? on Sturgeon ssn colors....

[jeffrey j]

hey guys,
On the top of the hull on my Deep Sea Designs drawing, there looks like a walk way, actually I know everything out of the water can be called a walkway, question is on the drawing it looks like a cat walk down the length of the upper center hull. "non-skid" i guess,,, Was this a different color than the black above the water line? Also should the black be a gloss or flat color. thanks in advance. One more thing, I just put the outboard vertical fins on the horizontal stabilizers, I know these are not seen above the water line, but what color should these be, red? Thanks again, Jeff Jones

[boss subfixer]

Re: ? on Sturgeon ssn colors....

Jeff here is what I did with mine.
I can't say it's very accurate but it looks good. The nonskid area, don't go with gloss black. I tried it in a moment of insanity and it looked terrible. Kind of like an annoying neon sign glaring at you. Since I went with Rustoleum dark gray primer for the hull I used testers flat black for the nonskid and the contrast was right on, not to brassy but noticeable which is what you want. On the real boats the nonskid paint is fairly glossy but when they mix the grit into it it kind of tones it down a bit.
The stern stabilizers on mine are painted with the dark gray primer on the outside and on the inside top section along with the top of the stern plane, the bottom of the stern plane is painted krylon ruddy brown and extends to the lower inside part of the stabilizer. This is based mostly on how Bill Lambing painted his boat, method not types of paint. Again I'm not sure how accurate the paint colors are but it looks good. Hopefully one of the guy's that served on a sturgeon can chime in.
Hope this helps.
Don

[jeffrey j]

Re: ? on Sturgeon ssn colors....

Thanks Don for suggesting the rustoleum dark grey primer, I used just that and it looks great. I did the entire upper above water line in flat black and the dark grey down to the red and around the bow. Right now the non skid area is gloss black errrrr... but I just wanted to get some color on it and to make it look more like a sub to keep me motivated, and yes it worked.
Mike Driskell fellow subron6 memeber was on the Sturgeon when he was in the Navy, but I have not heard from Mike since I strated this project. My 4 wonderful years in the Navy were spent on an aircraft carrier, but I always liked driving by the sub piers in Norfolk. but i don't remember much of the details on the subs after 25 years... thanks Jeff Jones

[boss subfixer]

Re: ? on Sturgeon ssn colors....

Your welcome Jeff but I can't take credit for the dark grey primer. The brains behind that one was Pete Piekarski. I never served but my love of all things submarines comes from building and fixing them for 24 years working for E.B. My goal is to have a model of every class I worked on plus a couple more I think are pretty cool like the Surcouf. The one I don't hold much hope for is the NR-1, I believe there is at least one kit out there from FX models but that is a little out of range right now.
Don