I just got my AFV Club M5A1 kit and the instruction says that the color of the periscope glass is bright blue. I thought that the blue color came postwar and on almost modern armor already. Shouldn’t the WWII periscope be in green color? Roy Chow help!
If the hatch is shut (no light inside) my thinking is that it would be black or in that area. If the periscopes are retracted then it wouldn’t matter.
Here’s a page with 52 pics to help you. Click on the pictures for a larger view.
I have never been happy with the results when they are just black. They look like plastic painted black to me.
If the periscope glass is visible, I paint it black and then apply an over coat of Clear Green (Tamiya X-25)
That way the 'scope is properly dark but has a hint of sheen and green when you look closely.
Sounds good,
or try Tamiya X-19 smoke over a light gray or silver background.
If they are clear periscopes like the Fine Molds periscopes. Then paint the back side a dk green. Use a mask to cover the front. Then paint the whole thing except for the mask black. If it is not clear plastic, go for a light greenish clear then paint a gloss coat over that. At least that is the German WWII colors. I have seen confettie (Red or Green) cut to size and placed where the clear part should be on modern vehicles. Try finding a model gallery that shows modern AFV’s.
Mark
Ditto, I do it the same way. It always comes out looking great and has the proper dark green color to look like thick glass.
Gotta go with Oberst and Heavy on this one… Tamiya Clear Green is the way to go for AFV periscopes.
Thanks for the response guys. So are we agreed that it is GREEN and not blue as per Academy instruction?
I never tinted WW2 periscopes… They’re clear glass (and pretty much remained that way until the 80s and the advent of battlefield lasers) and unless it’s nighttime and the interior lights are on, don’t show any color (although you might get some “daylight” if it’s light out, the hatches are open, and no one is standing in it)… I give them some depth by gluing a piece of old film negative on them, rather than painting… For 'scopes that are hollowed-out, like on Tamiya’s M-41 driver’s periscopes, I fill the “lens” with Micro Krystal Kleer and give them some dark green inside the back side of the 'scope. On the cupola, the glass isn’t a periscope, but rather a regular armored glass “porthole”… I drilled them out and added the film-strip to the iside, as shown here:
You wont go wrong with using clear Green i believe. It did tend to be dark in there hence why some modellers either paint the periscopes clear green or even clear blue. Ive done both and as long as they arent too brightly coloured, they look fine to me.