..............................................................................MEGA BLUNDER..................................................................................
Newbie’s and all take heed – This is a warning!
Maybe you can avoid the mistake I made.
I have been at this build for some time now and starting to get a little frustrated with the lack of available time due work and family commitments. Frustration can be a bad thing as you start thinking about short cuts to carry out a particular task.
I had undercoated the hull with an Acrylic primer and after much discussion with members of my club, decided to do the whole model in Enamel. Okay, then the Acrylic primer must be removed to allow use of Enamel paints. I set up the hull, container of water and wet/dry paper then proceeded in rubbing back the primer. After about 30 minutes I noted this was going to take a long time as the primer fixed itself well to the resined hull.
I thought to myself, “Surely there must be an easier and faster way to remove this paint”.
MY BIG MISTAKE – why not use paint stripper. I applied the stripper to a small area and left for 10 seconds before scrapping it off, the paint came off easily. Okay, I’ll do a larger area and proceeded accordingly. Basically, I had most of the paint removed before noticing that the stripper had also removed (in patches) the resin over the fibreglass cloth. I stopped the use of the stripper and frantically tried cleaning any remaining residue.
THE END RESULT. The paint was removed but now the resin was damaged and in 3 areas, down to the fibreglass cloth. This is where the pain and headache set in and was close to giving it up altogether – no more modelling. I destroyed a perfectly good hull.
That evening the good lady tried to consul me and suggested to Ring John aka Bluebird. I barely said 6 words and John knew what I did and what the results were. It was very evident to john that I was upset but convinced me that it was repairable. John explained what I should look for on the hull and how to go about mending the problem. He was right, in several places, the stripper was still reacting with the resin and this area was soft. Basically, I had to dig out the resin and thoroughly clean afterwards. I did this and checked the hull the next day for more reaction. I checked the hull each evening after work for a week.
The hull was now stable with no more reaction with stripper and all soft areas removed. The next step was to sand all the resin back down to the fibreglass matting. I spent a whole weekend and each evening after working on the hull. I re-applied three coats of resin with a light sanding between each coat. This task became a lot harder now with P brackets, shafts etc protruding beneath the hull but I persisted.
This whole process seemed like months before it was ready for painting.
Martin du
Author
Topic: My HMS Brave Borderer 1:16 Scale Build (Read 147633 times)