HMSV Beagle - OcCre - 1/60

[ArnoldAmbrose]

1 hour ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

I still sometimes judge my wooden modelling by injection moulded plastic standards

Gidday Bertie, my personal opinion of course but I think the only comparison a modeler should make is between his/her current model and the model before it. ie, "Have I improved?" Don't compare with other modeling mediums and don't compare with other modeler's works. As I said, personal opinion. HTH. Regards, Jeff.

[Bertie McBoatface]

3 minutes ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Bertie, my personal opinion of course but I think the only comparison a modeler should make is between his/her current model and the model before it. ie, "Have I improved?" Don't compare with other modeling mediums and don't compare with other modeler's works. As I said, personal opinion. HTH. Regards, Jeff.

I agree and in fact I had slipped comparing Beagle to my builds of MiniArt interior tanks or the astonishing Tamiya F-4B. That’s laughable really, wooden models are a completely different hobby. 
 

I will compare Beagle to my guitar playing instead. That makes as much sense and ANYTHING is good compared to my version of ‘Oops I Did It Again’. 😵‍💫

[Bertie McBoatface]

While I was in the RAF I spent my fair share of time manning the guardroom overnight and at weekends as Duty Runner, Orderly Corporal and finally with the terrifying responsibilities of Orderly Sergeant. The Ord Sgt kept a real time log of events  in the guardroom diary containing such exciting events as:

 

Orderly Officer inspected defaulters ... ... NFTR

Orderly Corporal gone to supper ... ... ... NFTR

Orderly Officer retired to Officer's Mess ... ... NFTR

RAFP patrol reported their dog has run off ... ... NFTR

Guard commander reported the kebab waggon is on fire, civilian fire service already in attendance.... ... ... NFTR

Slightly singed Police dog reported to guardroom. RAFP informed and collected animal... ... NFTR

 

All of those NFTRs meant 'nothing further to report' and the phrase really stuck in my mind. I still find myself using it in my own diary. (Dentists for check up... ... NFTR) So why not here.

 

Did a bit of sanding on the Beagle ... ... ... NFTR

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

The stbd side is now shaped, sanded and scraped adequately. It's taken me half the time to get a better result as my experience increases and skills develop. I wish I was more patient with myself but I'm learning that too - slowly. I just wish I could learn to be patient more quickly!!! 😁

 

I still need to caulk the seams a little to fill, no, reduce those irritating little gaps. This was the point at which the port side got the grain filler treatment. That was ok to apply but there was a long wait for it to be dry enough to sand smooth and then apply the necessary sanding sealer to the rough surface, which I did this morning. The result is acceptable but perhaps there's a better way. 

 

On the hull of the whaleboat I filled the cracks with plastic putty and that's worked fine. It sanded ok, drying time was shorter and there was no problem with odour. Plastic putty is expensive in those tiny tubes and I only have a limited amount but what is it anyway? Acrylic binder/medium, filler such as talc or fuller's earth, pigment (probably) and a solvent (water). It's designed to make a good surface for painting over with acrylic paints. Well, that's also a description of acrylic gesso, used by artists to make an acrylic-friendly surface on canvases, wooden panels, etc. That's a lot cheaper in the large quantities in which it's sold and my local Rymans has a couple of jars in stock. So after lunch I'll be off to town to get some for tonight's experimentation. 

 

Pictures to follow.

[ColonelKrypton]

36 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

I wish I could learn to be patient more quickly!!! 😁

 

The hurrier I go, the behinder I get

 

Gesso, I thought of trying that but just never got around to trying it. My understanding is that traditional gesso was calcium carbonate ( i.e. chalk ) plus some pigment and binder ( traditionally a hide glue like rabbit glue  I seem to recall ). Modern gesso's are acrylic based and you should be able to tint the basic white with any water based acrylic paint. 

 

Another interesting similar product to gesso is called watercolour base. Similar to gesso, it is used to prepare a surface for painting but in this case it is designed to be somewhat absorbent to mimic water colour paper. It can be applied to any surface ( i.e. wood, stone, plastic, etc ) and one dry you can paint on it as you might water colour paper. I have a small jar I recently purchased but have not gotten very far with using it; only several small test pieces. I thought it might be interesting to use on plastic with water colours - testing continues.

