"CSS Palmetto State 1/250" or "Is doubling the size a good idea?"

[k.warner]

Ok, so, I just finished a M2 tank that I increased to 125% in size, and it turned out pretty well. So, I got to thinking (a dangerous activity, I know), and my eyes fell on the first model I worked on, CT Ertz's free Confederate ironclad, the CSS Palmetto State, scaled at 1/250. My wife, when she saw the finished build of Ertz's phenomenal work, asked, in a voice that said "I am really trying to pretend to care about that paper thing," "Why is it so small?" So, I doubled the size of the parts in photoshop, made new PDFs, and printed out the 1/125 version of the ship. Again, as I said before, a big thanks to CT Ertz for allowing us to work on models like this one for free. It is important to those of us new to the hobby to be able to break in risk free with such high quality models.

So, in getting down to work, I decided to stop using a black Sharpie to dress my edges, and went out and bought some crayola markers and colored pencils. the markers work great, but bleed a little into the side of the stock, and the pencils would not get the edges dark enough. Eventually, I want to use paint, but I am having a hard time finding a comprehensive discussion about paint techniques on this forum. There is a ton of good conversations, but I want to read about the nitty gritty details of adding mud spatter to tanks, oil drips to smoke stacks, and wear-and-tear to moving parts. Also, will paint on the edges effect gluing? Perhaps trial and error on my next model will help me on the painting.

With markers in hand, I mounted all the parts I thought would need to be especially thick on cardboard. The larger parts made sense to mount to a thick board, but i decided to mount the carriages for the cannon on the board too. I printed out a second copy of the carriage parts, and I plan to glue it up so the printed part is on both sides of the board. With the smaller model, it was no big deal to just color the inside portions of the carriages black, as they were too hard to see clearly anyway. With the larger model, I want to have the detail. I plan to cut and build the carriages and maybe the guns next.

I printed the base with the outlines for mounting the forming ribs on plain white paper and glued it to a cereal box in two pieces, as doubling the size would not allow me to print it on a single page. I am going to cut both sides and the mount THEM on to ANOTHER board to make a nice stiff base that fits true. I mounted the ribs, as well, and have them between books right now to dry as straight as possible.

Last, I started on the fiddly bits which are considerably less "fiddly" at this size. I am still contemplating on how to get the "life boats" (they were probably not used as life boats, but i am not sure what else to call them.. launches, maybe?) to look good when they are this much larger. I think I will cut the floor boards a little thinner cross-wise so they fit deeper in the boat and actually form a floor. I mounted the seats on the thicker board so they will have some depth, it will be interesting trial and error to make them look right. On all the parts, I used the various marker colors, mostly black, blue, and grey, to cover up the white edges.

One last issue I had tonight... I brought out a brand spanking new #11 for my xacto, and during the very first cut I made, the tip chipped off. Then I cut myself with it and dripped blood on the top of the smoke stack. I grumbled and got up to go print another stack, but as as Priest Vallon said, "The blood stays on the blade." Or, in this case, on the smoke stack. That smoke stack will be on the final build; you better believe it.

Over the coming days, I will begin mounting the formers and the main gun deck while building the gun carriages as things dry. Let me know what you think!

[The Orange]

Looks like this is going to be another great build! Don't forget to take pictures while you complete the model - I love reading your progress reports!

[modelperry]

While you will hear many words of wisdom/advice on edge coloring, here is my "current" approach:

My primary edge coloring tools are my Faber-Castel Pitt pens with brush tips. I have four sets of six pens in each set and usually find a pen close to the color I need. Occasionally I can color one over another to "mix" colors. There is no noticable bleed when using them to edge color. These pens ARE expensive, but I have found no other markers that I am happy with.

During Army Heritage Days, I gave Gil some colors to try on his Japanese theatre scene he was building. I think he liked them alot.

They can be found at Michaels.

For other colors not easily matched with the pens, I use acrylic paints. I use a combination of brands from the commonly found craft paints to Tamiya and Floquil hobby paints. I especially use these on large surface areas like the back of parts or to smooth out the color on assemblies such as tires (I almost always paint my tires to improve appearance).

Greg

[k.warner]

Greg, I take it that the paint on the edge will not effect fit and glueing? As for tires, I have been wondering how folks get their road wheels to look like a solid rubber piece... I suppose paint is the answer.

[modelperry]

I have had no issue with gluing with the paint on the edges. If you have concerns, you may want to try painting exposed areas after gluing although you may need an extremely steady hand to pull that off effectively. Being a sushi chef, I am sure you have the steady hands...

Greg

[k.warner]

Ok, day two of build.

First, for those interested in iron clads, i found a pretty cool image of an unidentified iron clad on the James River during the American Civil War. I would guess it is union, as the collection it comes from is from Massachusetts. If you go to the digitized photo gallery of the USAHEC's website and click on "browse" and then search "battery and iron clad," it comes up. Similarly, if you search "Crown Nest, James River; Lehigh, USS; US Monitor" you get a neat pic of the Monitor. "Miantonomoh, USS," "Milwaukee, USS," "Alice Vivian USS," "Atlanta, CSS" also gets you some other cool images. I am going to be going in to the archives on my day off on Tuesday and do some of my own research on another subject, but I plan to browse through the hundreds of thousands of photos in the Civil War collection that are not digitzed and see if I can find anything on the various ironclads I have seen here on these forums.

