Time passed.....and with it, went my age. I grew tired of the smaller kits, and changed over to the larger kits, mainly for the added detail they offered. it was much easier to alter and expand on different aspects, making the builds more realistic. larger kit meant larger surface areas to paint......it became quite a chore with a paint brush.
A lot of the kits I did offered the parts in different colored plastics. this turned into a god-send......if an area was a certain color, and required me to paint it in that particular color, I usually didn't paint the area. the build still looked nice....I'd do just detail painting.....but this gave it a "divisional" look.
One day, my whole modeling world was turned upside-down, with the acceptance of a wooden ship kit that a friend had in his attic. he had started it, but soon gave up on it.....for whatever reasons. missing parts led me to the manufacturer of the kit....luckily there was a dealer here in the states. through him, I was not only able to acquire the missing parts, but also, two additional kit to add to my small stockpile. one kit I got from a website that he had gotten advertisement privileges through.......the other one was from him personally....to build for him to show as a display.
On the first ship, the Nordkap 476, I found that the demand for spray painting was a must. there was no way I was going to do all this painting with brushes. I tried the "rattle cans".......much to my dismay, I found that this wasn't the way to go. the cans had no controls to monitor the spray.........the paint went on very thick, and runs were a direct result from the cause! there had to be a better way! I also had a handicap to hinder me further.......I had never done a wooden kit before. I felt like I was in kindergarten! I felt defeated, but there had to be a solution. the airbrush became the solution I was looking for. I was talking to a friend of mine in Canada......the airbrush being the center of the conversation. he told me he had an older one that he wasn't using, and that he would send it to me. I recalled that I had a Cambell Hausfeld compressor, with a three gallon reserve tank in the cellar. I used it to inflate car tires. it had no regulator on it and no way to shut it off when it reached capacity. I would purchase these parts and set it up for the airbrush. this was a matter easier said than done......every time I turned around.....a tight budget kept the needed parts out of reach!
I was working on two ships during this time......the Nordkap 476 and the Cux 87, the ship that my friend Tom asked me to do for him. the Cux had to be perfect....paint and all! I wasn't going to chance it by using the rattle cans. on one of my visits to the local hobby store, I happened to look at a Testor's spray outfit...the Amazing Air Camo Kit. it contained an airbrush with a long thin hose on it. attached to the hose was the fitting for the can of compressed air that came with it. it also had five caps that fit onto the 1/4 ounce bottles of paint. there were five siphon tubes to go along with the caps and five 1/4 ounce bottles of military camo paint. I bought it, thinking that there may be some parts I could scrounge from it. later I found that there weren't any parts to be had from it, so it ended up stashed away on a lower shelf beneath my desk. the hull for the Cux was ready to paint......I had already primed it and corrected almost all of the small mistakes I found, and I was starting to become impatient. sooner or later, it would have to be painted, in order for me to continue....I couldn't skirt around it much longer.
One evening, I was on the phone with my friend Dan {my friend in Canada}. we were having such an interesting conversation, that I started to get into the beers. by the end of the conversation, I had drank four beers and was cracking the fifth. after we said goodbye and hung up, I sat there musing over my beer and looking at the Cux. I pulled out the Testor's kit again and took it out of the box. my mind was made up...I was going to paint the Cux using this kit....I have everything I need to do it......so why not!
Trouble started right from the get-go........I couldn't get the fitting on the can of air. every time i failed, some of the air/liquid vapor would escape into the air. it was some of the nastiest stuff I have ever smelled, and it didn't take long before the wife was complaining of becoming ill. I took it downstairs to the cellar to continue with the assembly. it was of no use....the fitting would not screw on to the can! looking around, I found an assembled fitting that I had brought home from work. coming out of it was a short, small gauge plastic tubing.....looked like the airbrush hose would fit over it. I tried threading it into the Campbell Hausfeld and it went on with no problem at all! snipping the fitting off of the hose, I slipped it over the short tube.....a very tight fit.....thank goodness the hose was made of rubber.....I was able to push it on almost a quarter of an inch! I started the compressor and let it run until i had good air pressure coming out of the airbrush.
After some negative feedback about my spraying without a net......I decided to scrap the Campbell and bring down my other air compressor that I had up in the front hallway. it is a Craftsman compressor with a twenty five gallon capacity. I originally thought that it would be a bit much for what I intended to use it for. it will be like shooting mice with a shotgun, I thought to myself, as I brought it through the house and over to the cellar door. once I got it down there, I retro-fitted the airbrush so I could hook it up to the compressor. I still needed to paint the bottom portion of the hull, so I just set it up. I had done a bit more with the ship, mostly the deck stuff, but I wanted to get the hull finished before I have to go back to work......I'm on vacation this week.......and loving every minute of it.
