Has anyone found a stock color or successfully home brewed a good match for the gray-green anodizing on AIM-9M Sidewinder guidance sections?
The closest I’ve come is a mix of Tamiya XF-51 Khaki, XF-77 Gray and X-31 Titanium Gold. Close in color, but a bit too glittery.
Any good tips?
Thanks,
Mike
Hello Mike!
I don’t know the exact colour you’re talking about - a photo would really help here - but I think you’re on the right track trying to mix colours with some metallic. Maybe try replacing gold with a mixture of yellow and silver - that should help reduce the amount of alluminium dust in your paint and do the trick.
Good luck with your projects and have a nice day
Paweł
You can see that the guidance fins are a truer gray than the body to which they are attached.
It looks like a metallic dark grey green so I mix dark grey, dark green and a tiny dot of silver and I adjust till it looks right.
Have a look at Reaper MSP Paints #9157 Olive Shadow. Its part of their Triad System, base color, highlight, and shadow. It is a dark dark olive. Perhaps you could add a touch of dark silver, enough for metalic look but not enough to sparkle
It looks like 9157 has been discontinued by the manufacturer. Your point about the sparkle is the crux of the issue. The grain size in most metallic paints is just too large and makes the paint look like a 1970s bass boat.
No sparkle in my mix. After it’s dry I use a dry Q tip to gently polish the grey green to get a satin finish.
Which brand of silver are you using? I know some are finer than others.
Thinned Testors silver, just a small dot. The polishing with the Q tip gives a nice finish.
I have been using Alclad 111 Magnesium for the guidance section and fins.
I have 26 Alclad bottles except 111! I wanted to compare but do have a bottle of Model Master Dark Anodonic Grey buffing metalizar that looks close to the front missile color.
Here’s a decent pic of the ALC111 on the guidance section of the AIM-9L on my F-14A.
