Anybody have any suggestions on what brand of Olive Drab paint to use for a B17G. I tried Tamiya Olive Drab but after spraying it with Dullcoat it seemed way to dark. If possible I would prefer to use an acrylic. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Tamiya Olive Drab is a good match for Olive Drab 41 when its new. But the stuff faded rapidly in service to various hues depending upon paint batch and operational area. Model Master OD ANA 319 is good grayer shade. Polly Scale makes something like 4 or 5 different shades of Olive Drab varying from greener to browner. Polly Scale US Olive Drab #505098 is good for the stuff faded to a lighter more brownish hue.
Odd that you got a color-change using DullCoat…
Do you want a “factory new” OD 41 or a “high-time OD aircraft from the PTO” look?
OD on a G–model wouldn’t be all that sun-faded…
Hans,
If you could tell me the closest acrylic paint match for both the new factory and high time OD that would be great as the hobby shop in my area isn’t stocked that well with paint.
Tamiya Olive green is what i use. Its not as brown as OD.
Thats olive green on my 1:48 P-51B/C.
As Stik said, Tamiya OD XF-62 is pretty close to new OD…
Personally, I don’t use acrylics anywhere I don’t have to, preferring enamels, but Tamiya Olive Green, XF-58 is a good base-shade to start mixing with…
I use MM, the FS34087, I like that better than ANA 613, which is more on the grey side. You could try adding a drop or two of yellow to your OD to lighten it a bit. Not much you can do about the clear coat darkening the color.
I like that shade on armor, but USAGF OD and USAAF OD aren’t the same…
Think I used Testor’s Olive Green on this one…
Also take into account that no one batch of OD paint was the same even from the same manufacture. Each batch could be a diifferent shade of OD, but it was all called OD#3 or OD#7
Gunze H052, H304 is the best Imo, they make a few various shades in their aqueous range, not too brown or not too green, Most olive drab shades I see are way to green for my liking.
Actually, the paint standards by leate 1943-early 44, were pretty high, with a few notable exceptions… Northrop had massice Q/C issue with their Gloss Black for the P-61s (as evidence by the massive chipping on the Widows in the PTO) and when it came to B-17s, Boeing was pretty solid, although you got different manufacturers shipping to Douglas and Vega for their Forts…
Early-war OD though, especially that for the USAAF, had real issues with fading color-shifting in N. Africa and in the PTO, with some aircraft color-shifting to almost a purple shade…
On the P-61’s in the ETO that were black, the chipping in particular was caused when the tape and paper applied to them for shipment on the decks of CVE’s was removed. You can see that in pictures all along the joints between the airframe and the movable control surfaces.
thats why I like Polly Scale… Five different shades of OD in their line: Olive Drab (darker greener and grayer- great for armor), US Olive Drab (lighter and browner), USAAF Olive Drab (lighter and greener), QM 22 Olive Drab (darker, brownish), and 34087 Olive Drab (don’t have it so I can’t describe it…yet).
I never worry about the precise shade on the base color because I do a lot of post shading with my airbrush. I often tint my Clear flats with either a drop or two of light grey or black depending on whether I need to darker an area of lighten an area. Especially when modeling a sun faded finish you can do an overall top coat of lightened clear flat (after you decal of course) and then go around the edges of the upper surfaces of the wings and stab with darkened flat and spray darkened flat along various panel lines etc as needed. Works great on Navy a/c too.