Hello fellow modelers.

I have a few questions. I'm pretty much set to paint my 1:72 Stuka. I got the preshade on it. Looks pretty good and I'm ready to give it color. Now the painting process seems pretty straight forward to me and will probably not be much different from the AFV's I have done so far.
But after that I kinda run into uncharted territory. I have not really access to big libraries of referencebooks. So I'm hoping to find my answers online.

1. What is the generic paint, weather and finish method for Luftwaffe aircraft?
I think from what I read it should be something like this
- Primer
- preshade
- paint/camo
- Chips (if neccesary)
- Gloss varnish
- Wash
- decals
- varnish of some sort?

2. What varnish were the Luftwaffe aircraft finished in? Matt, Satin or Gloss? (I guess this is quite important for the last step of question 1, If my assumptions on the order of operations are correct )

3. The Stuka book I have and the instructions of the Revell Stuka tell me the underside of the plane, the wings and the horizontal wings at the back need to be painted lightblue. But all the drawings I have seen online show a belly that is near white. How light was the blue used by the Luftwaffe?

4. How do you create the smoke/heat staining from the exhaust on the aircrafts body? By airbrushing or pigments or is there another method that works better then that?

I know this is quite a lot of question in one go. I have searched the articles Database here on Aeroscale but there is so much of it that I don't find it very easy to distill the information I'm looking for. So any help from the people who are better experienced then me is very welcome.
Thanks in advance.

With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

Your painting sequence is pretty much right on the money.

Luftwaffe aircraft were fairly glossy, but in model scales this would best be portrayed as semi-gloss. As they weathered, they became more matte.

In the early part of the war, the Luftwaffe's underside colour was RLM 65 Hellblau. Later on it changed to RLM 76 Lichtblau, a very similar colour which was slightly more grey. They may be compared on this chart. In certain lighting conditions, both of them can appear to be nearly white.

Exhaust staining can be done by airbrushing, or using pastel chalk dust, or a combination. Be careful not to do too much, and resist the temptation to use pure black to do it with

Hi Robert.

My sequence is slightly different with chipping and wash coming AFTER decals and varnish, otherwise you have a weathered paint job with pristine markings which looks out of place. After the chipping and wash I generally finish with a coat of acrylic clear, gloss level varying depending on the subject.

Your Stuka is looking really nice BTW!

Cheers, D

@ Jessica
Thanks for your help. The answers really help me a lot.
That color chart is also very usefull to give me an idea what colors were used.
And you say no black for exhaust staining. What should be used instead? Browns or just darker variants of the basecolors?

@ Damian
That makes perfect sense indeed to do decals and gloss coat first. Sadly I will have to take this with me to my next wing project as I have to report that this morning I binned the Stuka. Will have to buy another one.

It shouldn't be no black at all, but rather a mixture depending on what the background colour is. On light colours, exhaust stains are a borwnish-blackish sooty mess. On dark colours, they're more of a grey-tan colour. It also depends on what kind of fuel the engine used, and how long since the mechanics last worked on it.
Examples:
Dark paint, grey-tan exhaust stains , light paint, brownish-black exhaust stains.

I've seen too many otherwise convincing models spoiled by flat black exhaust stains sprayed on much too heavily.

Seconding doing all your weathering post decals.

Also remember exhaust stains often had strong metallic notes. Heavy metals, notably lead, were popular additives to just about everything back in days of yore. And fuel was no exception.

Lay a gentle dark steel, then all your other lovely exhaust palette over it if you're going for that truly unwashed look.

Finally, if you're like me and screw up a lot then futuring often is a good idea. It's less refined to future coat after every step, but can be prudent.

Hi Robert,

I concur with most of the above. However, I have some other thoughts.

First, why weather? Authenticity, accuracy; modeling a specific prototype; just because weathering is 'expected?'

Whether to weather, for me, depends on the subject and the story. For instance, we all know of B-17s with dozens of missions that were badly faded and chipped. The degree of fading should reflect operating tempo: paint on a new airplane flying and surviving a high sortie rate might remain shiny and unfaded, yet have many small chips around the de-painted Dzus fasteners. Likewise, units flying just for currency and living the calm before the storm might have faded finishes with little chipping.

