Lines, names and varnish

Boat stern
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

With the name stuck on in three places I could add the decorative yellow line. 4mm wide Model Technics TrimLine did this nicely. I’ve seen this stuff many times in it’s tube in shops and never really thought about it. Once I discovered that you couldn’t get much in the way of “go faster stripe” I looked harder and found out that what looked like a single sticker with graduated lines, was in fact several different thinknesses of line on the same sheet.

The lines were strong and sticky, easily surviving my cack-handed attempts at application.

The finishing touch was to airbrush a coat of Humbrol satin varnish over the whole hull. For a change this went well – the varnish was thinned about 50/50 with Precision general purpose thinners. A wide spray pattern, thin coats and blasting the fresh paint with a hairdryer to stop any runs worked for me.

Now everything is dry, the hull looks “whole”. Instead of gloss letters and stripe, matt while and oxide and satin green there is a unified sheen with nothing jumping out. I suspect the matt colours would be difficult to keep clean without this covering.