ok, dont laugh!!
but i'm still working on my Seaview!
whilest all you guys have finished yours months ago, i'm just now trying to paint it.
man, i have NO IDEA how you guys masked off the rear end of the Seaview. i mean trying to paint grey on the upper half and paint it lighter on the lower half is frustraining me!
how did some of you do it????
it's impossible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
around the engines, the rear lower "fin"
HELP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure we all did it differently, but my method was as follows;
1) I assembled the nose section without the flying sub bay and primered & painted the forward upper hull first without the windows. After it dried, I attached the windows and the flying sub bay.
2) I painted the completed underside of the hull WITHOUT the engine cowlings, masking off the areas where they would be cemented to.
After the lower hull had dried, I cemented the engines to the hull, masked off the underside, and sprayed the rear half of the upper hull.

OOOOHHH!!!!!!!!!
thats my problem. my engines are glues on. ok, but at somepoint you need to glue the engines on but then you still have to mask off part of the engines and thats where i'm having trouble.
jeez!

Place the boat on the ground on newspaper and stand over it. Spray grey let dry. Turn the boat over without the sail attached and spray the light paint. You will be surprised at the results.

ok, dont laugh!!
but i'm still working on my Seaview!
whilest all you guys have finished yours months ago, i'm just now trying to paint it.
man, i have NO IDEA how you guys masked off the rear end of the Seaview. i mean trying to paint grey on the upper half and paint it lighter on the lower half is frustraining me!
how did some of you do it????
it's impossible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
around the engines, the rear lower "fin"
HELP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

John,

'Skeg' is the word you're searching for. At the SEAVIEW's stern the gray/white demarcation line falls along the skeg, skeg rudder, and two outboard rudders -- these demarcation lines are evidenced as soft, feather edge transitions -- best achieved with an air-brush/gun.

As you will have to distance the nozzle some distance from the skeg (the propulsion tubes get in the way), use a very low pressure with maximum paint flow -- this requires a thinner mix than normal. You do this to minimize paint state-change between nozzle and the work -- you want the paint (in all but specialized effects) to always hit the work wet. Experiment first.

The only place you will employ a hard-edge masking medium is at the bridge tub gray/white demarcation line.

If you're too untalented/poor to use the above equipment then I recommend that you teach yourself how to render a feather edge demarcation line employing a stencil brush driven in a vertical stippling action. Practice on an old, crappy model first (I'm sure you have plenty floating around).

Let's see some pictures of your work.

David,

I used my Paasche VL to do the feathered effect on the skeg on the tiny, little Polar Lights Seaview. It was easier than I thought. Basically I did the top of the hull first and after that dried I held the ship up above eye level and airbrushed on the lighter color on the underside. The secret was whatw as said above, low pressure, high paint volume, and not getting too close-I kept it about 6 inches away from the surface most of the time IIRC. Just a shot or two onto the propulsion tubes from the right and left sides was enough to do both udnersides of the tiubes, the skeg and the rudders too. If your careful, you don't even need to mask the top first. Any overspray onto the upper hull was fixed later with more upper hull color from the AB. If it was this easy on the little model it must be even easier on the big one.

oh man! not only do i hate painting but i'm really bad at it.
and i've been modeling for 35 years!
no wonder i never took up smoking, it requires too much hand coordination for me.

now imagine me with a airbrush? sheeesh! i only use it when i have to.
ok, let me try a few things.

oh man! not only do i hate painting but i'm really bad at it.
and i've been modeling for 35 years!
no wonder i never took up smoking, it requires too much hand coordination for me.

now imagine me with a airbrush? sheeesh! i only use it when i have to.
ok, let me try a few things.

Well you CAN get decent results using the stippling method with a foam applicator but there's a technique to that too so you may be better off biting the bullet and airbrushing. Like others have said, practice on some scrap before attempting the big boy.

My modeling talents are quite modest, and as I do not own an air brush, I did go out and buy the poor-man's air brush -- it's a TESTORS kit, I believe, with a can of compressed air that hooks up to a small bottle. You use ACRYLICS with this system, but they work pretty well for me. You can't really control the size of the stream too much, but for the few kits/props I painted with it, it worked pretty good -- but you HAVE to use acrylics and best to use QUALITY acrylics like TAMAIYA as they are smoother -- the PACTRA acrylics tended to have chunks of globs in the paint that didn't mix all the way, and if these clog your TESTORS cheapie airbursh system, you're screwed because it's a pain to clean them out and even if you do, the paint globs will typically reclog right away.

Plus, you have to usually mix your paints, unless you can find PACTRA acrylics that are the color you want (tamaiya doesn't offer as much variety, but PACTRA does) -- but if you use PACTRA, SHAKE the bottle a LOT and maybe even dilute it with acrylic thinner.

I've found acrylics can be very forgiving -- but not the best choice if you are going to paint a lot of other color detail parts on top of the base coat. I did my PL TOS Enterprise this way and it turned out great, but it was basically one overall color with little paint detailing -- most of the detailing was decals.

I think the Seaview may be ideal for this becasue it's essentially two main colors.

The TESTORS cheapie airbrush system can be found at TARGET, hobby shops and most model shops -- you may even find it at KMART or WalmAtr -- costs about $15 or so, plus paints.

Good luck.

For what it's worth, I find that using either 70/30 or 90% Isopropyl Alchohol (See reply #40 in "How's YOUR Seaview coming along?") works better than any acrylic thinner.

PLUS, it's cheaper than Tamiya Thinner and I believe that it actually helps speed up the drying time because the alchohol evaporates faster than regular thinner.

Dan