jparenti

A question for the experienced modelers: What do you do to prepare white metal parts for painting? I was about to start priming them like any other plastic part and thought to myself that maybe they require a different approach. As I’ve never worked with white metal parts, I wasn’t sure.

That may be the way I do that. There are places that do custom decals that would be able to print out the ring of lettering and the ship on the logo a lot easier (and cheaper) than having to layer it onto the white circle. I could even airbrush the circle on honestly. I originally considered using a Silhouette cutter to cut a stencil for the lettering and airbrush it in white onto the sail. But the entire block of text I need fits inside a 3 cm square. It's just too small for a stencil cutter. I could definitely get the white circle painted on though using a stencil.

One thing that bothered me when I started was that the top hatch for the sail, a clear acrylic panel, was missing. Oh well. That's easy to replicate with a piece of thin clear plastic. Well, I found the hatch finally... ...wedged under the dry transfers. And yes, those transfers won't be able to be used now. And no, I can't print more white decals at home since, of course, they're white. I got on a vector editing program and managed to replicate the lettering and logo at the size I need. I just need someone to print them for me with white ink, probable an ALPS printer. But decals are finishing touches so I'm not going to let it worry me excessively. Certainly someone online offers printing for something like this.

First order of business: the broken sail. I was going to glue the missing piece onto the main body and then just fill and sand it until it was smooth. Unfortunately, there's a lip that goes around the bottom that was chipped off in several places that needed replacing, and then I lost the broken off piece. Milliput it is then. I backed the hole with a thin piece of styrene and taped it in place. I then filled the hole with (what was later to be discovered to be too much) Milliput and allowed it to cure. Sanding the Milliput flush with the body was a pain. Future note: use less putty and you'll save yourself lots of sanding. Having never used Milliput, I'm learning as I go. High-build primer is wonderful at concealing the mess. A piece of thin styrene stands in for the original bottom lip. Milliput into the joint to create a smoother transition (not yet smoothed with a wet cotton swab here). I'll use red Bondo glazing putty to smooth it more later and more primer to hopefully make the piece more seamless looking. Professionals like you know this: Don't use so much putty. I Milliput-ed the back end of the platform the sail sits on and when I had a noticeable lip, filled it with red putty. This is while it's still curing. I took a rough-grit sanding sponge to this and smoothed it enough to allow the sail to sit flush. I can primer the whole thing again and I think it will be acceptable. Major body work complete, with the sail (still not finished) sitting on top to give an impression. Another coat of primer and I think I can start thinking about paint and the small details.

I was browsing around on Culttvman's store one night a couple weeks ago and saw something I never would have expected: A very old resin kit of the deep submergence vehicle Alvin, operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Alvin is a mildly famous little sub, most well known for diving to explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic in 1986. The sub has been in continuous use since it was built in 1964, and has been upgraded and altered so much that none of the original vehicle remains today. This was a strange find, and inexpensive enough for me to order it immediately. Culttvman obtained it as part of a collection of older kits, and had no warranty or guarantee that all the parts were there although it appeared to be complete. If you want a model of Alvin, there are about three options I know of. There's this kit, made by Viking Models in what I think was the late 1990s. There's a styrene kit from the 1960s that was made by Fujimi and marketed in the US by Paramount (according to what I've been able to scour on the web). And there's a kit by FXmodels that is fairly large in 1/8 scale that's actually made to be functional as a submersible model. This kit by Viking had a few mentions and posts years ago and some fairly low-res photos of the finished builds in about three places I was able to find online. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth about how shoddy the kits they produced were, and I don't think they stayed in business long. But, I like a challenge. And if you want a model of Alvin, this is one of your few choices. So I bought the thing and started work immediately. The main body and sail are resin, with the body being a significant chunk of plastic with a lot of weight to it. Casting is...well, it's recognizable. Lots of pits, seams, and strange artifacts. The sail is broken but that's not insurmountable. There are little parts made of wire soldered together and lots of tiny white metal parts. A sheet of photoetch brass. Some wire mesh for the sample basket. And decals that are actually dry transfers. This kit looks like it depicts Alvin in about 1985 from my research, right around the time of the Titanic dives. During those expeditions, the sample basket was replaced with a "garage" for the prototype ROV Jason Jr, which was used to explore the wreck. Since the sample basket is near the end of the assembly steps, I may attempt to fashion Jason Jr and his garage instead. References are sparse and there are no dimensional diagrams anywhere that I can find. Apparently they had a license to produce the model. Neat. (I'm fairly certain from a photo in an article I read that Robert Ballard has one of these built up in a case on his bookshelf. It could be a different model but the size seems right.)

I was browsing around on Culttvman's store one night a couple weeks ago and saw something I never would have expected: A very old resin kit of the deep submergence vehicle Alvin, operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Alvin is a mildly famous little sub, most well known for diving to explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic in 1986. The sub has been in continuous use since it was built in 1964, and has been upgraded and altered so much that none of the original vehicle remains today. This was a strange find, and inexpensive enough for me to order it immediately. Culttvman obtained it as part of a collection of older kits, and had no warranty or guarantee that all the parts were there although it appeared to be complete. If you want a model of Alvin, there are about three options I know of. There's this kit, made by Viking Models in what I think was the late 1990s. There's a styrene kit from the 1960s that was made by Fujimi and marketed in the US by Paramount (according to what I've been able to scour on the web). And there's a kit by FXmodels that is fairly large in 1/8 scale that's actually made to be functional as a submersible model. This kit by Viking had a few mentions and posts years ago and some fairly low-res photos of the finished builds in about three places I was able to find online. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth about how shoddy the kits they produced were, and I don't think they stayed in business long. But, I like a challenge. And if you want a model of Alvin, this is one of your few choices. So I bought the thing and started work immediately. The main body and sail are resin, with the body being a significant chunk of plastic with a lot of weight to it. Casting is...well, it's recognizable. Lots of pits, seams, and strange artifacts. The sail is broken but that's not insurmountable. There are little parts made of wire soldered together and lots of tiny white metal parts. A sheet of photoetch brass. Some wire mesh for the sample basket. And decals that are actually dry transfers. This kit looks like it depicts Alvin in about 1985 from my research, right around the time of the Titanic dives. During those expeditions, the sample basket was replaced with a "garage" for the prototype ROV Jason Jr, which was used to explore the wreck. Since the sample basket is near the end of the assembly steps, I may attempt to fashion Jason Jr and his garage instead. References are sparse and there are no dimensional diagrams anywhere that I can find. Apparently they had a license to produce the model. Neat. (I'm fairly certain from a photo in an article I read that Robert Ballard has one of these built up in a case on his bookshelf. It could be a different model but the size seems right.)

Just started on this site but I've used threads here as a resource to learn for a long time. My modeling includes lots of stuff, from sci fi to aircraft and right now, a very old resin kit of the DSV Alvin that I picked up online from what seems to have been an estate sale. I'm hoping to contribute a little and learn more as I progress in my skills.