USS Nimitz - Monogram 1:820 ***Finished***

[Molly-new]

Construction prior to painting is now complete:



The planes have all had a base coat of light grey, and are not particularly interesting to look at in this scale. I hope to get the hull and flight deck sprayed today (if it ever stops raining and warms up )

[Molly-new]

I have indeed managed to get the hull and flight deck sprayed, now the laborious task of masking and painting the flight lines.

I have also picked out some detail on the planes:



Just a bit of Anthracite on the canopy area, and a beige colour on the noses.

[Molly-new]

Masked up and painted the first of the flight lines but it did not turn out too well:



It has now been resprayed Grey ready for plan B.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Burnish the edges of your tape. Also it appears the paint is running into crossing detail lines. You could put your tape on slowly, pressing it into the crossing detail or maybe just not paint at the crossing points and then remove the tape and carefully fill in at those points.

[fenman]

Another tip is to do as John says then spray with a clear varnish first, this will hopefully fill the gaps and if it runs, it doesn't matter. Then spray your colour and hopefully, no more bleeds.

[Molly-new]

Thanks for the tips guys. This time I have attacked the masking and painting in small stages and it is coming out much better. Burnish the edges of the tape more accurately has definitely made a difference as well. A case of patience being a virtue I think



I have also made a start on the anti fouling paint:



It is the first time I have used Tamiya paint so thought it wise to use a brush rather than try it through the airbrush.

[AndrewR]

Tamiya paint can be tricky to paint with a brush. I found that adding a few drops of flow enhancer helped the coverage. I used dishwasher rinse aid as my additive!

Nice work on the air wing and flight deck.

Cheers

Andrew

[Saxon]

You could also try painting the tape and using that as a decal for the flight lines.

[Molly-new]

You could also try painting the tape and using that as a decal for the flight lines.

Doh Why didn't I think of that? Especially as I have used that method on many different occasions. Sometimes I get so focused on the wood that I can't see the trees.

I found that adding a few drops of flow enhancer helped the coverage. I used dishwasher rinse aid as my additive!

Nice one Andrew, I will give it a try.

[Dazzled]

It is the first time I have used Tamiya paint so thought it wise to use a brush rather than try it through the airbrush.

Have no fear of Tamiya paint in an airbrush. It's fairly forgiving.

I use it all the time in an airbrush. One thing that's vital with it though is to make sure you use Tamiya's own thinners. It definately doesn't like car screen wash as a thinner

[Molly-new]

Thanks for the tips guys, but being a Mk.1 scaredy cat I went for brush painting in the end.

The end result isn't perfect by any means, but it will do for me as I have wasted too much time deliberating on this.



I did the boot line by making my own black decal stripes:



They seem to have come out OK, much neater than I could of got with a brush.



Getting back into this now, so "onwards and upwards" with it.

[Molly-new]

Sorry about the lack of involvment in this GB, but other builds got in the way.

After doing a bit more painting of the lines,



I was still not happy with the outcome, so out came the sprayer again.

After the success of the boot line I decided to try and print my own landing lines. Second attempt on white painted paper;



These went on quite easily, and looked better than my dodgy painting:



All it needed now is the red dotted lines painting in. This I did with a fine brush and well thinned down paint. With hindsight, as all the lines were raised, this would have been the easier option all along. Oh well, you live and you learn.

[Molly-new]

After completing the line painting and giving it a couple of coats of matt varnish I very quickly completed the assembly.

USS Nimitz - Monogram, 1:820





I know that the aircraft configuration is not correct, but I thought I may as well display them all as have some sat in a drawer somewhere! I had intended to do some weathering on it AKA Omi's wonderful HMS Campletown, but need to have a practice with my newly acquired oil paints first.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Good ! Thanks for sticking with it !

[omi]

thanks for the mention, and your lines do look good, is the deck number a decal or did you paint that too?