Attrition: depending on the time and theater, German aircraft reinforcements might show up factory-fresh, fly dozens of missions in a few days, and then be shot down. Thus, aside from heavy exhaust and spilled POL not wiped down by harried 'Blackbirds,' a Stuka might have no weathering to speak of. For instance, the Luftwaffe carefully built up and husbanded their strength to oppose the invasion of Sicily and Italy, then flew (exact numbers escape me) 100's of sorties a day for several days, then quickly tapered off as attrition and maintenance grounded their planes. We can surmise that many planes kept their factory fresh finish for a dozen sorties over a couple of days until they were shot down.

Speaking of exhaust, both black-and-white and color photos of Luftwaffe planes frequently show heavy dark 87-octane exhaust, lacking the light gray middle of lead-heavy 130-octane fuels used by the western Allies. The falcon motif behind the cowl of many Fw 190s was to hide the thick exhaust staining; I also have a "WW 2 In Color" book that shows a Bf 109K with an amazing plume of dark exhaust almost reaching the cockpit, yet the untarnished camouflage is very shiny.

Note the Ju 88s in these pages:
http://falkeeins.blogspot.com/

Look at the 3rd Stuka here: http://falkeeins.blogspot.com/search/label/Ju%2087%20Stuka

Enough of my drivel -- get modeling!

@ Jessica
Thanks for the additional information re exhauststains. Will put that down on the harddrive in my head for a future WW2 flyer.

@ Richard
Thanks to you as well for the extra information. I have a question about the use of future. I have never used it. Can't even say I'm sure what it is precisely. What is the use of it. How is it applied and what is the advantage of using it. I have heard it mentioned in armor building as well but I have never fully figured out why people use it. Is it like a lacquer of sorts?

@ Frederick
Reason of weathering... I guess it has more to do with expecting that it needs be there. And a huge amount of inexperience in the subject at hand. I mean I haven't built an aircraft for probably 17 years and have pretty much only been doing armor since that time. Even if a vehicle is stored in a warehouse for 10 years it attracts dirt of some sorts. And it only gets worse with the amount of activity it sees. And I kinda figured that that would go for aircraft as well. But as I read your reply I see my thought patterns lack some common sense. With theatre of operation and the amount of time it was active.
I'm also struggling with some of the terminology you used. What is a Dzus fastener? And I can't say I ever heard of "spilled POL not wiped down by harried 'Blackbirds,'" I assume POL is oil or lubricant the rest I have no clue about
And if you talk about Falcon Motif.. is that part of the camouflage of the aircraft?

Would love to learn about that.

:)



Future is an acryllic floor polishing compound made by Johnson & Johnson. In Europe it's called Johnson's Kleer/Klir. It may be brushed or airbrushed. Its advantage is that it dries level without brush marks, it'll help difficult decals stick down and it's a hard glossy surface that won't get attacked by oil-based washes therefore protecting the paintwork underneath. Future is truly the elixir of the modelling gods.



A Dzus fastener is a fastener which may be worked with a screwdriver. It only needs a quarter turn to release or fasten it. They're used on panels which need to be removed and replaced frequently during routine servicing.

POL is Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants. When applied to weathering, it's replicating the spilled fuel, oil and other slippery, sticky stuff which airplanes use. If the ground crews are too rushed to clean it up, it gets very dirty very quickly.

Blackbirds are Luftwaffe ground crews, called that for the black coveralls they wore.

The falcon motif is a marking carried on the sides of some Fw-190s looking like this. The black paint helped to disguise the exhaust stains. If it wasn't there, the stains are quite obvious. Certain FW-190 units started painting black panels on the sides of their aircraft to disguise the stains, and then someone got the bright idea to paint a falcon's head in front of the panel, just for the cool factor as much as anything else.

Ola Jessica

Your willingness to help others out is never dissapointing. Thanks a lot for yet another round of great answers.

That future stuff sounds like something that is almost a must have. Where can it be found? DIY stores? grocerystores? Supermarkets?

Thanks for clearing up the terminology. I learn something new everyday. I never would have thought the falcon design was part of a scheme to conseal exhauststains. Which for me raises another question. Why was it neccessary to hide the exhauststains. It probably is again a straightforward answer but to me it doesn't seem all that important to hide that if you fly a vehicle at 350+ (I have no clue if that is even reasonable for a WW2 aircraft) kilometers per hour with a yellow nose, white bands and some fancy dot pattern on a sandcolored background.

I imagine that you can find it in any of those stores; anywhere floor finishing products are generally sold.

The hiding of exhaust stains is secondary to protecting the paint from the exhaust. The special formulation protects the metal from the corrosive effects of the hot gasses and bits of unburned fuel. It just makes good sense to make the colour black so the stains don't show up because dirty airplanes make the General unhappy; it tells him that the ground crews don't have enough to do (when in actual fact they're probably overworked). As time went on and the war started going badly for Germany all considerations of neatness went out the window.