So, tonight I did not get to the gun carriages as I had hoped for. Instead, I went ahead with the former ribs and the main deck. The formers actually took alot longer to deal with than I expected. The cracker box I glued them to proved to be a #11 killer. After breaking one tip, I stopped pushing DOWN on the blades and just went over the score four or five times to eventually get through the thick board. I think I read that somewhere on these forums, and it proved to be a useful technique.

With the formers glued in place, I started to cut out the main deck, and I noticed my blade just did not cut. I looked hard at the edge and I had literally smashed it somehow, probably against my steel rule. So, acting on advice from Jim Nunn, I broke out my river stone (imported from Japan, of course :-)) and put the blade to it. Thirty second later, I think the blade was actually SHARPER than new. I took a photo mostly to show off my yanagi-ba, the slicing knife I use to prepare sushi and sashimi. I am very proud of that blade, and it was my livelihood for several years. I hope it does not get jealous that I sharpened a cheap xacto blade on its stone! My yanagi has a very sensitive personality, and takes offense easily. My finger tips pray it will be forgiving ;-)

So, like-new blade in hand, I tackled the main deck. When I glued the halves of the main deck together, a few things worried me. First, the seam is VERY apparent. I think it will all but disappear when I mount the deck on the formers and start putting the bits and pieces on the model. We shall see. The other worrisome part is that the deck is supposed to fit down into the raised bits on the outside end of the formers so the armor will line up perfectly with the deck. you can see them if you look real close. Unfortunately, at this scale, the deck sits on top of the raised bits in some places, which will screw up the armor placement later on. I an not certain how I will fix it, but I might just clip the raised bits off and go with it. The discrepancy is my fault, as I do not think I was precise enough cutting the formers and placing them on the base.

[JohnO]

You might try Revell blades, their #11 has a angled tip that does not break like Xacto. I built an entire Disney castle with one! blade.

[paperboy]

As for painting I use Polly S Acrylic paint to tint my paper ships. You can see the effect in my build of the CSS Columbia and Palmetto State which is I think 1/125. with the acrylics you thin with water and no stinky thinner fumes. (A big concern for me) Color variations are endless. I mixed up Cavite blue for my WW2 USS Houston that is in the dry dock and will probably remain there.
Vernon

[k.warner]

@paperboy: I could not find your build...I am interested to see how your painting worked out. I probably did not look hard enough, lol.

I did see a full ship thread of the Palmetto State (it was a full ship 1/72 scale, not a waterline) and was very interested... I wonder, did that full ship model ever come out for sale? I checked ecardmodels, but did not find it there.

Thanks for the tip on the acrylics... I continually hear about them here on the forums, it is about time I try them out!

[k.warner]

Days 3-4 of build... I am working many hours on this to get it done in time for my brother to get here Saturday. My wife threatened me with my Xacto if the dining room table, aka my work bench, was not free from paper of any kind when he and his wife arrive.

So, the model is coming together nicely. In the photos, you can really see the seam in the middle of the main deck, but looking at it sitting there on the table, as I had hoped, the seam has become very unnoticeable as the build continues. I simply set the deck on top of the formers after spray-gluing the underside of it. It is sticking just fine and there are no major gaps as I have attached the armor to the fore and aft sections of the ship.

I installed my blood-soaked smoke stack from my horribly gashed finger from the other night... no exaggeration, I swear!... and then took care of the upper deck and the casemate. I had difficulties in the smaller version of the model getting the two ends of the casemate to line up properly with the outlines on the deck, so this time I cut them off of the upper deck rather than just folding that seam. As you can see int eh first image below, I then attached the casemates to either end of the card-reenforced upper deck, and installed the whole lot. I promptly took care of the side armor and viola, it all fit, nice and snug, and it was pretty sturdy to boot. I did not reenforce any of the armor, so I was not sure how it would turn out. To finish the armor and hull, I cut the side armor for the "audience side" of the ship and cut it to fit so that you can see inside.

With the hull completed, I started to add the fiddly bits. I installed the boat holders on the side, cut a bunch of toothpicks to make the railings, and made my "hemp rope." From previous posts in other threads, I read that this sort of ship may have used heavy hemp ropes rather than chain links or anchor chains as metal and especially chain manufacturing was scarce in the Confederacy. I have read similar ideas in books and articles as well. To make my hemp rope, I took two brown threads and glue-twisted them together. I ended up with nice still thread with substantial thickness. I am sure that is not a new technique, and I probably read it here on these forums, but I felt pretty clever when I thought it up. I built the cannons, the flag post and flag, and finished up the launches, as well.

I think tomorrow I will finish up the upper deck, take care of the details for the stack, and then get on the anchors and the anchor hemp ropes. I have some ideas for additional details for the front section and the anchors, but I am not certain how I will go about it.

One thing I am interested in... I cut out and constructed the bars which will hold up the launches from the deck... they sort of look like cranes. I mounted the part on 1mm card and cut it out and glued two back to back so the printed sides faced out. Now i have these square-ish black poles... I wast to round them off to give the impression of like cast-iron poles.. basically make them not so "cornery". Does that make sense? I am thinking I can just rub the edges down with a knitting needle or some other smooth piece of metal, but if there is a proper way to do it, please let me know. I plan to use the same technique on the anchor, as well.