OK. I am trying the airbrush route. Browsing around, and talking to a local model shop, it appears that to do a reasonable job with capacity to do the art justice I will need a top cup double action airbrush plus a compressor, preferably with a reservoir chamber to keep air pressure constant. Well, that's going to set me back £120 to £180 with airline and other bits.
Possibly I could go for a cheapo with gas can to try it, but feedback on these is not too good. I could end up wasting money.
So, with good surface preparation I can expect to get a good finish in the basic overall warship grey. Masking to do the lower hull 'oxide brown/red' no problem, or even masking and spraying the black waterline stripe. That would take me a long way. But detailing?
Does this sound a reasonable build plan: ?
Fit individual planking in sub assemblies afterwards. Spray bollards plus resin & cast deck fittings individually, Bluetacked to wooden strip, then fit to deck. After this it seems like I am back to small brushes for detail as I can't figure out how you could mask-seperate finer detail, especially where it has to be built up in situ as sub assemblies.
I guess the ultimate challenge would be to figure out how to airbrush stanchions (black) with soldered wire rails (white) without building them as sub assemblies, spraying white, then micro-masking all the rails in 2 mm spiral wrapped tape. Using adhesive after painting will require manual touch up with brushes anyway. At 1/96 the 3 rail railings are only 10 mm high.
Just trying to figure out what can be airbrushed and what should be left to fine brushwork
The question about the air brush - in my write up I suggested the gravity feed cup was designed for applications where a smaller quantity of paint would be used and the brush would always be used in an upright position (tip the brush and the paint runs out). In the case of painting a boat hull and superstructure, I think you'll find the gravity cup to be low on paint volume and tending to spill as you go around the job. This is where the suction bottle of the bottom of the brush works best. It gives you the volume , for larger areas, and reduces your chances of spilling paint.
The gravity cup can be good for lite applications such as weathering, painting a number of small parts (e.g. bollards, fair leads, winches etc) placed together on a board and sprayed on mass. here the paint quantity is minimal and the direction of spray will, mostly keep the cup upright. The small parts can then be removed from the "spray board" and applied to the model. If the parts need a small touch of paint for, say, hand wheels and the like, a brush would be best to handle these small bits.
I generally make my handrails in panels that can be removed. That way I can wash and prep them properly after soldering, or gluing, together. At this point I prime and paint them, then reinstall the railings gluing the railing posts into the deck. If small bits such as the balls on the posts or some other small bit needs a different color, I touch that up with a brush then do the reassembly.
if you look at the photo of the steam engine, above, for example, I painted the handrails with a brush after every thing else was complete. I also picked out the whistle and bell with a brush too.
AS to when you air brush and when you paint brush is a decision you have to make based on the amount and difficulty of masking you have to do to get a job done. There is no hard and fast rule, its what you feel comfortable with.
I can't speak to the cost of equipment in Britain. During the writing of the article there were individuals who found some good prices on the type of equipment you're looking for. Perhaps a review of their sources would be helpful
good luck.
John