Tips on airbrushing plastic to look like wood

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

I’m currently working on a 1955 Chevy Cameo pick-up truck and the bed of the truck is comprised of wooden boards. The woodgrain is all ready detailed in the plastic of the models bed, I just need to airbrush it. Does anyone know any tips, tricks or advise on getting a realistic finish so that it lokks like real wood? Any help is appriciated.

Thanks,

J

2

This is better achieved by brush painting not airbrush. You’ll find one such method here.

http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/hintsandtips

3

I’ve done it with both airbrush and regular brush. Another trick I’ve seen is to apply a base coat, overcoat that with a slightly different wood color and then either sand through or rub through with rag and thinner.

For the regular brush I drybrushed the second color. For airbrush I used a DA brush with thin paint and very light application.

4

Last winter I did a Chevy Titan Dump Truck, Instead of the plastic Boards at the top of the dump bed, I used wooden coffee stirs. The are the perfect scale 2" x 6"

I realize that in some cases, cutting all the “plastic” wood out of a model isnt practical. I was hoping to do this to the Flatbed Semi Trailer, I want to get 2 Flat bed trailers and make them into one 53’ trailer. Still I’m not sure how much work I’d get into on that.

Thanks

Ken