I agree, Stain is the way to go. It lets the texture and grain poke through. A very diluted wash of black can also used to bring out the texture after the gray stain provides the color. Do some test on scrap wood and see what looks good to you.
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What color is the USS Constitution deck?
- Thread starter Jack Sparrow
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The Deck may look black in photos, but it is a weathered gray. This is like many
Ships that have wood decks. The deck is not painted.
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As I said earlier the deck is weathered gray. Remember, American ships had no
access to teak. White pine was too soft to use. It would quickly produce wear
trout marks in the deck. Many times you would see long leaf pine. Later you would see fir used as decking.
The color of the deck varies with the lighting, weather (wet or dry), and tourist traffic to name a few variables. It ranges from an orangey color in the lightly trafficked areas to flat grey in the heavy traffic areas as well as from board to board. It is distinctly different from the deck below due to exposure to the weather.
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ok so there is some of that wood look then. Having never seen the Constitution I have no idea what it looks like other than through photos. This certainly makes things more complicated. I think I am going to stick to that weathered grey look. I wouldn't even know where to start on trying to show a combination of weathered varnish and grey stain look.
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Stains found in hardware, paint, and Home improvement stores are really translucent paints. My father used to make his own stains by mixing oil artist colors with linseed oil. A major use is to change the color of light colored woods used for cheap furniture. They, therefore, cloud distinguishing wood features; something that you don’t want to do with a carefully planked deck. The new environmentally friendly stains advertise that they clean up with water so if water is included in the stain’s chemistry it will raise the grain of the wood deck planking.
A better choice would be a Wood Dye. Unlike a stain, the colors of wood dyes are in solution (not suspension). Dyes are, therefore, transparent and they penetrate the wood to color it. They often use alcohol as the thinning agent so will not raise the wood grain. They are available in both wood tones and basic colors so you could mix a wood tone with grey. Look for them online at specialty woodworking stores.
Roger
A better choice would be a Wood Dye. Unlike a stain, the colors of wood dyes are in solution (not suspension). Dyes are, therefore, transparent and they penetrate the wood to color it. They often use alcohol as the thinning agent so will not raise the wood grain. They are available in both wood tones and basic colors so you could mix a wood tone with grey. Look for them online at specialty woodworking stores.
Roger
I used a grey stain from Minwax, mixed with a bit of brownish stain.
Sorry to post this on two separate threads but...
If you want your deck to have a weathered appearance it might be worth experimenting with this product... https://video.search.yahoo.com/sear...6f023e2d0324b63aa0fc3e15fd0bde10&action=click
The Constitution practicum by Hunt describes an excellent solution to dealing with the deck color.
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Yes he has a solution, but I don`t like the color he made. I am leaning towards a grey color.
1. Use a light colored wood for the deck. It will darken naturally with time and exposure to ambient light.
2. Use a sealer such as lacquer (solvent based, NOT water based) diluted about 60% solvent and 40% lacquer. Fill the grain and scrape off any lacquer that is on the surface.
3. Do not stain the deck wood. You can see detail on light colored models. Dark models tend to look like blobs.
4. There is NO one color for any deck.
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do you varnish the deck?
You can use varnish on a deck. Some varnishes yellow with time. Like bill36 said, mixing the varnish with solvent lets it soak into the deck, bringing out the color and protecting the wood from the ravages of changing moisture content in the air for many years. Where I live in MN, the air goes from very humid in Summer to bone dry in Winter. That plays havoc on our pegged colonial style wooden chairs, such that the legs fall out every Winter from wood shrinkage. For models, the shrinking/swelling action causes wood joint seams to split after several decades.
If you are new to finishing wood, do a test piece first and see if the results are to your liking.
Yes. Light frequencies of colors are constants but how we see colors (color perception) is complex and variable. Our eyes and brains work together to provide our color perception. A remarkable example occurred several years ago when a photograph of a blue and black dress went viral online because some people perceived it as being colored white and gold. An important factor in that difference has to do with our brains adjusting how we "see" colors based on assumptions about lighting conditions. Unpainted wood is particularly tricky because it isn't a single, consistent color but shows various colors combined in patterns and changes depending on how rough it is and whether it is wet, dry, varnished, or oiled. Discussing the "actual color" of a deck isn't much help. For a model, the goal is for something that looks the way a real deck looks at some distance. When you look at a model of 1:100 scale that is 1 foot away, your brain perceives a real vessel 100 feet away and expects the colors, reflections, and textures to match that distance. If they don't, something looks off. So, we're largely left with "it should look right." Fair winds!
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real decks on real working ships are a dirty grayish tan. It also depends on the wood some ships were decked with Southern Yellow pine other with red or white Oak. Also note in the second picture deck planks are sometimes curved and do not run in a straight line. Also so many model builders think the insides of the bulwarks were painted red not always so shades of green and blue were quite common colors.
Very good explaination, Andy. Now what if our color perception is even much stranger? How do I know my blue sky isn't my green to someone else, but their word for my green is blue, so we both agree, of course, the sky is blue? Ha, just an absurd thought of mine.
Light as the main source will determine what shade of (a) color we see. Like basic gray. Morning light, mid day, afternoons with a reddish sunset all will change the perception of (a) color. Even take a piece of the grayish deck into fluorescent lights or incandescent light will cast a different tone. On my constitution, I just chose a gray with some very slight dark reddish stain. It gave the appearance of worn gray planks down to the natural wood color.
