HOW TO: Natural Metal Finishes

[Second Air Force]

Another quick masking-with-foil example: This is the spinner for a Romanian Bf-109 I'm currently working on. First painted the white, then masked that 1/3rd, then the yellow tip and masked it, then the black.

HOW TO: Natural Metal Finishes

[No.1]

[Second Air Force]

Ellen and I went to a (very) small contest yesterday and found this RB-47 on display.

HOW TO: Natural Metal Finishes

This is a nice example of using various materials to achieve a NMF finish. I didn't talk to the builder or see any description of how the model was painted, but thought it would be a nice example of natural metal for our thread. The kit, incidentally, started as a Hasegawa B-47E in 1/72 but I am not sure who manufactured the conversion.

[No.1]

Nice work! And how was at contest? Regarding to this great kit seen there, it was not small at all!

[Second Air Force]

Sorry to say, the contest was very poorly attended for a town the size of Tulsa. This was the only multi engined airplane at all, and only a few entrants in other classes. Nice people and good show venue, but not many builders to compete, probably twenty aircraft in all IPMS classifications. This, to my eye, was the best military model in attendance.

[No.1]

Very small to regret

[No.1]

Here you are simply instruction how to make metal peel of area on the aircraft surface. First at all, you need to spray some good surface on the top, in this case this is Base White. Next to do is to make very smooth surface and use 4000 to 6000 grit sanding paper. After that spray coat of silver paint. Spray it on surface where you need to do peel of paint and it is important to check out available images for precise details. When silver paint is completely dry, spray a thin coat of hair style spray. It need to dry from 10 minutes up to 30 minutes maximum. After that spray camouflage colors over, single or several, no problem at all.

When top coat of paint is dry, take short and strong brush (most of those for classic oil painting are like that) and with a little water, 'brush' over surface with a stronger pressure. Very soon you will see top color is removing and bottom silver is start to appear. Change brush size, movement and pressure in order to get specific shape of damaged paint.

Model by Tweety

[Second Air Force]

Another excellent method to get this effect! I would never have thought of hair spray but it makes perfect sense now that y'all have shown it!

[No.1]

This method is used on many of my builds

[Second Air Force]

This is how you did the Typhoon recently? Now my eyes are opened!!!

[No.1]

Yes, Typhoon is did n+in that way. Just a note- I use acrylic paints, no idea how this could work with enamels

[Tweety]

This is the best method for modeling ,but for hair it's a hell . 

[No.1]

Dear friends,

lets share some tips in work with Alclad metalizers. I am new with this product but after I have try them, hardly that I can change it for some time. here you are set of the aluminum paints which will be used on this P-75. Lets first note some basic for work with Alclad.

Surface of the kit must be absolute smooth, at need sand it with best filler few times to fill possible gaps and scratches. I use Gunze Sangyo Diluted Putty and it work great. Final sanding of surfaces have to be made with at least 1500 grit paper and finer. Spray basic coat of black surfacer, Alclad have its own and I have used there black surfacer from Gunze Sangyo.

From my point of view, best start with lighter color and then add others. In this case I have start with with ALC-119 Airframe Aluminium color. Do not cover surface in first pass but apply paint direct from bottle in few layers. Paint are ready to spray and can be used with spray gun only. It dry fast and I apply another thin layer and after that one more.

Final image show it completely covered in three thin layers of paint. After complete, I spray enamel thinner through airbrush, as I know Alclad is lacquer based paints.

To be continued...

[No.1]

Bad news- this coat is very sensitive. I try to protect some area for the application of another coat and I remove it with this result, silver paint pilled off. As well bottom black primer stay intact, I can guess it is not problem with primer. Alclad have its original black primer and in next work will try this again. In order to continue work, I have spray thin coat of gloss varnish and hope this will make easy work with masking tape. Masking tape I use is Tesa, for sensitive surfaces.

[Second Air Force]

Yes, this happens with Metalizer, also. I have found that spraying clear over the masked areas helps, but sometimes even the clear lifts off unless the tape is very "unsticky". My best results are with simple masks that I hold in place without tape....