exhaust staining

[jbrady]

Does any know of an article or a tutorial on using enamels or acrylics for exhaust and gunfire staining. I am knew to modeling and know nothing of pastels or oils. I'm at the point in this build (my fifth kit) where I'm afraid to ruin what I already have.
Thanks (I'll now go on read the thread on pastels I saw before I posted this)

 

[pbfoot]

Weathering Questions, Tutorials and Guidebooks - Aircraft of World War II - Warbird Forums

 

[Crimea_River]

I use pastels myself for these - extremely quick, easy and very controllable.

I don't see much wrong with what you've done on that Hellcat - looks pretty damned good to me!

 

[jbrady]

I've heard that you can't seal pastels. That if you try to use a dull coat (for instance) the pastels will wash out or worse clump together and ruin the finish.

 

[Airframes]

Well, every one who uses them here seals them with an airbrushed clear coat. The Spitfire MkVIII I'm currently working on, shown here, has the entire surface dusted with pastels, to achieve the dusty/dirty look, although the exhaust staining was painted.

 

[magnu]

If you read through the tutorial in the link pbfoot posted iy will tell you all you need to know about using pastels and how to seal them.

 

[TheRealMrEd]

Propeller engine tend to leave up to three "layers" of exhaust. The first, and largest is a light gray, representing the burned fuel residue. Next, is a smaller shade of tan, representing the partially-burned fuel, and lastly, a yet-smaller layer of more-or-less black, representing burned oil, which may also have streaks of totally un-burned oil. Size and shape of these layers will vary by aircraft type as well as amount of wear and tear on the engines, lack of maintenance, etc. You must check references for these. To get a better idea, look at an old spark plug from a car engine or lawn mower. Depending upon age, etc., you'll see these colors.

One of my attempts to show this on my Lockheed P2V-3 Neptune:

Ed

 

[mikewint]

I'm not a pastel user so I have always used Very Thin Acrylic paint and an air brush. Turn your paint volume down and slowly build up your exhaust color. Another way to do a more "streaky" looking stain is to use the Dry Brushing technique. A short haired stiff bristle paint brush...get just a bit of paint and brush onto paper until you are 90% out of paint. Again Slowly build up the streaky look.
Life Color has some excellent thin acrylic colors for this like: Smoke, Oil, Fuel, Kerosene, Dust (various types), Mud (various), Rust, etc.

 

[Capt. Vick]

I tries using pastels on a flat finish paint surface and they stuck too well and wouldn't blend. Should I have sprayed a gloss coat first?

 

[Wayne Little]

A light touch on them Pastels Jim building up gradually......and keep a clean rubber handy and you can rub it off and start again if necessary.