All in all, you are just trying to find a color that best represents the real thing as close as you can. All scale models are just representative of the real thing. It’s just at larger scales, we can increase the representation. Smaller scales, we are limited on representation.
All in all, you are just trying to find a color that best represents the real thing as close as you can. All scale models are just representative of the real thing. It’s just at larger scales, we can increase the representation. Smaller scales, we are limited on representation.
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That the ship was first built with native woods is a good deduction. Boat building today, however, has not changed a lot because the conditions of use are the same; salt water, salt air, dynamic loading, weather in general. For these reasons, a deck made of wood won't hold a finish any better than back in the day. The decks were laid with the annular rings facing up to take advantage of the expansion property of the wood, tighter more waterproof decks. Wear, and holystoning and frequent dousings of salt water made the deck tight. This resulted in a weathered grey to the celulose fibers common to most all woods.
The quarter sawn (annular ring) grain is tight and compact, so there aren't large variations in the grain as in flat sawn wood. I mention this because the stained appearance of tight interlocked grain of poplar or bass imitates the look wanted in a model. A light grey with a brown tint that is wiped dry looks right. You could try a two stage stain job using gell stain to bring out the grain after coloring the field. Decks were caulked with oakum and tar leaving dark black edges to the planks. On actual decks I've used a rubbery black caulk between planks, and on my 1/4" scale Elsie, I used a graphite stick on the edges of each plank. I don't think this would work for me in a smaller scale, just relying on the stain work. Bear in mind that any final coat of sealer to repell dust would have to come last.
I hate sounding like an expert, but I've built more boats than models, and a lot of houses. So here's Elsie, Emma C. Berry model and Mystic, and Constitution in 2019.
The quarter sawn (annular ring) grain is tight and compact, so there aren't large variations in the grain as in flat sawn wood. I mention this because the stained appearance of tight interlocked grain of poplar or bass imitates the look wanted in a model. A light grey with a brown tint that is wiped dry looks right. You could try a two stage stain job using gell stain to bring out the grain after coloring the field. Decks were caulked with oakum and tar leaving dark black edges to the planks. On actual decks I've used a rubbery black caulk between planks, and on my 1/4" scale Elsie, I used a graphite stick on the edges of each plank. I don't think this would work for me in a smaller scale, just relying on the stain work. Bear in mind that any final coat of sealer to repell dust would have to come last.
I hate sounding like an expert, but I've built more boats than models, and a lot of houses. So here's Elsie, Emma C. Berry model and Mystic, and Constitution in 2019.
All of the decking pictured above is obviously coated with some sort of clear finish, perhaps, (but just guessing,) a polyurethane gloss finish, and a seriously UV-degraded finish at that. This coating is neither historically accurate to the vessel's period of active service, nor, for that matter, ever used on a naval vessel in any period. There would have never, ever been any such coatings on a vessel with wooden decks. For one thing, gloss finishes are slippery when wet. For another, Period naval vessels had their wooden decks regularly holystoned (sanded clean of stains and weathering) and swabbed with saltwater daily. This maintenance routine was made possible by the particularly large crews aboard period naval vessels which were almost always maintained to the highest standards while in commission. The continual application of saltwater not only cleaned the decks, but also kept them swelled to avoid leaking, discouraged the growth of moss, mold, and fungal decay and bleached the bare wood to a very light cream color, appearing almost white from a distance.
U.S.S. Wisconsin from above with traditionally maintained teak decks. Note darker color of spray-wetted area to starboard of the forward turret.
Teak sailboat deck, partially bleached and partially naturally weathered:
Bare wood left to weather naturally will turn a shade of gray, the darkness of which varies with the particular species. Modernly, bare wooden decks tend not to be heavily sanded regularly as this wears the surface down, particularly thinning the fastening plugs which then lift out, permitting fresh rainwater moisture to soak into the fastening holes and cause fungal decay of the planks and deck beams. The present-day practice for keeping bare wooden decks looking their best is to swab them down regularly with a solution of water and oxalic or citric acid ("wood bleach") and, if desired, applying a coat of deck sealer such as Thompson's WaterSeal or Flood's Woodlife, clear water-resistant finishes which are invisible when dry and which wear off over time without buildup or residue. Naval vessels in commission maintained their decks in pristine condition with continual maintenance, as did upper class passenger vessels. Merchant vessels were more concerned with the "bottom line" and less concerned about appearances, so most merchant vessels let their decks weather naturally, although would have swabbed them down regularly where they might otherwise tend to have dried out.
Wooden decks were routinely holystoned on commissioned U.S. Navy vessels having wooden decks, such as the Iowa-class battleships, into the 1990's. Wooden decks on U.S. Navy wooden (non-magnetic) minesweepers are probably still holystoning their wooden decks.
Note the regulation method of holding the stick to swing the holystone:
So very true. It sometimes appears that "scale viewing distance" is one of the least understood, yet most essential, concepts related to ship modeling. Time was, Floquil paints had a rather wide range of "weathering stains" that were excellent. I mix my own colors and paints now since Floquil is no longer available, but perhaps some of the pre-mixed lines of scale colors may offer similar stains. It's quite interesting to read a thread such as this one which makes it so painfully obvious how many people trying to build ship models today have little or no firsthand experience with real, full-scale wooden ships and boats and apparently little interest in researching period practices. Unfortunately, "If it looks right, it is right." only makes sense when people know what "right" actually looks like.
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