SSBN659's ALFA OVERHAUL

[SSBN659]

I’ve spent several days testing ways to do the draft marks. Greg Sharpe’s Alfa drawing was 1:72 scale, my model is 1:96 scale. I made a photocopy of the Greg’s marks and reduced them to 75%. At 1:96 they measure 1 mm by 2.5 mm and 1 mm by 4 mm – that’s darn hard to work with, especially when you need 4 identical sets. Here are some examples of templates I made. I hope to be able to use one template for all 4 sets. Using a piece of plastic painted black I did some testing. The white bled though as you can see so I’m doing a second test of the same template, this time airbrushing black first to seal the tapes. When that’s dry I’ll airbrush white and keep my fingers crossed.


Meanwhile, waiting for paint to dry, I started a new set of templates for the hatches, bollards, marker buoy, etc.


“Will” Rogers
SSBN659

[SSBN659]

Back again with the test draft marks in white. Did it first in black so that any bleed through would be black. Then airbrushed with white. Much better this time.



That's good. The not so good is that the test was on a flat surface but the marks have to go onto a curved surface. Most people may not notice the difference, but I will. So, I have to adjust the spacing between the marks to compensate for the curvature.

Did some more templates while waiting the white paint test to dry.


"Will" Rogers
SSBN659

[trout]

Really enjoying your tape work. Thank you.

[SSBN659]

Thanks Trout.

Earlier in this project I tested a flat black on the hull and although it was close to what I think the real thing looked like, I wasn’t happy with it. It was too black. I wanted to try something different.


So then I tried a satin black and for a while I thought I’d stick with that color. It looked OK but not really special. I was having a hard time deciding what to do. In addition my white outlines had bled through in a few places and I wasn’t happy with this scheme either. What to do?


While working on the templates, I really should call them “masks”, I had a “blinding flash of inspiration”. Why not mix some gloss white in the flat black and see what grey would look like? After all, that’s what I did with my Victor and my Will Rogers. I bit the bullet, sanded the satin black with 320 grit, wiped it with lacquer thinner and started over with the grey. That meant I would need all new masks for the white outlines and for the red on the marker buoy. It was a lot of extra work but I think it was well worth the effort.


I’ll cover the white outlines, the marker buoy, and the draft marks in another post later.

“Will” Rogers
SSBN659

[SSBN659]

OK, next step. I cut new masks and started applying them to my custom grey hull. This was time-consuming rework but it had to be done.


Then I masked the entire boat with blue tape, again. I looked at the picture and remembered how I did my Victor. I painted the Victor hull white and cut masks for the outlines, then painted the hull grey and removed the masks. What a difference. Why didn’t I do that with the Alfa? Oh well, I’ve gone this far so there’s no turning back.



Once again I sealed the tape by airbrushing with grey followed several hours later with white. When I removed the tape I was pleased with the new look.



At this point I redid the marker buoy using the new mask, then white to seal tape followed by red once the white was dry.



The results looked good and I couldn’t resist putting the prop and shaft in place temporarily for this update of the work in progress.



In my next post I’ll finish off the draft marks.

“Will” Rogers
SSBN659

[SSBN659]

Finally, the draft marks are done. I tested several different methods of making them on a scrap of plastic painted grey and settled on four masks using blue tape. The problem was getting four masks with a very small a deviation between them. So I lined up four sets of tape with 2 mm in the center of each set. Then using the T-square I laid out pencil lines representing the draft marks. Next I cut long strips of tape 4 mm, 3 mm, and 2 mm wide for the spacing between the marks. These strips were spaced horizontally so they would leave about 1 mm opening for the marks. Then I marked each mask to show where it would be placed. These pictures show the steps I described.


Once the masks were in place I sealed them by airbrushing them with my custom grey.


After the grey had dried I airbrushed with white. The results were pretty good.



The overhaul is now complete.

"Will" Rogers
SSBN659

[Anuci]

A wonderful recap on the overhaul process of your Alfa. Again your work is top notch, and well planned for optimum results as displayed in the finished product. The competition is fierce this year. Best of luck in the build competition.



Al,

[SSBN659]

Again I say thanks Al for your kind words.

"Will" Rogers
SSBN659