Have recently taken up modeling again, nothing better. Took my dad to the hobby store today, we had a ball. Have a couple of questions for you all out there. What is the best type of black paint for a P-61 Black Widow? Found one today. Matt, flat, gloss? Would appreciate any advice. Thanks, Zar
Firstly, [#welcome] to the hobby and to the forums!
For an aircraft such as that, I would use a more scale-like black as opposed to straight black. SOmething like Tamiya NATO black, or polly scale grimey black. As for the flat/satin/gloss, I would use a satin finish on that one. HTH! [tup]
[#ditto]. A scale appropriate satin black. And [#welcome] to the forums and modeling. Have fun building the P-61.
[#ditto]+1! Hiya Zar, and [#welcome]
Don’t forget to take pictures!
I’ve got a magazine that has a story about them operating in China during WWII. In all the pics, they looked very flat except for the nose cone which had a semi-gloss look. All the aircraft in the pics were very, very weathered and a couple had the paint flaking off (much worse than any Japanese plane I’ve ever seen).
I’ve also seen pics of them in olive drab with gray undersides, but then how could you call it a Black Widow? [:)]
Welcome to the Forums & to the Hobby [#welcome]. Glad you’re here.
Regards, Rick
The name had nothing to do with the color. It was named Balck Widow well before there were any black-painted fighters in the US Army Air Corps. Northrop followed suit with bug names after the Black Widow with the F-89 Scorpion. Widows painted in olive drab and grey were pretty common, especially in the ETO. As for the paint, US Army Air Force experiments with paints found that the flat black caused the aircraft using it to show a white ring around them when lit up by an anti-aircraft searchlight, while planes painted in gloss black slid through the beams without being noticed by the ground gunners.
As for the peeling paint, Northrop had some serious quality-control issues in their paint shop with the original lots of gloss black paint, causing the aircraft’s finish to weather badly in operational areas, especially in the Pacific…
Welcome to the nut house!
One method I used on one of my many, many Black Widows was to mix gloss black with flat black in a 50/50 ratio. That way it wasn’t totally flat and it wasn’t super glossy. Everyone else here is right: those P-61s really took a beating from the elements out in the field.
It’s hard to weather black paint. One trick I did was to paint the entire model silver. Then apply the black top coat. After the black was dry to the touch, I wadded up a piece of masking tape and dabbed the sticky part along the leading edges of the wings, tail, cowling, etc. The tape would lift off bits of the black paint and expose the silver underneath. What better way to simulate chipped paint than with…well…real chipped paint?!? It’s easy to overdo so be careful and don’t go too crazy with it. [:I]
Eric
[#welcome] to the Forum and the world of modeling. Seems like they answered your question. Don’t hesitate to ask there’s some great people here that are more than willing to help.
You’re right. I dug the magazine out and took another look at it. Only in a few of the B&W photos do the Widows appear to be flat black. In the color photos, they do appear to have been painted quite glossy. Some of the aircraft in the photos are heavily weathered though.
The paint seems to be flaking mostly along the panel lines. Almost giving the illusion that the panels were higher along the edges and the paint got worn off there.
My scanner’s not working right now. If I can get it fixed, I’ll try to scan the article.
I was given 1/48 monogram kit and just happen to be looking up reference photos. They painted a glossy black but this went to the way side quick. This site has a few good photos.
Depanding on what you want I think you could do very glossy (new) all the way too the worn out look and get away with it. I may have to build this soon.
You could also have a flat and lighter upper sides and gloss on the bottom where it was shaded from the sun.
If I remember correctly , in one of my P-61 reference books, the flaking paint along the panel lines was caused by the protective tape which was used to seal panels during transit. When the aircraft arrived in its respective theater, the major components were assembled and the tape was removed. The removal of this tape resulted in the paint being stripped off along those lines.
Eric
That is exactly what it looks like.
Hi all and thanks for the responses. I found a semi glossy black paint, that should do fine. I’m totally in to this game again. Love it. Working right now on a Hurricane and am painting it for the North African front. I wish I had more time for buiilding!
That’s a common problem I think. [:)]
PollyScale Tarnished black - best scale black you’ll ever find. And if you need to change the sheen, spray with an overcoat of either PollyScale Gloss, Satin or Flat.
-Fred
A bit too shiny for my taste but it’s all about personal preference so do take it as criticism. As for building, I’d have to suggest that we should never be trying to find time to build we should MAKE time to build. I can’t tell you how often I prod myself off of the couch because I figure out I could squeeze in an hour or so at the bench instead of feasting on the marvelous array of mind-numbing drivvel digitally wafting through the cosmos.
Excellent point. Going to spnd lots of time this weekend on my Hurricane.
Zar:
It’s usually not a good idea to use black paint to represent black or white paint to represent white. Remember that black is as dark as you can go and white is as light as you can go.
Model Master makes a color called Engine Gray (4749 in the acrylic range and 2034 in the enamel range) which is a dark gray that looks black when compared to other colors. However, you can apply true black over it for shadow effects.