SH Tempest Mk V "Kicked Up A Notch". January 14/21 New eBook!

[zaxos345]

Absolutely amazing!!! 

 

John

[chuck540z3]

24 minutes ago, JayW said:

When I finish my Corsair (in a couple of years) can I send it to you for painting and final finish?  What a fine Tempest this is going to be!

 

Sure Jay, I'd love to!  That bad boy of yours deserves the best paint you can find, so I now highly recommend you try the MRP line of paints if you haven't already. 
This is what I like about them so far:

 

1. No thinning.  The viscosity out of the bottle is exactly what I like to spray
2. Little ball inside aids mixing.  So simple, but few paint lines have it- and Alclad should definitely be one of them
3. Quick drying time
4. Despite quick drying time, tip doesn't sputter due to tip clogging
5. Good opacity and with the above quick drying time, you can get 2 coats on during the same painting session
6. Bottle caps don't stick shut like every other paint I've used
7. No need for a primer, because the paint sticks to plastic really well, allowing masking without peeling
8. Amazing color selection- almost 300 different colors
9. Smooth finish for non-flat colors, eliminating sanding between coats.  This of course assumes that the plastic is very smooth to begin with
10. No need to clear coat before decals, because the finish is smooth enough already
11. Low odor- for an acrylic lacquer
12. Easy clean-up with lacquer thinner

 

Here is the Mr. Paint website, with colors by country no less:

 

MRP Aircraft Paints by Country

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2020 by chuck540z3

[AlbertD]

22 minutes ago, chuck540z3 said:

 

Sure Jay, I'd love to!  That bad boy of yours deserves the best paint you can find, so I now highly recommend you try the MRP line of paints if you haven't already. 
This is what I like about them so far:

 

1. No thinning.  The viscosity out of the bottle is exactly what I like to spray
2. Little ball inside aids mixing.  So simple, but few paint lines have it- and Alclad should definitely be one of them
3. Quick drying time
4. Despite quick drying time, tip doesn't sputter due to tip clogging
5. Good opacity and with the above quick drying time, you can get 2 coats on during the same painting session
6. Bottle caps don't stick shut like every other paint I've used
7. No need for a primer, because the paint sticks to plastic really well, allowing masking without peeling
8. Amazing color selection- almost 300 different colors
9. Smooth finish for non-flat colors, eliminating sanding between coats.  This of course assumes that the plastic is very smooth to begin with
10. No need to clear coat before decals, because the finish is smooth enough already
11. Low odor- for an acrylic lacquer
12. Easy clean-up with lacquer thinner

 

Here is the Mr. Paint website, with colors by country no less:

 

MRP Aircraft Paints by Country

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

 

 

 

It's so good I can even do a decent paint job. I also find it can spray a pretty fine line with little over spray. Perfect for free hand camo painting.

[Brett M]

Chuck, I’m curious to know if you like the MRP paints? 

[chuck540z3]

2 minutes ago, Brett M said:

Chuck, I’m curious to know if you like the MRP paints? 

 

A little embarrassing, I know. 

 

When guys were gushing over these paints here in the forums a few years ago, I thought, "Big deal, how good could they possibly be over Tamiya lacquers?"  In terms of a nice smooth finish, they probably aren't better, but man are they a lot easier to work with.  To get a nice Tamiya finish, I had to decant, thin and sometimes my airbrush would sputter due to the tip drying, so I'd have to clean the airbrush and start again, while cussing at the splatters on my model.  None of that with the MRP paints that I've used so far!  However, I would be interested to see how these paints behave in a gloss finish.  The Tamiya lacquers are hard to beat.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Brett M]

You don’t have to sell me on them. The few MRP paints I’ve used so far are great. I’ve already been ordering future paints to use, plus I have the tri color scheme paints ready to go for that Dauntless I have collecting dust on the bench. 
 

Looking forward to seeing this one finishing up...great work!

Edited November 13, 2020 by Brett M

[AlbertD]

10 minutes ago, chuck540z3 said:

 

A little embarrassing, I know. 

