Does anyone have an idea for weathering paint chipping on WWII air
craft or can you point me in the right direction[?]
ps. To all vets happy veterans day
There are a few different methods, but I like to get a bit of chrome or silver paint on the end of a toothpick and apply the paint to panel edges, wing leading edges, and parts of the wing where the pilot walks. You can also apply a silver coat to the model before you spray the colour coat, and use a masking medium to protect the silver in the chipped areas. Swanny has an article on his website about using salt as the masking medium. Go to www.swannysmodels.com and have a look around.Other methods are, use a silver pen or pencil, drybrush silver paint
Hope this helps.
Artist’ silver pencil also works really well.
Make sure that you sharpen the pencil fully, so that you have a good fine point. This allows scale chipping even in 1/72 then.
And if you don’t like it you can rub it off.
Karl
Years ago I read an article that told me that on 1/72 scale white paint worked as well or better than silver to represent chipped paint. I tried it, liked the effect and that’s the method I know use. Apply it by drybrushing or very light stippling which gives it a very subtle effect. For larger scales, I use silver applied by drybrushing or silver pencil or both.
I do something very simple. I undercoat all my AC with silver. Then I follow with my primary coats. Whatever it be, one color, tricolor, camo. Once it is all set, I simply take my tool I use for scribing, a sharp edge basically, and wear down the top coat in the areas I want to appear worn and weathered. It works great. Basically, I am chipping and to me, it looks great. I do leading surfaces of wings and so forth. Alternativly, on raised lines, I simply drybrush silver. Either method works well for me. The problem I have is I am always beating planes up. Nothing I have done recently looks pristine and off the showroom floor.
Probably the most realistic chip method is something similar to what nsclttci except that after your silver base coat, apply salt crystals where you want the chips. To get the salt crystals to stick you moisten the area with water, apply the salt. Some of the salt disolves and bonds the crystals to the model. You then spray your color coat and when dry, knock the crystals off and you have a paint chip which reveals the color of the base coat. Someone else on another thread suggested the same technique, except replacing the salt with liquid mask. Yoyu just dab the mask instead of applying salt. Gonna have to try this because there are a few problems with the salt. One thing I noticed is that you have to be careful with your airbrush because the airflow can blow the salt off the model. Also, because the salt bond is not that strong, I don’t know who this would work with a camo pattern. If you used masks to draw the pattern, might be difficult. If you can freehand the pattern, you would probably do better but you would still have to be careful not to have the airflow blow salt crystals all over the place. Once again, it is a lot of work but in the end, looks very realistic.
I just did this on a 1/48 Corsair cowling and it turned out great. However, it is a lot of work.
Hope this hellps,
cbreeze
A lot of the chipping seen on models is overdone IMHO. I use a siver Prismacolor pencil & a lot of restraint.
Regards, Rick
You can also do another variation of the silver undercoat. After you do the silver under coat put a coat of future wherever you want to do some chipping. Then after the future cures paint the model as normal. Now you can take some tape and stick it where you want some chips. The future will release and youll have instant chips.
Just when you do this take it easy cause if you lay down a lot of sticky tape your going to remove a lot of paint.
DaveBinva,
I tried your method also. Works fine and is just as realistic as the salt method but I found one problem. The tape works fine but makes large chips. I experimented a little but could never get small chips. If anyone out there has a technique in which you can get the tape to pull off small areas, I would like to hear and try it. As a result, I don’t think that the tape method would work for 1/72 because of the lack of control. With the salt method, you can get a chip as small as a grain of salt, provided it didn’t get blown off or knocked off. The bond is not that strong.
I think using liquid mask has promise. I will have to try that and I would like to know if anyone out there used liquid mask instead of salt.
I do basically the same thing, I’ll precoat areas, then paint over, but instead of scratching down I use a toothbrush and an abrasive polish to wear the paint down to the silver.
It leaves an overuse worn look to it.
More like gradual wear.
Thanks all ,I guess I have some work to do, thanks again.
If salt tends to be not sticky enough, what about sugar crystals? I bet it would stick a lot better. dot water on the spots you want to flake, sprinkle a pinch of sugar, then, let dry. Spray and then rub off the sugar. Voila? After you’ve knocked the crystals off, and your undercoat is exposed, a warm wet sponge should take the residue off.
I’ve not tried it, but it seems logical.
The problem with sugar is it will stick too well.
Salt works for me, and I just make sure my spraying pressre is low enough not to dislodge the crystals.
I’m trying the salt method for the first time myself. I’ll tell ya’ll how it turns out.
Hi all,
I’m from Malaysia and returned to the hobby about a couple of years ago and am new to this forum. I’ve tried rubber based cement on armor, stippling both with a fine brush and bristle brush to replicate chipping and scuffing respectively for a/c. These are the methods I prefer for any scale. I tried salt once after reading an article on FSM. The crystals blowing away is not a problem coz I find it adds realism due to the irregular pattern it produces. The problem I had with salt is that the thinned flat acrylic paint I air-brushed on the model disolves some of the dried salt and leaves blotches around it like water marks. The remedy I used for this is to bristle brush away those areas. The intended chipped areas were enlarged a bit which is still OK. It’s the extra work that’s a bother. Anyone had this problem before ? Salt should work best if not for this problem. Any advise regarding what I did wrong ?
Welcome to the forums apseong.
I just found out that I don’t like the salt method. Maybe I used too much water, but in some areas the salt disolved in the water. I figured it was no biggie, it would just add to the unorderly effect of the paint chipping. I found out that this area of dissolved salt turned the paint that I added to those areas a lighter color. It really looked awful. I’m going to try a silver pencil next time. Right now, I’m going to strip and repaint my Mustang. Live and learn right?
Becareful not to get any salt on the bird’s tail. You know what happens when you do that. 
Ed
No, what happens when salt gets on the birds tail?
it can’t fly.
Old wives tail, put salt on a birds tail to keep it grounded.
Thanks for the response ridleusmc.
Yes, I’m still learning even though I’ve more or less settled down on a few basic techniques for building decent looking models. Some modeling tips were ‘incomplete’ and more experiments ( trial and error, actually ) have to be done before one can fully put the methods ( good ones, no doubt ) to good use. An example is the much talked about varied use of Future. I tried using it as a flat coat by mixing it with flat base. Altough I cleaned my air-brush the usual way I discovered that the tube shank and handle became stuck ( with dried Future ) the next time I tried to remove them for a thorough cleanup. Luckily I stumbled across another article from FSM on cleaning and stripping Future with alcohol. If not for that, scratch one quality air-brush.
Perhaps cleaning air-brush is too elementry to mention. I also found out by trial an error that pressure also plays a part when using Future as a gloss coat in preparation for washes. Elementry too ? For someone coming back to the hobby after more than 20 years, I sure got lots to learn.
I’m getting a silver pencil too. Today, in fact. Would be very convenient, eh ?
Best regards