Gilles' Model Album

Treehugger
How did you plan ahead for painting the ship with the photo etch railings?

I've been thinking about this problem, never got around to build my first ship with PE railings, but I've been thinking I could glue on the railings, and then paint it all with primer, and then paint the deck, then put masking tape over the deck, and then airbrush the rest of the ship, hull, railings, etc.

Gilles Quesnel
Hi Treehugger...your idea seems so much easier than the way I did it,lol. I chose this model because it was the next chapter in this old book I got titled 'Essential Skills for Scale Modelers' from FineScale Modeler books. It's the first kit as well that I did with PE parts period. The author's picture of the PE railings shows how he taped the sprue on cardboard, and then spraypainted it afterwards. I attempted to brush Medium Grey acrylic on without luck, so I tried grey primer, and it worked perfect...it didn't flake off when holding it with automotive masking tape or the like.
As you can tell, I didn't dare take any closeups, too embarrased to do that, because some spots where I used superglue ran underneath the tape and onto the hullside..a hard lesson learned. I used Gorilla glue, but it was shiny. Thankfully, the author's last step of airbrushing flat clear acrylic paint made it less offensive. I hope this info helps...it's the first bit of advice I have given anyone about modelling,lol.