Jessica, you're marvelous! Excellent info for Robert. Thank you.

Robert, here are a few images that may help. USN NavAir is
both a good and bad example to illustrate my ideas because USN aircraft had great paint with excellent primer, in both dark and light paint jobs. They would spend much of their time in routine ops, which in 1943 meant that they would get a lot of hours under the harsh sun and look worn out but clean. Then in action with high operating tempos, you could have very weathered surviving planes next to fresh replacements that are also stained with exhaust and POL.



This F4U is a good example. Note it lacks any significant chipping, yet it shows a great deal of scuffing on the wings; stains from the cowl and exhaust; staining wiped down along the bottom of the numbers; POL spill streaks along the fuselage ahead of canopy.


About hiding exhaust stains - other icky-poos were hidden with paint, too. At the Robin Olds section of the Hoosier Air Museum I noticed this peculiar black streak marking on Gen. Old's P-51 (see the photo to the right of the document and note the black arc under the cockpit):
At first I was puzzled by it and then noticed it started behind a relief outlet from the engine, arced along the path taken by the fluid as deposited by the airflow. If I get back to the museum I will take a detailed photo of this original WW 2 photo.

BTW, Fw 190s and Scat VII weren't the only airplanes painted to camouflage their exhaust. Note that USAF & USN & USMC A-1 Skyraiders did, too:



Another aspect of exhaust overlooked by some is that it was deposited on the airframe by the airflow. Note that the top stain is mainly straight back while the bottom one is lifted up along the upper camber of the wing:


Note the heavy staining all the way back to the tail:


Ju 88s were notorious for their horrible extreme staining. The shape of the cowling and nacelle took the exhaust from the low-mounted stacks and lifted it sharply up to, and often over, the wing, and also on the underside of the wing, which seemed to flair away from the nacelle near the trailing edge:




Hey, that one looks like mine!



I painted mine to look like a low-time Ju 88 that has recently seen a high sortie rate: limited chipping, paint still looks good, heavy exhaust.

Oh yeah, just so you know that I'm not against heavily weather airplanes, may I grace you with this model?


(My book Japanese Naval Air Force Camouflage and Markings, World War II has better photos showing this Grace and the modeled chipping.0

Ola Jessica and Frederick.

Thanks for the extensive replies. That answers quite a lot of questions with good images. Those Ju88 surely are heavy smokers. But it is definately something to keep in mind in my following builts. That Japanese aircraft you showed here Frederick is also looking pretty cool. I have seen examples of these from other builders as well that look like they flew through the hailstorm of the century before taking cover in a barb wire factory. What causes the heavy chipping on particularly the Japanese Aircraft? Inferior paint? Or is it caused by flakshrapnel?

I also would like to return to the subject of Future. Today I was in the supermarket and while I was there I checked the aisle for the floorpolishing stuff. The only thing I found was called Pledge. Which also is made by Johnson. And it is a floorpolishing compound. Is this the same stuff? If it is, which should I buy? They have 2 types of pledge. 1 for wood and 1 for stuff like vinyl and such.

They're rebranding future and kleer lately. Take a picture and someone will tell you if it's what you need.

Ola Guys

I want to thank you again for the massive amounts of help and advice I received here. Without it I don't think my Fokker D.VII would have looked as good as it does now.

On the subject of Future/Kleer/Klir/Pledge. I took a pic and put it on facebook where my question got a quick answer from some Dutch aircraft builders. Apparently they favor the bottle on the left. Which I bought and I can confirm that it works a treat. Smells pretty good too


With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

I'm going to briefly resurrect this thread to illustrate what in my opinion is heavy-handed exhaust staining using straight black. These pictures are from the recent Warsaw Modelling Fiesta feature article.



Note the heavy black paint which is applied with no regard for the effects of the airflow and it doesn't fade out as it gets further from the exhaust pipes, making it look unrealistic. Compare those to this one

The exhaust staining is brownish, wraps around the top of the wing following the local airflow and while it's still extensive, it doesn't look like paint.

Ola Jessica

I see what you mean. Aside from the exhaust stains being too dark it looks not natural at all. And it has that "last thing and I want to get rid of it feel to it.

On the BF109 it indeed follows the logical path of the windflow over the wing. I know this has to do with a particular law that I can't remember right now. But it is indeed a good insight in the physics of exhaust smoke.