Woody V

And a few months after all these aftermarket upgrades hit the market someone will release a state-of-the-art injection kit. Or at least that how things work for armor models. I had one of these kits for years but I never built it. Ugly and beautiful. Really looking forward to seeing yours finished.

I’ve decided to give the while salt fading thing a rest and I'm working on the paint work that will go on under it. I made some progress on my mule's fuselage. I decided to try two different approaches so I’m trying each by dividing the model down the center and paint each side differently. For my first attempt I’ve decided to go with this sequence. First I laid down the colors, but my hands just won’t cooperate if I try to freehand so I had to make some quick masks from bond paper. This worked out well. Then I pre-shaded/highlighted the whole thing. At this point everything other than the Sea Blue has been overcoated, and you can see the masks on the front and also the fact that the vertical stab is the wrong color, but at this point I don’t really care. My main objective at this point is to test the masks and pre-shading. Then I used highly diluted colors to fade out the pre-shading which is somewhat more obvious in person than it is in this picture. Okay, this looks like it’s going to work. However, although the Sea Blue is “correct” it’s WAY too dark! Straight from the bottle doesn’t even come close to the color photos of combat Corsairs in the Pacific, plus it makes it nearly impossible to delineate things like panel lines. So I’ll lighten the Sea Blue for my next attempt on the other half. This whole process of sorting out how to paint this thing is becoming more of a job than something I look forward to, but when it’s done all that matters is the finished product. Nobody cares how much effort you put in, all they see is the finished model, and all the effort invested prior to painting will be wasted if I don’t nail the finish. Thanks for watching.

Yes, but it's still cheaper than the one they copied to make "theirs".

No wincing but I did get a chuckle from one of your first posts on that build: "This looks to be another relatively straightforward build; or at least, I hope it will be"

I'm embarrassed that I'm even commenting about this considering I'll never have a model turn out as excellent as this but.... there's a little detail that hardly anyone ever includes on bombs. There's a cable, or wire, that secures the fuse arming "fan" from turning until the bomb is released, and it should be easy to add even now. Seem a simple contraption with one end secured to the rack and the other end on the "fan". Here's my attempt on my SBD:

Got a link?

I concur.

This happens when the paint forms a continuous film that goes from the model, up the edge of the tape and onto the top of the tape. Best way to avoid this is 1. use mist coats and 2. remove the tape as soon as possible.

No color callouts in the instructions?

That's odd. What did you use to thin the Mr. Surfacer? I use Testors lacquer primer (no longer available) and it's thinned in the bottle with acetone which is hotter than lacquer thinner and should (or at least it appears to) etch the styrene to create a molecular bond. Other than that, my only other suggestion would be to put the paint down wet.

Finally starting to make some progress on this on-again-off-again salt fading journey. The Sea Blue is so dark and opaque that I abandoned the pre shading idea and tried post shading by mixing a darker Sea Blue and a lighter Sea Blue and misted them on which solved the etching problem. So now that I know this works I have to be more aware of where I apply the salt so I don't wind up with such an even coverage. Getting this effect to mean something is the goal. My biggest problem is that I just don't have enough experience so I have to gain it through these tedious experiments, but I'm getting closer.

Yea, this is turning to be nothing but. Every time I get one attempt sorted out something else goes south. So far I've run five different tests on those long suffering wing mules and 800 ml of lacquer thinner used to clean my airbrush between colors. Although I swore off the idea of salt fading I'm going to try again now that I know what caused the etching. At this point, nothing is off the table, even pastels. The whole process is tedious and somewhat exhausting but when it's finally over and the bird is painted, nobody cares what you went through to get there, the only thing that matters is the finished product.

This thread started in 2019 and based on the number of builds I've seen using this method, I'd say we have a winner.

Don't forget the bullet hole.

Don't give it a second thought, we good. Off topic sub discussions sometimes take on a life of their own and I just didn't want that to happen.

Figured it out. The etching is a result of my VERY thin mix of leveling thinner and a few drops of color. Mixed like this softens the underlying paint and the salt sinks into it. Regardless I’m passing on the salt fading. Too much work and too little experience. It’s the old dog and new tricks thing so I decided to do things I can do.

This thread is about salt fading. The chipping thread is over on the tips and techniques forum.

This thread is about salt fading, not chipping. The chipping thread is on the tips and techniques forum.

Those are very astute observations, very much appreciated and I agree to almost everything you said. I'm hardly an expert at photo analysis and I wasn't there to see first hand but the aging that I see in pictures is more dirt, grime and spills than splotchy fading. Chipping varies but leading edges of airfoils and edges of certain areas do show paint removed down to the bare metal. As an aside, I think chipping on model airplanes is overdone too many times. However, trends in model building change and right now we're in "Splotchy Days" and when it's "properly" done it is kinda cool and impressive, plus it has the side effect of breaking up large areas of solid color. (Insert "it's supposed to be fun" here) I'm aiming at these goals in this build: Restrained splotches, faded paint in areas most likely exposed to the sun, heavy dirtiness in high traffic areas like wing roots, and restrained chipping appropriately located. But of course all of this is probably beyond my pay grade and I'll wind up with something.

Within a month or so Archer will be operating again under new management, and there's a little twist that might just interest you, but don't tell anybody, it's a secret. The website is back for training purposes, and you can order from it same as always. ARCHER LINK

That's brilliant! Any tips on getting the flash out of the places between the treads? How in the world this damned rubber tire thing caught on and still plagues us is beyond me.

SECOND TRY: Pre-shading with black only on Intermediate Blue and a second attempt to portray faded fabric. For the life of me I can't get straight water to stop beading so back to the water/detergent mix which I believe had nothing to do with the salt etching the paint. This time I let the paint dry overnight. Dry and ready for the diluted white (10ml thinner and six drops of white). I applied four passes of the white with a few minutes drying time between. I didn't get a picture of salt for the black (10ml thinner and 3 drops of black). I applied 3 passes of the black. The results don't seem to be worth all the aggravation, and I'm just doing this on a flat thing. Going through all this on the built model might be more work than it's worth. The following two pictures also point out the big problem with cell phones - they don't have an "M" setting to control exposure. Note the color of the green mat. BEFORE AFTER I'm going to give it one more try, but on Sea Blue which is much darker. SIDEBAR: I did discover that if you put too much paint over the pre-shading you can use a fine sanding sponge to bring up more of the pre-shading. Hardly ideal, but it's an option.

Chuck, I did just that (minus the clear coat) and it was a big improvement, but the polishing part wiped out most of the salt weathering in the process. Ignore the mess on the fabric.

Besides the fact that this build is inspiring, I can't ever recall a build with a better understanding of how to apply decals.

Is he using lacquer or water based paints?