 

When guys were gushing over these paints here in the forums a few years ago, I thought, "Big deal, how good could they possibly be over Tamiya lacquers?"  In terms of a nice smooth finish, they probably aren't better, but man are they a lot easier to work with.  To get a nice Tamiya finish, I had to decant, thin and sometimes my airbrush would sputter due to the tip drying, so I'd have to clean the airbrush and start again, while cussing at the splatters on my model.  None of that with the MRP paints that I've used so far!  However, I would be interested to see how these paints behave in a gloss finish.  The Tamiya lacquers are hard to beat.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

The only MRP gloss I have used is black and it's every bit as good as the other paints. I only used it on a paint mule to try under an experimental bare metal finish. It would have looked amazing on 1953 Cadillac. 

[vvwse4]

Hi Chuck,

 

Looks brilliant, as usual, and a great tutorial, thanks for taking the time for doing that.

 

Rick

[scvrobeson]

Great tutorial on the HGW decals Chuck!  I've got a set of them for an upcoming Camel build, this will be good to reference when the time comes with them.  Do they settle into panel line and rivet detail well?

 

 

 

 

Matt

[chuck540z3]

 

3 hours ago, scvrobeson said:

Great tutorial on the HGW decals Chuck!  I've got a set of them for an upcoming Camel build, this will be good to reference when the time comes with them.  Do they settle into panel line and rivet detail well?

 

Matt

 

Hi Matt,

 

Yes, that is where they excel!  Below is a pic of the HGW decals on the bottom of my Spitfire, with the top one lying along 2 deep panel lines.  No way you could accomplish that with a lot of decal film.

 

 

 

 

 

November 14/20

 

 

As mentioned earlier, I want to weather the paint to make it look used, but not abused, to try and replicate this pic which I’ve shown many times.

 

 

 

 

To do so I used the old tried and true salt weathering method.  Although I wrote it 12 years ago, this thread at ARC on how to do it still applies today.  Unfortunately, the pics are watermarked by Photobucket now, but you can still get the gist of it and I have my F-4E and P-51D added to that thread many years later:

 

Salt Weathering Technique Tips

 

 

Salt weathering isn’t for the faint of heart, but after you’ve done it a few times it’s pretty easy.  For this model, I modified things a bit, because I:

 

1. Didn’t apply a gloss clear coat.  This is a bit of a risk, because with a clear coat I can delete any subsequent painting if I want to.  Without a clear coat, what you see is what you get, permanently.

2. Did not use the hair dryer hardly at all.  Rather than drying the model immediately after applying the salt, I let the salt crystals dissolve for a long time, which allowed them to reform into new and complex patterns.  If you dry the salt too quickly with a dryer, you risk blowing much of it off and only little salt squares remain.

3.  Applied the subsequent coats of paint very sparingly.   This model is not a heavily weathered F-14 Tomcat or WWII Pacific Corsair, so while the paint is chipped, I just wanted the paint to look worn and a bit faded.

 

 

So here we go!  I sprayed a coat of warm water with a drop of detergent from a spray bottle, then simply shook salt from a shaker all over it.  This is messy, so I did it in the kitchen near a sink, placing the model on a small box that I could discard later.

 

 

 

 

Letting the salt dry slowly without a hair dryer, you get a terrifically random masking pattern like this.

 

 

 

 

 

Same for the bottom, although less salt since the undersides are protected more than the top.

 

 

 

 

For weathering paint, I mixed a small bottle of Light and Dark Ocean Grey, Dark Green and just 1 bottle of Dark Medium Sea Grey for the bottom, because it is very light colored already.  Each bottle has a bit of White or Black to create each color.  I also mixed a bottle of Tamiya Smoke that was heavily thinned, to create dark patches and knock down the glare of the bright insignias.

