In terms of tiling the hull, the hull should be sealed or have a paint finish before tiling to give a sound base for gluing the tiles.

Metallic paint does not apply too well on bare wood, therefore you might want to prime beforehand, don't worry too much about the finish of the copper paint as little or non will be visible once tiled, but I can see your thinking on going this route.

You might want to try a couple of methods on some scrap before you tackle for real

I am painting my hull with the supplied copper paint - Can I seal the wood with a water/pva mix?

Or u can make ypur own by adding talcum powder to celulose dope works fine 4 me and reminds me of years of modeling[the smell]

I am now half way through tiling the hull!! I will show progress in my build diary once done. However I can give my view on some of the points raised above.

A. Overlap or but the tiles? I am butting my tiles for two reasons. 1, the quality of the copper is very good and each tile is quite thick, although this gives an advantage in resistance to damage it does mean that overlapping would make the tiles protrude to much, in my view.

B. Rivets? I am not simulating rivets primarily because it would be to difficult to do so with the thickness of the copper and may well ad a year to the build time!! Also all of my research suggests that the rivets would have been flat? so would not have protruded.

C. Adhesive? I am using PVA. I have used PVA for many years for securing etched parts and never had a difficulty. the advantage of PVA is the slower cure time and thick viscosity allows some positioning time. it also allows time to clean up the tiles with scotch brite rather than a wire brush. I will use some super glue for securing the odd corner on curved areas.

D. Time? well this is going to depend on how you work. just like laying the planking the straight runs can be chucked down at quite a pace i'm reckoning 30-45 seconds per tile. curved areas and shaping tiles will take considerably longer. I managed to put down a 20 row high pyramid in a about 6 hours.

Part 1 of the copper instructions

http://forum.model-space....aspx?g=posts&t=2981

Jase, are you still happy with your choice of PVA?

My tile pack should be arriving in the next couple of weeks and from what I've been able to find on the net, we're pretty starved for choice in terms of adhesives here in SA (Unless one wants to buy the 310ml tubes ;)

So I suppose my choice is limited to
a. contact adhesive - the difficulty to apply this in small quantities, the stringiness and smell makes this a very doubtful starter

b. Gel type Superglue (Loctite?) - Don't know whether there will be enough time to re position the tile once placed or to rectify any mistakes

c. No-more nails type glue - ???

d. Apliphatic - ???

Have a read from post #125 onwards of this link

http://forum.model-space...posts&t=1911&p=7

Thanks for your replies Tomick and Mike.

I contacted Bostik and the only Evo-Stik products available in South Africa are "Plumbers Mate" and "Stick Like Sh!t".

Big thumbs up to Bostik SA, who actually called me to discuss my requirements and recommend a suitable product. Will see it I can get it over the weekend.