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Stencils and fading

paddy

paddy

Well-known member
I am near needing to put some paint on my Corsair F4u, I will be doing a faded look but my question is i read somewhere that aircraft were in quite a state after just 3 weeks. The kit comes with sheets of stencils for the airframe from walkway guides to individual words.My first thought was these wouldn't have survived but then i thought well being of a different paint and Black maybe they did. Any thoughts ??
Anyone found a way of applying them and fading them as well ? I suppose the next question would be what about the star and bars in the sun as well ?
Coming from this side of the pond you didn't see these stencils all over RAF types although they are always in the kits. I think maybe in peacetime and factory fresh maybe but not during war and in the field at least not for long.
 
As I understand a lot of the damage to early Corsairs paint was done because they were stationed on small coral islands (Thats before the english figured out a way to land them on Aircraft carriers) so most of the paint damage was done by the props sucking in the small coral sand and then sansblasting the planes. Hope that helps a small bit paddy.
 
Makes a lot of sense Dave because most of the original pictures i can find show as much "fading" on the underside as topside so more likely to be shot plasted by sand than anything however i do notice the national insignia seems to survive undamaged which makes me wonder about the stenciling.
 
One thing I've found with the recent figure painting jaunt I've been on is the use of glazes. After the highlights and shadows were painted, I'd go over it with a small bit of the base color in a glaze, which is a clear medium. It tones everything down, you can see what's underneath but it's very muted. I thought it would be a great way to fade a decal, but haven't tried it.

With stencils, I'd be tempted to scrape some of the decal away, edges of letters, etc.
 
paddy said:
Makes a lot of sense Dave because most of the original pictures i can find show as much "fading" on the underside as topside so more likely to be shot plasted by sand than anything however i do notice the national insignia seems to survive undamaged which makes me wonder about the stenciling.
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Yes I have seen the same thing on Island based P38's also I wonder if maybe the paint they used for insignias might have been a difrent mixture or because it had better adhesion because it was painted on paint rather than on the primered aluminium. I have seen some black Widow pictures where the guys regularly repainted the insignias and panel lines by hand But that is black paint and I have heard that some of the paints really was not very tough paints.
 
Yes this is my theory with the stencils "no step" etc, a different black paint on top of the blue might have actually survived better..It was probably brushed on through a stencil screen so would have been thicker paint as well.
Still don't know whether to use the stencil decals..
 
Depends will the plane have been repainted yet. If it came originaly from the factory it would have had the stencils on but if it went back for an overhaul and repaint already it would not have had the stencils on.

I do think they would have still put the mayor stencils on like No step though
 
I believe I read that the insignias were maintained so they would be highly visible.

question is, are you going for a war wry veteran or something fairly fresh.

If you want the faded look on the stencils think out the blue it's on top of till it's translucent and give them a light coat.

Dana Bell has a couple of great books on the Corsair
https://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Pictorial-No-F4U-1-Corsair/dp/0985714972
 
I find perfectly sharp stencil decals to look out of place in any case, to be honest. Look at photos and nine times out of ten they're sprayed somewhat loosely and "out of focus". Aircraft were shipped to the islands on a ship's deck very often, exposed to sun and salt, so they showed up to the operational theater already faded a bit. Once on an island and thrown into that vicious arena of combat, well period pics tell the tale. I'd tone them down with a random, mottled spray of the background color lightened with pale tan. HTH and cheers, Paddy!
 
Good to see you still around Chuk, i hope life is treating you well :)
I agree stencils were often blurred a bit like when you used to see "Fragile" on a wooden packing case and it was sprayed through a stencil that wasn't tight against the wood. I do wonder though, by the time you have reduced the stencil to 1.32 whether it would sapear to have sharp edges anyway ? I mean if it was blurred at 1/32 by the time you enlarged it 32 times it would probably be unreadable. Maybe its one of those things that doesnt scale very well.
I suppose as what i am building is a bit spurious anyway it doesnt really matter as artistic licence is being stretched to the limit with my "make it up as you go along " paint job :)
 
You could do dot filtering which will fade and combine everything. I have also seen some use super fine sand paper and rub the markings down some which also simulates the way the sand and coral and salt spray would wear.
 
paddy said:
Good to see you still around Chuk, i hope life is treating you well :)
I agree stencils were often blurred a bit like when you used to see "Fragile" on a wooden packing case and it was sprayed through a stencil that wasn't tight against the wood. I do wonder though, by the time you have reduced the stencil to 1.32 whether it would sapear to have sharp edges anyway ? I mean if it was blurred at 1/32 by the time you enlarged it 32 times it would probably be unreadable. Maybe its one of those things that doesnt scale very well.
I suppose as what i am building is a bit spurious anyway it doesnt really matter as artistic licence is being stretched to the limit with my "make it up as you go along " paint job :)
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Well there is always the the Corsair that the Germans captured at one stage Its supposed to look quite funky and difrent.

You can even do one captured by the Japs
 
Thanks Dave
This is where i am at now. A long way to go but i have the basics in place. I'm experimenting with a wing repair panel and obviously this will all be flattened back later



The top is Tamiya blue base coat, light blue top coat and Tamiya RAF medium sea grey, the underside is a sort of insignia white which is a mix of Tamiya white x10 to Tamiya deck tan x1. At the moment its all still gloss and will look better when the flat coat goes on.
 
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