February Ship Club Meeting Recap

Thanks for everyone who was able to attend our February ship club meeting Saturday. You can find the meeting recording HERE.  

We started the meeting getting caught up with Brandon Lowe who has purchased Squadron Hobbies and bought back Free Time Hobbies.  It was great to see Brandon and his dad and get caught up with old friends.  Definitely check out both web sites and get on Brandon's mailing list to keep up to date with what's going on there.  Brandon is also doing YouTube videos ever couple of weeks or so with updates.  

Link for Free Time Hobbies

Link for Squadron Squadron

Next we discussed what's happening in the news.  I learned that 3D Wild is a US based company who is producing their own kits as well as partnering with other kit manufacturers.  Their latest partnership is with Bunker Studios who make some incredible 3D printed weapons and fittings.  Their commitment in this partnership is to sell these products and reduced prices.  Indeed they have done that.  A quick comparison showed their prices to be about 20% to 25% less that what you can currently find them for.  At this time they have 1/350 and larger, however they expect to have 1/700 in their next shipment.  Here's the LINK to 3D Wild.

Next Sam led a discussion on ships wood decking materials.  

Rob pointed out that the USS Alabama museum ship is getting a refit of its teak wood decking.  How pretty is that!  Not the tonal variations between the planks as well as the caulking between the boards to allow for expansion and contraction of the wood.  This is a 3 years, 8.5 million dollar upgrade.  Parts of the original deck may be available for purchase.  I'm checking into that now.  Here's a LINK to the decking replacement project.  

Following up from previous meetings, Above & Below Graphics has released the anti-slip pad decals.  The decals are available from 1/700 to 1/96 scales.  The standard pads are now available in three different sizes which should cover about any subject you can imagine.  Here's the link to Above & Below Graphics

Some things to be aware of are...

• The sheet is one piece carrier film so you'll have to cut to size what you want to use.  
• The decals release quickly in water.  Allow no more than 8-10 seconds before the decal is ready to apply.  Any more than that and you risk the decal floating away from the backing paper.
• I found it works well with most setting solutions, however recommend MicroSet and MicroSol products based on recent experiment.

We also followed up on some previous kit releases we discussed from Starling Models.  Apologies for messing up the slides during the meeting.  This first slide shows the HMS Lagan in 1/700 scale.  These are completely 3D printed with photo etch and decals.  

The second is an updated release of the River Class Frigate, HMS Nader in 1/350 scale.  This new release includes 3D printed parts, photo etch, and decals.    

We did another follow up from a question put forward by Len.  How do you paint these complicated 3D printed models?  

My suggestion was to take a more artistic approach to airbrushing.  Instead of trying to make all the vertical surfaces match in all those nooks and crannies, take a more artistic approach to painting with the airbrush.  Take advantage of the fact that all those areas would be blocked from natural light.  

Paint all the shadow areas black or very dark gray.  Try and concentrate this color in the shadow areas only.  In other words don't just blast the who areas.  focus on the shadows.  This will create our shadow effect with subsequent layers of paint.  Get the insides of the cage mast and areas under the overhangs.  Avoid getting the black in the upper horizontals surfaces more exposed to light such as the gun tubs and upper platforms.

Paint finish coats on the horizontal surfaces first.  In this case I would paint the low wood deck first.  After dry, mask off the lower wood deck.  Then paint the horizontal surfaces that are metal or linoleum.  In other words the second color.  I would thin this paint quite a bit so that when you spray it the underlying black is not fully covered up.  This will make the color look darker.  Paint as you would like to see it.  The same horizontal color in lighter areas such as the gun tubs and upper surfaces exposed to more light get more coverage.  Again, use thin coats and work close so you can concentrate the lighter color.  

Mask what you can to avoid overspray.  The next step is to paint the vertical surfaces.  Spray at 90 degrees and maybe slightly lower as Gerald suggested so that you avoid overspray to any horizontal surfaces.  

The process should result in shadow areas darker as they would naturally occur.  Areas more exposed to light will be lighter.  

Final step is going to be to come back and touch up where you can with the airbrush or hand brush.  Hopefully this helps Len!  

David Angelo then shared some prints he made from free 3D files.  This one is the French ship Jaureguiberry.  Good luck pronouncing that one.  There are some additional parts such as funnels and masts that David is having printed.  

We'll look forward to seeing this one come together.  The additional freeware that David used is listed below.  He also printed up some lions that he's going to use as a base for his current HMS Victory project.  Great idea!  

Rob Weilacher shared progress on his Fujimi IJN Hiryu with deluxe upgrade set in 1/700 scale.  

Rob's finishing up on the air wing.  I can appreciate how much fun it is to apply those striping decals to those planes!

John Widmar then shared His USS San Francisco C-5 made from the 1/700 Ocean Moon kit.  

Richard shared a rabbit hole he went down.  Here's a company that has designed and prints historic ocean linters.  You guessed it, Historic Ocean Liners is the name of the company.  They produced 1/1000 complete models of merchant ships.    

Richard had them blow one the Queen Mary models to 1/700 scale.  He described this as a mixed bag.  Note that they had to split the hull at the bow to get it to print.  It looks like most of the models are printed with an FDM printer but Richard mentioned that this was printed with an SLA printer.  

Tool time!  We spent some time talking about these micro rotary tools that are flooding the market.  I saw an add for this first one on eBay for $11 delivered which included four grinding tools.  What the heck.  I ordered one up and it arrived within a week.  It appears that these were pre-shipped to the US and were sent to me by a reshipper in New Jersey.  

Bottom line is that they work great and hold a charge for a long time.  They fit very comfortably in the hand and are light weight and easy to work with.  They aren't the strongest of motors but I had no trouble grinding brass strips.  When you order these on eBay you select from a variety of packages that can change the price.  Read the following but here are the big bullet points for the one I bought.  It's very important to understand that the bits have 2.35mm shanks.  There is no collet.  The one I bought has a press fit so you have to use 2.35mm bits that you can buy on eBay.  The tolerances are tight so something you might have purchased in the past may not fit in this tool.  I also can't say for sure how accurate the bits on eBay are that say they have 2.35mm shanks.  I've bought some 2.35mm drill bits and will share with you how they fit into this drill.  Proceed at your own risk but so far I'm happy!  

Note that the tool below does not have the press fit capture for the bit.  It is just like the Dspiae shown later. 

Jerry bought this Dspiae tool which I'm sure is exactly the same as the one above except it's typical Dspiae.  Very nice with the red finish which as Jerry mentioned matches his workshop.  He bought it with a rotary sanding kit which is beautiful and I think will be very useful for cleaning up decks and such.  This version like the photos shown above has two hex screws on either side of the tool to secure a 3mm bit.  Again, it has to be exactly 3mm to work in this tool and there are many 3mm bits listed on eBay.  The tool for tightening the bits fits in the back of the tool which should help you keep from losing it.  I got the sanders from Jerry and I'm wishing I had picked up this rotary tool as well.  They are a great combination.

We went long today thanks to Sam's presentation and catch up with Brandon from Squadron/Free Time.  I didn't get a chance to show everything and it will be pushed to the next meeting.   Thanks again for a fun meeting!  See you in March.