How to paint and weather a modern carrier deck

[didgeboy]

Noob to ship building and need some help on the How To for modern carrier decks. Need a tutorial on How to paint and weather one so it looks nice. Any help is appreciated. Cheers.

[sgtryan13]

It all depends on just how weathered of a look you are going for. Modern carriers seem to be my nich in the modeling world lately, so here is what I do: (and you can seet eh results by clicking on the link in my signature line)

the only color I use adn recommend to paint modern carrier flight decks is Tamiya "german Grey" acrylic. In my opinion, this is a perfect match for modern CVN deck surfaces. Not only is the color good, but the paint is a little thicker than many other brands, and dries with a type of non-skid texture to it, which I feel is a real big plus when working in 1/350 or larger, it adds to the realism.

Once you paint the deck, gloss coat it and apply your decals, then seal those with another coat of gloss, I prefer "future floor polish" for the glossing. Once all the gloss is dry and the decals properly sealed give the deck a flat coat, now comes the fun part, weathering!

Give the entire deck a wash with highly thinned black artist's oil paints. Then go back and add darker mixes of the black in ares that you want to see more grime (around blast deflectors and especially int he main landing area where the wires are.) Let all the oils dry, then break oput the pastel powders, and use black and shades of dark grey to add soot to the deflectors, and more scuff marks inthe landing area.

The best part about this technique is that you can easily remove any or all of the weathering if you mess up, and start again. Once you like the results, seal it all with another coat of flat clear and you're done.

[Bent Wing]

Would the Tamiya "german Grey" acrylic color also apply to the 1950's USS Forrestal as well?

[sgtryan13]

Well to be honest, early carriers are not my strong suit, so you may want to ask that question in the calling all ship fans section. If I recall correctly though, the earlier carriers had a differennt deck coating for the landing area than the rest of the deck, so you may need 2 different colors. For a Vietnam era Forrestal, I think you would be good using the german grey, but again, I'm not as well versed as I am with the modern CVN's.

[BombMagnet]

Somehow the pastel powders are not working so well for me. When I seal them with a clear coat, they pretty much disappear, and the constrast is not much. Any specific tips for working with the pastel powder? Perhaps I should simply use a very, very light shade of grey so there is more contrast. I am trying to simulate the general wear to the flight deck, thus no soot of tire tracks at the moment.

[sgtryan13]

With regard to the pastel powder, as you have learned throught he clear coating process, you need to apply considerably more pastel powder than you want on the finished product to make up for the amount that will simply be blown away from the air blast.

What do you mean by simulating the general wear of the flight deck? On my CVN's, I give the entire deck a good coating of thinned black artist's oil paint first. This gives a good dirty grimy effect. once that is dry, then I go back and hit areas that I want a little dirtier, especially the landing area with more concentrated black oil. the last step I do is use the pastel powder to simulate the exhaust stains.

[BombMagnet]

Speaking strictly from how things appear, when looking at photos a lot of carrier decks seem to have have large patches of lighter color. I just assumed this was from general wear to the flight deck. Within some of these areas there are darker patches, presumably from soot, grime, oil, etc.

I have never been on a carrier, so my main goal is simply to model it as it appears.

BTW sgtryan, this is slightly off topic, but what color do you use for modern USN carriers? (The carrier itself, not the flight deck)

[sgtryan13]

Ok got cha. Those "patches" you see, if you mean the ones that are squareish, are likely areas that they applied the non-skid coating at different times. When a ship is relatively in good shape out of the yards, the deck is more uniform. but the non-skid is put on in grids, so if you looked at a real deck close up, you may notice "seams" for lack of a better term on the deck since they apply the non-skid in sections. As the ship is in service for longer periods, some areas may get more wear than others (around the blast deflectors, and in the landing area for sure) so as those areas get worn down more, some new non-skid coating may be applied to that area only, thus giving you a darker section of deck. I have not yet seen this effect modeled, but I understand how it could be daunting. IF I were to do it, I suppose I would mask off some areas of the deck after it is painted the overall base color, and spray a lighter or darker shade of the base to simulate a fresh (or at least newer) square patch of non-skid application. I imagine that this technique would be tricky to pull off convincingly, and would run the risk of looking like crap if not done right. For my preferences, the really heavily worn decks just look sloppy on the real thing, and are an eyesore, so I choose to model my flight decks using only oil and pastel weathering, heavier in some cases, lighter in others.

For all my modern USN builds, I use Testors model master "neutral grey". I have tired a few others in the past, but I swear by this color, as do a lot of other modern USN builders. For my $$$ or any price really, that color can't be beat, and I have not seen a colot that I think does it better.

[BombMagnet]

Thanks for the info, it is very helpful.

Semper Fi

[silvershadow]

The best part about this technique is that you can easily remove any or all of the weathering if you mess up, and start again. Once you like the results, seal it all with another coat of flat clear and you're done.

I have never done this before. I get the spray, gloss coat, decals, matt coat. (Color done in Acrylic) Do one mix something else to the German grey for a more sun tanned color look? I find the german grey is really dark.

Now if i do spray with oils on the deck after that..and you find its not right.. how do you remove it? I know its a noob question but I also dont want to start this process before i know perfectly how to.