 

Something else similar is acrylic modeling paste. Similar to gesso but seems to use something harder than chalk ( i.e. marble dust - at least the Liquitex brand advertises as such ). Numerous grades of viscosity, hardness, flexibility, etc.  I have found online posts of model builders using it for diorama ground work and as a base for water ( i.e. ship modelers ) and so on.  I suspect that many of the newer model products aimed at diorama use are similar or the same as these acrylic modeling pastes with some added pigments and bigger grained fillers ( i.e. dirt ). 

 

I will be waiting on the report of your experiment. It should work well.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

 

This is the port side. It's been:

sanded down,

filled with Plastic wood,

sanded down again (and that stuff is tough sanding!),

the smaller cracks and dents were filled with Grain Filler,

sanded down again,

sealed with Sanding Sealer.

 

Phew, when I write it all out like that, it's sooo labour intensive.

 

Anyway, don't look at the colours, concentrate on the shine. For a mass of sticks glued together by me, it's pretty smooth.

 

 

The starboard side:

sanded down,

filled with Plastic wood,

sanded down again (and that stuff is tough sanding, so tough that without the sanding disk in my Proxxon, I'd have been stuffed.)

 

I got this far a lot faster but I'm still looking for a shortcut, as I mentioned above. Grain filler takes too long to dry and also too long to sand back. Wet it smells of white spirit, sanded it maked very fine dust.

 

 

This is Plastic Putty from Vallejo on the whaleboat (or whatever it's supposed to be). Just to show you that it sticks. It's pretty rough right now but it's supposed to be a boat made from driftwood so I'll excuse the poor execution on this one. 😄

 

 

This is my test area of Beagle hull, lit to show the cracks between the planks. I don't want to lose them completely as I've seen painted boats in the real world and you can see the planks through the paint. On the other hand, I would like to have a technique for making perfectly smooth hulls at the first planking stage so that the second planking will have the best chance of coming out well. Remember, there is no second planking planned here, just thick black tar based paint.

 

 

The right half has been treated with sanding sealer, to find out whether that's needed. I didn't think it would be but it was a good chance to be sure.

 

 

Today's new material. It's creamy, white and looks just like non drip, brilliant white emulsion paint. I remember using that for gesso when I was at school to turn hardboard into something rather like canvas to the untutored eye. This Daler Rowney art material is probably more than just paint, but probably not much more. I'd agree with Graham that it's probably got chalk as a filler rather than ground marble. It was only £10 for half a litre. More expensive than paint and about a hundred times cheaper than Plastic Putty.

 

 

That's the second coat brushed on straight from the pot. I've already seen five things that I'd do differently. I put the first coat on with vertical strokes to work it into the cracks, that wasn't a bad idea but next time I'll finish with horizontal strokes because the vertical ridges left by the cheap brush stayed there as a subtle cross hatching effect.

 

Secondly, I could have thinned the gesso to get a smoother result. I'd try this on the second coat allowing the thicker first one to seal the wood and stop too much wetting from the thinner top coat.

 

Third, I could have sanded between coats.

 

Fourthly, see below,

 

The final thing I'd do differently would be to use a better brush.

 

It brushed on easily and dried very quickly as most of the solvent, the water, was absorbed by the model. Allowing a longer drying time would be safer on a 100% effort model.

 

The seams are now caulked. I'm happy with that result. Now for some paint.

 

 

With the black paint on you can see the vertical brush strokes from the first gesso layer, but mostly you see the brusstokes from the second layer and from the black paint. I like it. It looks woody to me. Not exactly to scale but i'm not worried about that anymore. In plastic AFV's I will contine to try to make the models look like the photographs of the real thing - in sailing ships I aim to make it look like this...

 

 

Never mind photorealism, I'm trying for paintingrealism. 

 

 

Back to business, I painted the bare wood and filler forward of the gesso'ed area. This was taken when it was still wet but already you can clearly see the difference. The grain is even more visible than the brushstrokes as the water from the paint has raised it. This probably wouldn't have happened if I'd used sanding sealer first but I can't think of everything.😉

 

 

Dried, the forward area was matt and still looked like pallet wood. the paint on the gesso has that Vallejo satin sheen which I think is perfect for this scale to represent shiny tar based paint. The extra shiny area is where I overlapped and the gesso has two coats of black paint on top. Hmm...