 

 

 

 

After painting, I let the model dry for an hour or so, then carefully rinsed the salt off under the kitchen sink.  All this water will eventually get under the masks, so all masks were removed to allow everything to dry and remove all the salt.  Here’s the bottom, which is again subtle.  I will be adding staining with pastels later.

 

 

 

 

 

The top after a coat of Tamiya Clear Flat lacquer.  Very subtle from a distance, which was my goal.

 

 

 

 

No zebra pre-shading and no dark washes filling in every panel line and rivet.  Just weathered paint that looks natural.

 

 

 

 

Now some close-ups so that you can see the difference.

 

 

BEFORE.  All you can really see for weathering is some chipping

 

 

 

 

AFTER.  Note the tonal variation in the paint, especially the light grey.  I think this is more effective than using masks with holes cut in them, because it’s so fine and random.

 

 

 

 

I’m happy to report that there was no leakage under the cockpit masks, which scares every modeler!

 

 

 

 

This angle shows the lighter colors within the Dark Green.  Too bad you can't see into the cockpit a little easier, since I spent so much time in there getting everything just right.

 

 

 

 

The side roundel is not as bright as it appears in this pic, as you will see in the pics below.

 

 

 

 

Here’s another BEFORE/AFTER comparison.

 

 

BEFORE

 

 

 

 

AFTER.  Now weathered paint, including the roundel and fin flash.

 

 

 

 

A few more angles

 

 

 

 

I can envision ground crew boots on this wing doing maintenance.

 

 

 

 

And Pierre Clostermann getting in and out of the cockpit, chipping the paint with his boots and flight equipment.

 

 

 

 

 

Close-ups of the wing.  Those HGW stencils are amazing.

 

 

 

 

It’s sure nice not having to worry about attaching the wingtip navigation light at this late stage.

 

 

 

 

Closing thoughts on the salt weathering: 

 

1.  One thing I forgot about is that the final dull coat knocks down the effects of salt weathering and paint chipping a lot.  You need to overdo it a bit, because the dull coat smooths out all light reflection and diminishes the differences in paint colors.  In hindsight, I wish I had made the salt weathering a little bit stronger, but I’m still happy with how it looks now.

 

2.  Salt weathering is often (if not usually) overdone.  I hope my experience shows that you can get a nice tonal variation to your paint work without it jumping out at you- and not look realistic.

 

So that’s it for now.  I still have a lot of work to do with the landing gear and other bits, but I’m on the home stretch now!

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

Edited November 14, 2020 by chuck540z3

[Brett M]

Very very nice, the flat coat and salt weathering are really bringing it together. Looks like a "used" aircraft, but not "abused"!

[chuck540z3]

Thanks guys.

 

One thing I've been dying to do ever since I painted them is to add the exhaust stacks.  Well, since I'm done with weathering, no reason to not install them now.  Exhaust staining will be fun, because it's quite different than a Spitfire.

 

 

 

 

The other side, which brings up a point that I wanted to address earlier.  Although the Barracuda nose to fuselage join is kind of big, it usually is on the real deal as well, mostly because those engine cowlings are taken on and off often, so the join at the rear is all over the place.  Also, as I indicated earlier, the panel line mismatch at the rear is real.  This shot is taken at the equivalent of about 2" away, which magnifies everything, flaws and all, which I can't see with my naked eye.

 

 

 

One of the reasons I do these WIP threads is that I find some flaws with my close-up pics.  Sure enough, there are a few above with small salt blooms and some residual liquid mask.  Consider them now gone! 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited November 15, 2020 by chuck540z3

[AlbertD]

Thanks for the easy to follow instructions. It looks great and very natural. No artificial looking streaking or brush marks which is something I've been fighting with since taking weathering more serious. It really ties the camo colors together.

[Alex]

Love the restrained salt weathering.  It was especially effective in cutting down the "newness" contrast between camo and insignia.

[nmayhew]

beautiful as always, and thank you for the salt weathering tutorial

 

whilst i disagree that you cannot get the detail and randomness with masks / templates, the big advantage is that it can be done after all your chipping etc