Quite a bit has happened, get a drink....

Lets get started with something we need to talk about...

FUTURE.. No this is not the same conversation you get from your parents when you spent all your allowance. This is a product that you will see me reference time and time again. It is a floor wax that is buzzing around the model building community. Now first time I heard about it I thought they were all crazy, "what, you want me to spray floor wax onto my model I just spent 80 hrs working on?!".

This is an acrylic self leveling clear (gloss) product in a large bottle. So rather than spend $4-$6 for a 1/2 oz I can get this jug for about $6 at any hardware store. The great thing about Future is it sprays through a gun (airbrush) so well with no thinning. You can use it to dip clear parts in to protect them from the glues, you can spray it between layers of paint to separate them from each other and of course you can use it to put a nice gloss shine on it.

If you are bored and need some toilet reading time, here is a great article on Future across the world:

http://swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html

Lets get started:

Lessons learned this week:

• When using salt to chip paint lay down a good coat of Future first, this will prevent the salt from sticking to the paint and lifting the base paint.
• Remove the salt as soon as possible and don't let it rest with to many coats of paint on it.
• To remove the salt, don't scrape it off but use a toothbrush (preferably not your own, wife's is okay just don't let her know) that is wet and work it off. Brushing will slowly allow the salt to 'melt' away rather than rip off.
  
• When masking be sure to lay down a coat of Future so the tape will not try and lift the paint up.
• Use distilled water for my salt that way it wont leave water marks on the finished paint.
  

Now onto the good stuff..

Now, from the last posting the hull of the boat was white and had chunks of salt on it. The plan was to have this hull two tone with a white stripe at the water line. Well due to my lack of planning I was unable to mask off the hull to my liking. So I decided to paint the whole hull black. After the paint set I begun the tedious work of trying to remove the salt from the hull and the main deck. As you can see some of the white is showing through. This actually worked out for the better because it is not uncommon for a vessel to go through several colors in its life.

If you look closely you can see that the hull is a dull black while the deck rail has a 'gloss' to it. One is with Future coat on it and one is without.

I have attached the main deck railing to the hull. If you look at the bow (or front for you land people) you will see how the paint is chipped but no rust. That is where the salt actually took off the layers of paint. I tried to pull the salt off not brush with water, plus there was no Future to help with the separation.







Here you can clearly see how the paint chipping on the bow has turned out. I wish I would have done the 'white' layer after the rust throughout the hull and side rail. You can see the difference in detail between the two. Next time...








Because the smoke stack will be black and the base will be red, I opted to not mask the bottom. The red is dark enough to cover the black over spray. Plus it is easier to mask a cylinder than to mask flat curve.









I have added the bow bit to the boat as well. Once again you can see the main deck has the paint removed from the salt 'chipping'. Because I had to rebuild the main deck I lost the guides that would mark where the bit needs to be. I had to measure out and put the bit in the place that I thought was correct.







Here is another angle of the same bow bit.












Here is the stern of the boat with the bits installed. The grating turned out beautiful, better than the original part that had plugged holes.

Here you can see I added the 3 bits there, the very small one is an odd one and I questioned if I even wanted it or not. In my years I never saw a bit of that size welded to the deck for towing. Because it came with the model and it gives the deck some flavor I put it on.




Here is another angle of the bits, turned out really well.











Here are the parts all masked up and ready to be painted red, or a Insignia Red to be exact. It is more of a caboose red than a stop light red.

Before the masking each part got a coat of Future to help with the masking.







Here you can see the red has been painted on and the masking removed to prevent the tape from bonding to the white. It took quite a bit of paint to get every nook and cranny of this main deck quarters.








Here is the wheel house all painted up. I still have time to add windows to the wheel house. Easier to add them later and not mask than to mask them up. But we will see.










Here the smoke stack is painted with red. It took a whole lot more red than I thought to cover up the black over spray from the first layer.


This will allow me to dust it with black smoke to give it a dirty look.






Here you can see I painted the inside of the vent shaft red. No Popeye is not going to come out of there with a can of spinach. lol This will be glued to the main deck near the bow.








Here is a what I could only guess is a storage bin. I painted it two tone like the box had shown. Boring but your standard masking over the white as well. This one is sitting on a quarter so it can give you an idea of the scale this item is.









Here is another vent shaft, but this one should be going onto the starboard side (right side) of the wheel house. I will be attaching this soon to make sure I weather it with the rest of the wheel house. The tip is white because that part will be above or even with the white roof.







Here is my tarp for the life boat, it is painted with a green zinc cromate. Next I will need to lighten it up and give it a worn look.









Here is the prop of the tug boat. Propellers are made in two types (typically), brass and stainless steal. Brass is a cheaper prop but bends at the tips if you hit the bottom. Stainless steal tends to snap off because it is not as soft as brass. I first tried to hand brush this on because it is so small and I really didn't want to dirty an airbrush for such a small part.








I painted it with a brush and was horrible, the paint was to thin and just would not get a good coat. I even tried to dip the whole thing in the paint and still bad looking. SIGH: so I had to brake out the airbrush.. This stuff airbrushed so nice and smooth...






Here is a coat of Future on the smoke stack. This is after the paint has had time to dry. I have added the Future because I will be adding salt onto the part once again.










I have added Future to the hull as well and the main deck quarters (not shown).












Here I sprayed the part with distilled water through the air brush. Just enough to give it a nice wet shine, no real puddling. I then sprinkled normal table salt on the part in a random pattern.








This will allow me to use a light coat of either white or gray paint. I am not sure which one I am going to use yet but what this will do is give it a worn look.

Have you ever seen a car or plane that the paint looks sun blotched and uneven?







This will (in theory) brake up the nice clean painted look and give it an uneven random faded look.

The white parts will get faded and worn by doing a oil wash.








Because this part of the boat, the smoke stack, is the most exposed to the elements it will get a wash to help with the fading of the paint.

That is all the updates for now. Thanks.