 

I applied another coat of black which made the gessoed area more shiny  and had no discernible effect on the other part. I neglected to photograph that.

 

 

Durability test. I sanded with the grain, horizontally using 120 grit coarse paper. The un-gesso'ed paint sticks like that stuff does to blankets but the gesso released the paint without a fight, revealing the vertical brushstrokes of the first layer and the brilliant white gesso itself. That's the fourth thing to do differently - always tint the gesso because there will most definitely be places where I'll knock the paint off during the rest of the build. It was very fragile. It's much more robust now, after some hours of curing but still prone to scratching. 

 

I've just sanded the whole area quite roughly and when I repaint it I may well have a very pleasing, worn and patched effect so there's my silver lining.

 

Conclusions:

 

When it comes time to paint the hull I'll use a heavily tinted gesso, not necessarily in the final colour, as a first coat. I think this will make the model's timber look more to scale, hide some of the poorer quality construction and allow for some fun weathering.

 

105.25

[ColonelKrypton]

Gesso looks promising. 

 

I wonder if you first prepped with a thin coat of shellac to seal the wood a bit so that the water in the acrylic gesso wouldn't raise the grain quite so much?

 

cheers, Graham

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

34 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

Gesso looks promising. 

 

I wonder if you first prepped with a thin coat of shellac to seal the wood a bit so that the water in the acrylic gesso wouldn't raise the grain quite so much?

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

I did. Sanding sealer is shellac with a little filler. It was under half of the gessoed section. It wasn't the gesso that raised the grain but the paint.

 

Sanding sealer seals the wood and makes it waterproof to paint, but seems to be an unnecessary step when using the gesso.

[ColonelKrypton]

Good afternoon Bertie,

 

I was getting confused between the grain filler ( i.e naptha or white spirit based product ) and the sanding sealer ( i.e. shellac based product ). That required a review of what you had written and attempt to sort it out in my head.

 

First off, a better brush.  I imagine that you have quite a selection of brushes of various qualities from which to choose and I am certain will find one in your collection better suited to the task. I have starting use Asian style Hake brushes for similar chores. I am sure you know what these brushes are but for those not in the know https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=hake+brush 

 

I use a Hake brush to apply cyanotype sensitizer ( alternative photographic process ) to watercolour paper. I tried using nylon and other synthetic bristle brushes but they just didn't work for me. I have started using them for other painting and application chores. Usually not very expensive ( even the Winsor & Newton branded ones ) and even the inexpensive ones seem to work well. A brush like this may just work a treat for applying gesso or similar.

 

You experiment and results prompted me to do some reading on gesso and wood panel preparation for painting.  The recommended process for preparing wood panels for art painting is to first seal the wood before application of the gesso.  Gesso is not considered a sealer but rather a primer. In your intended use of partially filling seams and a bit of wood grain you may be on the right path of not using a sanding sealer before hand. 

 

Gesso being considered a primer and your comment on the paint being a bit fragile on the gesso'ed surface has me wondering what brand of paint you applied over the gesso and whether the two were really compatible or whether the gesso was truly cured or maybe the 120 grit paper was a bit too agressive. I would have thought that the gesso would have provided and ideal surface with sufficient tooth for the paint.

 

Also, after a bit of reading on the subject of Vallejo plastic putty and the previously mentioned acrylic modeling paste, I am starting to think the Vallejo and other brands similar products are just simply some form of the acrylic modeling paste re-branded and sold to the model hobby market in smaller tubes and resultant higher $$ per volume. I am going to get some and have a play to get better idea just what they are all about.  Up til know I have favoured the traditional solvent based spot putties and epoxy putties. 

 

In any case it has been very interesting seeing where your trials and tribulations have taken you providing much food for thought.

 

I hope your hot weather breaks soon and gets back to more comfortable levels. 

 

... NFTR

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

3 hours ago, ColonelKrypton said:

I am starting to think the Vallejo and other brands similar products are just simply some form of the acrylic modeling paste re-branded and sold to the model hobby market in smaller tubes and resultant higher $$ per volume.

