There are a variety of colors of duck tape to select from. Making a camouflage pattern would not be difficult. You would have to just be good at scissors cutting.
I have my skills, and cutting with implements may be one of them - depending on the implement, but scissoring ducttape into neat camo patterns isnt. And it still doesn't give me the color control I can get via paint.
Hmm... Why are we saying this duct tape skinning would mean giving up cool paint jobs? I did an experiment today. This is ordinary gray duct tape painted with acrylic paint. It definitely wanted a coat of primer, and yes: you can see the texture of the tape underneath it, but who cares? It works for me. Rob
nice. I wonder how it holds up over time and usage. If it's good enough to last through a whole battle day, then I'm happy. I know other people are less picky about their paint jobs, but I couldn't imagine sailing Scharnhorst into battle without putting on her war paint, first:
I haven't used painted duct tape in battle, yet, so I can't answer your question at the moment. I'll paint a convoy ship with it for this weekend. (WWCC is having two days of combat at Lake Minden this Saturday and Sunday.) Then I'll let you know. Rob
But if you peel your skin after each battle, that means a repaint each time. Less an issue if there is a good way to patch that can be painted over. Ultimately I like my balsa sides, even if it takes me an hour to resheet, and while I will bear the duct tape in mind, I don't see myself switching or advocating a switch.
Has there been any testing to see if duct tape (or any kind) can replace armor thicknesses of balsa for Big-Gun?
on a related not has anyone tried monocoat or the like? i assume it will be to difficult to pen and is more expensive than duct tape but would look better.
It seems that if you patch your custom camouflage paint job with silkspan and dope or segment.. .then it wont be a custom paint job anymore.. it would be a white/yellow colored hull above the water line. If the paint job is going to be disrupted by damage and silkspan patching.. how is that different than just stripping off duct tape and replacing it? Either way.. no camo/custom paint above the waterline. Besides during the battle.. who cares.. you are taking damage and it will be patched over (or replace with tape). Typically we all want our ships to look great when we show up and we all go home with destroyed hulls. I just don't see the difference. Now, if you have a cruiser or a BB that does not take much damage in a sortie.. then sure, you would have very little patching to do and as such very small parts of the custom paint job would be affected. I have not seen a BB at a battle in my areas (Texas, Region 4, MWCI Nats) that does not take extensive damage. After a great deal of patching we all have white and yellow ships (yellow from the glue in most cases) above the water line.. usually so much you couldn't tell what color the ship was to start with. One ship as an example is Tom Palmer's Weevee... very nice camo paint job.. but after 1 or 2 sorties... only patches are visible above the waterline. We shouldn't dismiss new tech so quickly and for all battle formats .. we should give it a chance. I personally hope it works out... no more stripping the boat for hours.. hours of time saved sheeting the boat, easier to get rookies on the water... I am in the hobby to battle, I don't really care what material the hull covering is made of for the 1 inch of free-board I have above the waterline. J
Having put many, many yards of Monocote on airplanes, I can verify that it will tear rather than make nice holes. There are some coverings that have woven reinforcement, I'll have to test some of them to see if they pass the penetration test.
I patch at the pond with torn silkspan and dope. The patches get a light sand and a coat of paint when I get my ship home and the hull always looks good, at least from the outside..... That said, I would probably try to prepaint a tape covering and apply it already in camo. And probably have several sides predone, especially my port side as I tend to engage from that side more often....
