Prince Azalea's Big Ship Project

OK, so, I bought this fantastic ship from Gerard in Holland. He created and cast it himself from resin. I'm not telling you how much it cost, since I'll get in trouble with my wife! :-) I'm hoping to use it for some AD&D sometime in the near future.

The boat came in two parts, the hull and a separate mast. Gerard has included the mast separately for those people who didn't want the mast on the boat, but I want the mast in place. So, starting this project, I assembled gathered together both parts on my workbench.

I want the mast to be secure when I glue it in place, so I am going to make a pin, which will be glued into both parts of the model. I prefer to use florist's wire for a pin such as this, since it is firm, but bends easily with just your fingers. I will use a modelling drill to create holes slightly larger than the wire in each piece. The wire is laid across the deck of the boat, but I assume you can identify a drill for yourself!

I have drilled the hole as close to the centre of the mast as I could, without been OC about it.

Having cut a piece of the florist's wire to an appropriate length, I have placed it in the end of the mast. At this point, I have not yet used any glue.

I removed the wire and fitted the mast where I wanted it to go on the deck, then I drilled a corresponding hole in the deck for my pin.

I did this by eye, since I was confident I'd get it right, but if you are not so sure, then a good technique is once you have made a hole in one piece for your pin, remove the pin and paint that part of that piece that won't be seen when the model is assembled in a contrasting colour (black would have been good here, since the model is white resin). Whilst the paint is still wet, carefully place the parts together so that they appear as they will when the model is complete and then press firmly before carefully moving the two pieces apart. This will leave an imprint of paint on the second surface.

Whilst this is never perfect, you will then have a good guide as to where your pin hole on the second surface needs to be. A further advantage of this is that if your surfaces are not flush, you will see that the paint has not rubbed off properly.

I have moved my pin into the hole I have drilled in the deck of the boat.

Finally, I have used superglue on both surfaces and my pin that joins them together in order to finish the join.

At this point, well, after the superglue has dried, my boat is fully assembled. All I need to do now is to paint the behemoth.

I like to undercoat my models with spray. At the moment I am using Games Workshop spray paint, but I've mostly found that the type doesn't matter, so long as it is a matt finish - the purpose of an undercoat is mostly to help your paint job adhere nicely to the model. If using spray paint, remember to use it in a well ventilated area - because I always remember before I start spraying, and never after I've finished, honest! Very not recommended :-(

I like to undercoat several things at once (to minimise my exposure to solvent fumes), and I have a covered board that I use. You can see here that as well as this large boat, I also have one of Gerard's medium sized boats and two small boats that I am about to undercoat here.

Some people get really uptight and almost religious about the colour that they use to undercoat their models. I can't be doing with any of that nonsense - I use an undercoat colour that is appropriate to what sort of finish I want on a model.

I have used a black undercoat in this case, since I am going to be painting in shades of brown, and I want to have some of the tar that holds the planks watertight in a real boat visible after I have completed my painting.

The shine here is from the flash, as I took the picture when the undercoat was still wet. Sorry about that!

You might notice that in the top-right corner of this last picture, you can just see part of a bottle of malt whiskey. If you are old enough to drink, this might be something that you want to enjoy whilst waiting for the undercoat to dry - I know I did :-)

Since the undercoat is still drying, and I am still drinking whiskey, I'll update this page later with details of how I paint this fantastic model boat.

Prince Azalea.
20th April 2006 10:35pm BST