 

That thought had crossed my mind too,

 

3 hours ago, ColonelKrypton said:

In any case it has been very interesting

 

I'm glad. I enjoyed the diversion too. (I think we were the only ones who did, so next update I'll stick to talking about the building of the model 😄)

 

110:15

[Bertie McBoatface]

 

I'm fairly satisfied with the lower hull now so I turned my attention to those pesky bulwarks. The objective was to cut away 5mm and reduce them to the pencilled line. It's a long cut of what is now a fairly thick part of the structure so sanding the lot off would have been a crude and messy operation. Unless there's no choice, I try to avoid using sandpaper for the removal of material, preferring to keep it for surface finishing. 

 

The first stage was to make these vertical saw cuts not quite to the cut line to get rid of the difficulties that come with long saw cuts. Now I just had small saw cuts to make.

 

 

On the first side I made these triangles before reversing the saw and cutting off the peaks. As usual, a better way occured to me in the process and on the other side, I only removed enough so that I could lay the saw horizontal and cut between the vertical incisions, removing more or less rectangular pieces of wood.

 

 

This is the exact moment that I refined my method.

 

 

There were a lot of ragged edges after the sawing and I didn't want to tear out slivers of the inner planking, the thin stuff. I had to cut lengthways and I did this with a mini sanding drum in a power tool. This took me close enough to the line to finish off with files.

 

 

I stopped filing when the edge was halfway through the pencilled line.

 

        

 

This has opened up the deck area to view and also partly hidden the slightly distorted part of the port bulwark which I bent by over-clamping when I glued it on. That wasn't a planned thing but was very welcome.

 

I wanted to fit the rails at this point, just to make it look nicer but before the forecastle rail can go on, I need the catheads in place. Catheads are heavy duty beams with pulley blocks in the end. They stick out over the bows and are used as cranes to lift the anchors clear of the water once they break the surface when being weighed, or hauled up. The anchors are lifted to the catheads and then 'fished' which means that the hanging weight is swung backwards with blocks and tackles and then secured to the rail of the ship. The anchor is then describes as 'catted and fished' which is a phrase that makes me smile every time.

 

 

I spent ages looking for part G7 before consulting the parts list on the plan and finding out that I was supposed to make my own from length of 4 x 4mm walnut (walnut for the hardness required for accurate drilling of the holes) On this photograph you can see the four 1mm holes through which the anchor catting lines will run. You can't see any other dimensions, can you?

 

 

There's the relevant plan page. I took the dimensions from this life size plan view. The actual dimensions in mm were listed against G7 in the parts list but it was easier to use the plan. All the information that I've needed has been there in the paperwork somewhere. It just takes a bit of finding at times. There are 36, A3 pages of photographs, text, plans, and parts lists altogether.

 

 

This is the catheads in place. You can see two eye-bolts on each one. The catheads were a convenient solid piece of wood to secure other rigging to and no doubt, that's what will happen later. It would clearly be easier to fit them before fitting the catheads so that was another part of the manufacturing process. 

 

 

The eyebolts are open ended as supplied and I closed the gaps with solder. They are quite large and for some of the applications I'll make smaller ones from tinned copper wire. I thought that the catheads could stand a very heavy duty set of rigging so I used the kit ones.

 

 

And there they are. All ready for paint.

 

111:00 hours elapsed building time

[Faraway]

The bulwark trimming has come out really well, hull looking good.

Jon

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Faraway said:

The bulwark trimming has come out really well, hull looking good.

Jon

 

Thanks, year it will do. I'm doing the upper parts of the hull now. Strakes and the beak etc. Soon be painting, coppering and then up on deck for real..

[ColonelKrypton]

2 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

The anchor is then describes as 'catted and fished' which is a phrase that makes me smile every time.

 

There seems to be a never ending abundance of rich names, term, and phrases from those earlier times. 

 

I did a quick search on the etymology of cathead and found this: https://www.etymonline.com/word/cat-head

 

 

Quote

cat-head (n.)

"beam projecting from each side of the bows of a ship to hold the anchor away from the body of the ship," 1620s, from cat (n.) in some obscure sense.

 

"In some obscure sense" - I guess no one really knows why.  Everything has to be called something. I wonder how much English nautical terms and names where influenced by other languages and whether or not something got to be called something simply because it sounded like what someone else called it?  Etymology can be such a fascinating subject.

