Is this Silvering?

[Guest]

Yes I was a bit late in getting my brain around that one Steve. Age I suppose. Last decal job this worked like magic. Did not need a gloss coat all though this must facilitate placement of the decal.

Wondered why the decals have to have the offending silvering part on the perimeter but it must be a technical thing.

Laurie

[BarryW]

Actually Steve Vallejo will supply you with hand made colour charts. Cost more than nothing though.The colour card they supply is OK to give comparison but it is not accurate in the printing. For instance the Vallejo Air grey I have just airbrushed no. 50 matches 47 on the colour card.

Best thing is to go nutty , like me, & get the whole range. You can then do your own tests. Bit expensive but not much in comparison to other past times. Less than the cost of a good quality cricket bat. Less than a TV licence. Plus not much more than a good evening out. That cannot be bad. Switch your heating off for a day & you have saved the amount.

Matter of interest not had our heating on in the 9 months we moves into our flat. Good insulation. Or could it be that all the flats around us have their heating on full blast.

Laurie

Laurie - the one I posted is one that specifically deals with RAF colours and explains the wartime camo schemes with suggested Vallejo Model Air paints. It is not just one of those colour charts where you can compare the colours. On that you are right the colour chips you can buy are far better than printed charts as the latter can vary so much in how they render colours as do screens.

Incidentally Vallejo do Luftwaffe and US leaflets too and if you email them as I did they, I am sure, will post you them. I am not sure why these are not available on the website.

[Guest]

Apologies Barry just making the point that colours on paper are not accurate. With scale etc it is better to have a range that it is possible to choose from as I find the actual colour is in a great deal of cases not authentic, if that is not a great contradiction, when applied to a model in scale.

laurie

[Guest]

It's a bit late now as I missed this first time around. With decals like that, made in one piece with a lot of decal film to make life easier for the manufacturer I would strongly advise cutting out the individual letters and markings using a sharp blade and steel rule, removing as much of the excess decal film as possible.This won't necessarily prevent silvering but it will make it much less of a problem and much easier to sort out.

Cheers

Steve

I thought of doing that way back in March when I did my first ever decal but thought it might weaken the image and cause it to crinkle. With experience I can see that it wouldn't. I will trim in future. Thanks for that.

[Guest]

I was going to ask a question that Laurie just touched upon above.

When you get the colour charts, are they adjusted to account for the different visual effect you get when at scale?

I.E. if I make a model saab 9-5 and spray it in cayenne red it'll look "wrong" to the eye.

So are the colour charts "actual" colours or "adjusted" to account for scale?

[BarryW]

I was going to ask a question that Laurie just touched upon above.When you get the colour charts, are they adjusted to account for the different visual effect you get when at scale?

I.E. if I make a model saab 9-5 and spray it in cayenne red it'll look "wrong" to the eye.

So are the colour charts "actual" colours or "adjusted" to account for scale?

No, not all but some do. After all the models the paint will be used on will be all different scales.

I did see a chart showing what percentage to lighten the colour at various scales. Here it is, just found it.

http://www.cybermodeler.com/color/scale_effect.shtml

[Guest]

Thanks Barry, that's interesting stuff.

[Guest]

Cannot categorically say Colin but I am sure they are the actual colour. If they had to grade for scale they would have to take into account all the scales 1/72 to 1/24.

Edited bit. Missed Barry's reply but on the same wavelength.

Laurie

[Guest]

Thanks Laurie, it's just something that's puzzled me for ages and I've never asked, I mix all my own paints just to look "about right" and don't use an airbrush for modeling so some things evade my pea brain. Only time I've used an air brush was to do mural/art work on a car and to touch up damage and exact 1-1 scale colour match was easy.

[stona]

I think those lightening factors should be taken as a rough guide to scale effect. There really is no formula. I do it by eye until it looks about right. For example on my current Lancaster build in 1/72 I lightened the 'black' under side colour considerably more than the Dark Earth or Dark Green to go on top. It's down to experience I guess. I would say that on small scale models you can lighten a lot more than you might expect and find that it looks fine. You also have to allow that varnishes tend to darken colours too.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

Unfortunately, after spraying with Vallejo Matt varnish (a different bottle from the one last used and which caused white spots—another post), the effect returned more strongly although different, with white patches. I bought some Model Colour (because more opaque than Air) black and Dark Sea grey (to give a matching "off black" for the Lancaster) and painted it on the affected areas: forward of the "A"; between the "A" and the "J"; and aft of the "J". Then re-varnished. The result is much better although not perfect (please see below). I'm not sure why I got silvering in this model (Revell) and not on the other two (Airfix). Apart from the manufacturer difference, I think that the gloss varnish I put on before the decals was not thick enough:[ATTACH]73935[/ATTACH]

BTW, Model Colour Dark Sea Grey is much lighter than the Air version, despite the same English name. That caused a bit of confusion:

[ATTACH]73936[/ATTACH]

BTW x 2: Does anyone know why Air colour patches are graded while Colour ones are not? Can Air paints be applied thinly to give a paler result? Not in my experience, so far.

The Model Air Patches are graduated because model air is classed as semi transparent and model colour is classed as opaque

[Guest]

The Model Air Patches are graduated because model air is classed as semi transparent and model colour is classed as opaque

I can see the reason for the graduation now. Thanks.

[Guest]

Interesting assessment but apart from those difficult yellow colours one coat of Model Air I have found obliterates. Even with a thinner of 33% the coverage is dense.

Possible I suppose that with a mixture of priming colour and top colour you may get shining through. As said Yellows are the devil and some blues.

Laurie

[Guest]

nice is that a dambuster lanc?

[Guest]

quick little test is to brush paint some over some black text, do a single brush stroke with the colour straight out the bottle. and see how many it takes to hide the text, some colours will cover better then others, we know this from colour theory. but you will be supprised that it can take upto or over 2 coats sometimes. This is also the theory and working behind pre shading models. it only works because the colours are now semi transparent from over thinning to allow them to spray. Do the same with some model colour and i think you will be supprised.