lacquer paints; the need to pair the proper manufacture's thinner to the paint being used; how priming is important whether you are working with wood or plastic.  How to properly clean plastic model pieces with warm tap water, mild dish soap, a tooth brush and a through rinse to remove the mould process oil residue.  He also showed that you must stir the oil paint into the solvent to make a wash.  You must work with acrylic first otherwise it will attack the other types of paint.  John described how "Dullcote" applied over acrylic paint will dissolve it leaving no trace of any acrylic paint having ever been applied.  He explained that rust paint is dry freeze dried pigment (powder) and then demonstrated how it is applied dry and sparingly beginning with the darkest colour first (representing old rust) and finishing with the lightest colour (representing the newest rust).  John uses lacquer thinner to clean brushes and air gun components.

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RON passed around a paper boat (submarine) build plan sheet downloaded from the internet and it was discussed with great interest.   Hugh suggested people check out Metcalfe Models.

John passed around a photo of his British Mark I tank (1916) that was equipped with a naval 6 pdr gun.  He also shared a photo of his model cross section of HMS Victory (1:96 scale).  The view was from below showing deck construction details.  This was initially a kit but John only used the shell and scratch built the remainder.
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ALAN brought us up to date on his HMS Bellerophon (1786) scratch build.  He is almost back to where he was before he removed all the aft cant frames back to the transom pieces due to an error.   Construction of the frames with the patterns was discussed and Ron suggested he consider cutting the gunports out after the group of frames were in place rather then roughing them in during installation of each frame. It was suggested they could be cut out using an Exacto saw or a thin blade (cut on pull motion) Japanese saw .

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