 

The trim job went well.

 

cheers, Graham

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

13 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

 

There seems to be a never ending abundance of rich names, term, and phrases from those earlier times. 

 

I did a quick search on the etymology of cathead and found this: https://www.etymonline.com/word/cat-head

 

 

 

"In some obscure sense" - I guess no one really knows why.  Everything has to be called something. I wonder how much English nautical terms and names where influenced by other languages and whether or not something got to be called something simply because it sounded like what someone else called it?  Etymology can be such a fascinating subject.

 

The trim job went well.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

I see the two catheads as cat's paws 'fishing' in the water for the anchor. Ot maybe it was once a catch-head? 

[ColonelKrypton]

30 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

I see the two catheads as cat's paws 'fishing' in the water for the anchor.

 

I can envision that. 

 

I recall you talking about the poop deck but I don't recall if you noted that it's name came from French "la poupe" meaning the stern. And what about the head - it was as the bow or head of the ship.

 

I couldn't find what cathead was called on French or Portuguese sailing vessel. Perhaps if I looked long enough I might. 

 

cheers, Graham

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

3 hours ago, ColonelKrypton said:

I don't recall if you noted that it's name came from French "la poupe" meaning the stern

 

Well Graham, it seems to me that I've associated poop with the back end since around the time I was potty trained. 😉

[Ray S]

Bertie, a belated 'THANK YOU' for your explanation of using the sanding sealer and Gesso. It was a very interesting read, and hopefully one I shall remember when I get to my wooden boats.

 

I have just been catching up with this as I (along with my lovely wife) was knocked out by Covid and we are just getting back into the real world, slowly.

 

Cheers,

 

Ray

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Ray S said:

Bertie, a belated 'THANK YOU' for your explanation of using the sanding sealer and Gesso. It was a very interesting read, and hopefully one I shall remember when I get to my wooden boats.

 

I have just been catching up with this as I (along with my lovely wife) was knocked out by Covid and we are just getting back into the real world, slowly.

 

Cheers,

 

Ray

 

As usual Ray, wait to see how it actually looks when it's finished. The gesso is experimental still.

 

Sorry to hear that you've been ill - take your time getting back in the saddle. I'm a little distracted by medical matters too. I really want to get on with this boat but I can only do the most mindless things at the moment. Yesterday I tidied up the kit and put all the tiny parts, blocks and deadeyes etc, into baggies and today I've been soldering up  the gaps in a million eyebolts. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

 

All tidy! There's limited space in that very handy compartmented box from OcCre so they have to double up on the components. They do it very logically but I'm clumsy and tend to spill things into the adjacent compartments. I prefer those little ziplock bags which are only a penny or two each if you buy in bulk. It took quite a while to do this but it's going to save time searching for the right bits later on.

 

 

The hull is nearly ready to paint. Those strakes are made up to my own design.

 

No-one knows what it was really like and the OcCre designers followed the author of AOTS HMS Beagle. He build a model, necessarily speculative, and then used it as a reference. That's fine, except that I prefer to do my own speculating. I think Karl Marquart's version is too florid. To me, it looks like a medieval Spanish ship rather than a Victorian working boat so my version is a bit more dour.

 

 

I've done the bolster that protects the hull from the catted and fished anchor flukes.

 

 

And made some small suggestions of framing. Good enough for me. Good enough for a training/experimental model.

 

Tonight we paint!

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

Turns out that gessoing is addictive. Especially when you've tinted the stuff flesh colour. Each layer is smoother and richer...

[Bertie McBoatface]

...but the drying time, although short, is a little tedious. However, it's given me time to think.

 

Yesterday I was watching a YouTube video about my old favourite TV show M.A.S.H. It described the lives of the actors after their time in Korea. Most of them are dead. Many of the dead ones died younger than I am today. By coincidence I'm undergoing medical tests at the moment, "probably nothing but we need to make sure it's nothing sinister, just in case". We've all heard that line a dozen times by the time the old age pension drops into the bank account. While I'm not exactly shaking in my shoes about these things, they have provoked thoughts to fill the gesso drying time.

