I just bought a base in the form of the Eduard 1/48 airfield. This is the one that consisted of the stamped metal plates that were quickly laid over dirt such as was used in the pacific theater. Does anyone have any advice on how to paint it? I want it to look realistic. I have experience with ground and dio base making but this one has me a little stumped. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
The PSP was bare steel which went to rust quickly, that would be the base color for it. Many of the island airfields were made of crushed coral which was white and made a lot of dust, so that would probably be a primary color. That and mud too, I would think. Anyway, that’s what I would start with.
This may help you.
/forums/1029674/ShowPost.aspx
Umm… no… It was indeed painted… Usually in a brownish-green or a greyish green… I use Krylon “Moss Green” for it, seems to looks the best for a base color before I go to town on it with washes, drybrushing, and scuffing… The finished color shows a lot of the “dirt” color as well, since the dirt comes through the holes, as well as pooling in the low spots…
Hans, I said that because there used to be a lot of it available surplus and I remember it as unpainted. It was used as building material by many. Could it have been done both ways?
Well, I will say that I’ll stay away from absolutes… There were some experiments with titantium alloy and aluminum alloy PSP, which weighed half as much as steel and wouldn’t need painting, and also, at the war’s end, a lot of steel ones could possibly have been awaiting paint when they were sold for scrap…
Those aren’t the WW2 Marston Mats though, Eric… There’s a few there, the ones with large holes that are close to that era…
Hans
How about making an RTV mold of the matting, then use it to make duplicates of the Eduard molding. You could cast your matting with hydrocal, as an example, then peel off the RTV mold. For extra strength you could imbed a layer of cheesecloth, or panyhose, or whatever, in the plaster to give it more strength. That’s how I plan to do it. I’m also going to make individual pieces the same way.
Jim
Here is how PSP was developed:
http://140.194.76.129/publications/eng-pamphlets/ep870-1-42/c-3-4.pdf
Also, an English company, RB Productions makes individual PE PSP sections in 1/48 and 1/32. I haven’t looked further to see where one can get it, yet.
[tup]Go for it… I used foil because I’m a cheapskate… I’d still use it for modeling the matting where it will conform to irregularties in the ground though… The constant aircraft and vehicle traffic will bend the matting into any minor depressions and such, but I see no reason why one couldn’t try that route…