 

When I was a kid, some of my significantly powerful adults at home and school introjected a rule into my mental software. It came about through lines of code such as "you've got to eat your vegetables before you can have any pudding" and "first you have to swim a width of the pool and then you can play" and even "it doesn't matter that it's your birthday present, you've still got to finish your old book before you start the new one" The general rule thus taught was "Save the best until last"

 

In a way I have been very fortunate to be able to live up to that rule so often. Saving the best until last implies that the best will still be there when you get round to it. I didn't have siblings of my own age who might have pinched my fish while I was busy eating the chips and the mushy peas. I always had confidence in the future and so could afford to defer my pleasures in the (usually false) expectation that they would be somehow better when I'd 'earned' them by waiting. In the modelling context, I would usually build the cheaper models in my stash knowing that the big beautiful ones would be there waiting for me. It might have been a useful rule in many circumstances but I'm my own significant adult now and I have discovered a serious flaw in the logic.

 

I still have confidence that my model kits will always be waiting in their boxes for me. But what if I'm in my box before I get to open theirs? I live in a flat in a retirement community and you'd be surprised at the turnover. (It's like being on an RAF bomber squadron in 1943. We don't make friends with the new tenants until they have survived a winter.)

 

There comes a point in life when it makes no sense to defer pleasures. "Grab it while you can" is perhaps a more useful maxim, especially in a project as big as a third rate ship of the line. And so once her hull is painted black I'm going to set Beagle aside and start on Bellerophon. I'll eat my vegetables tomorrow.

 

 

Edit. I started tonight. First build post is now up there for your amusement.

[ColonelKrypton]

Over the years I developed the habit of buying stuff - kits, tools, books, etc - whenever the opportunity presented itself due to living in places where there was no local hobby store and sometimes not much of anything else - get it while you can because you might not get another chance. All of the good hobby stuff from overseas had to be mail ordered and usually took upwards of two months to arrive, no internet and online shopping then. Everything was carefully cataloged and set aside for that "great project to end all projects that I will build sometime ... " 

 

Problem was that "sometime" never came and I indulged in other projects with changing interests and distractions from other shiny objects. The result was that the cupboards were full but I wasn't using any of that great stuff I got for that next great project. 

 

It took a long time but I think I have gotten over the worst of that thinking - I have to keep telling myself that I bought it to use so use it! It certainly helps 

 

I found the same applies to tools. I tended to put away and not use some of the expensive quality tools so as not to get them dirty - better to save them for that next great project. My habit has been to grab whatever tool was conveniently on the workbench even if it was the best for the job and I started to forget what I had carefully and safely stored away.  I have started to get out those tools and hang them and leave out where I can see them and now I use them all the time - I bought them to use so use them. 

 

Much of this thinking must have come from the time I grew up in ( I am a couple of years older than yourself ). Not always having what you wanted when you wanted must have impressed upon me to develop this sort of behaviour. 

 

Incidentally, I did some simple experiments with acrylic modeling paste ( Winsor & Newton brand carveable type ) sticks well to everything I have so far tried including untreated styrene. I can see that it has possibilities and might be good alternative to the likes of plastic wood and for use on dioramas and vignettes. ... ... ... NFTR

 

Fair winds and following seas.

 

cheers, Graham

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

7 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

I tended to put away and not use some of the expensive quality tools so as not to get them dirty - better to save them for that next great project.

 

SAME!

 

7 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

Incidentally, I did some simple experiments with acrylic modeling paste ( Winsor & Newton brand carveable type ) sticks well to everything I have so far tried including untreated styrene. I can see that it has possibilities and might be good alternative to the likes of plastic wood and for use on dioramas and vignettes. ... ... ... NFTR

 

Carvable modelling paste sounds just the thing. Sticks to wood, I presume?

 

And a big LOL for the NFTR. 

[ColonelKrypton]

1 hour ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

Carvable modelling paste sounds just the thing. Sticks to wood, I presume?

 

Yes. I tried untreated styrene, carboard ( chipboard ), untreated card stock, treated card stock ( has a glossy finish on one side ), inexpensive dollar store birch plywood, and basswood. 

 

Stuck well to all. Stuck a bit better to those materials which have a bit more tooth to their surface "stuck" a bit better. 

 

Nothing Further To Report - that was new one for me so it stuck in my little grey cells.  Now I look for opportunities to use it.

 

cheers, Graham