Hi,

does anybody have any tips how to make realistic bullet holes in an 1/32 aircraft?

regards Matthijs

I would carefully heat a needle or straight pin over a flame, and gently push it through the plane at the points you want to show as 'hits'. If you want to show the hit as going all the way through the wing, fuselage, or whatever, just do the same at the "exit wound", but move the pin in a small circle to make the hole a bit larger. Hope this helps. :-)

One thing you could do before assembly is to sand the inside of the parts where you want to place the bullet holes to thin the plastic. When the holes are done the thinner plastic in that area will more closely resemble the thin skin of the aircraft.

Definitely thin down the inside first, it will resemble thin aluminum better.
I'd recommend a rotary tool for the job.

Another thing to keep in mind is that bullet holes are in clumps, not the hollywood "straight line of holes" look.

Sean

:-) Definately thin down the plastic, make a small hole, use a pin or a drill. Insert the tip if a pointed blade and twist, to make a jagged hole. As Sean says bullet holes wont be in a nice neat line. Don't put in to many and paint the area of the strike aluminium.
Sounds like fun :-)
Mal

On some parts of the plane, remember the angle that the bullets were coming from. This could make a different what the hole would look like. Example: Like a scratch mark before the hole. (I hope I said that right)

Ok, since that's a 1/32, I suggest you should research on the bullet size that will hit it. I did one with my kit, I tried opening a hole using my pin vise then use my X-Acto knife to carve around the hole to make it better and irregularly shaped.

In addition to all the good advise already given, if you want a hole to go in one side and out the other, make the entry hole on the outside of the part so it pushes the skin in and do the exit hole from the inside so the ruptured skin is pushed out. The entry hole would be much cleaner almost like a punch hole and the exit would be more jagged and a little bigger.
And add a little bare metal around the jagged edges of the holes.

Cheers
Peter

Great advice guys. I built a B-17 for my dad with bullit holes and I did'nt thin out the plastic so it does'nt look very realistic, remember if you put holes in the fabric section of your aircraft don't apply any alluminum color to that area, like to see it when finished,Wingman out.

Note: most of this just came out of my head and therefore is not structured and therefore doesn't flow easily.
As trivial as it may seem at face-value, know a little bit about the round going through the aircraft. If it is a bullet (ex. 12.7mm/.50cal, 7.62mm/.30cal, etc), it will, if, not stopped by say armor or a thick piece of metal, go straight through; in and out minimal damage (clean entry point, maybe little outward of an opening for the exit hole. Cannon shells explode on contact on after the piercing of the skin of an aircraft, making large jagged holes. A lot of times it is hard to even tell the entry point as, unless it doesn't go off, the explosion it makes leaves multiple holes to the outside. Since damage from other aircraft by a gun these days is rare, I'm assuming that you are talking about earlier aircraft.
While many aircraft can carry gun pods (of either machine gun or cannon), no real gun on front-line aircraft today is standard-equipped with a machine gun, they are all cannons. Obviously if your damage is of a P-51 attacking a Ju-88, you won't simulate cannon holes. Similary, if you use a Bf-109 (most carried a combo of guns), you would use a combo. If you are modeling bullet damage from the ground, the same applies. Know your anti-aircraft guns as well. An 88mm shell causes substancial damage, much more than a .50cal bullet.
So keep in mind the kind of damage you want to simulate.

H all,

thanks for all your great advice. The plane I am building is an A-10. I've seen pics of them with massive battle damage, such as completely shot of wings and destroyed engines. Can anybody tell me what caused the damage on this pic: http://www.a-10.org/photos/p.asp?FileName=battledmg%5F01%2Ejpg Is it caused by bullets or shrapnell? (you know, grenade parts)

Regards Matthijs

Thats shrapnel most likely. Most aircraft battle damage isn't from actual bullets but cannon shells exploding (ie flak) or SAM shrapnel (ie proximity fuse detonating but not hitting the aircraft).

My guess would be a SAM-7 or maybe a SAM-10? The damage is from a laser fused weapon, that didn't require a direct hit to detonate and cause damage. SAM-7's are man portable and are everywhere. The SAM that I'm thinking of (I think it is the 10) is a 4x tube launcher mounted on a small tracked carrier with its own radar---it uses SARH with TIRH with a backup IR mode in case of jamming or fear of someone ruining your whole day with a HARM oor ALARM down your throat.

How you can tell it was laser-fused, as opposed to some other method of proximity fusing (radar, for ex.)? Not doubting, just wondering what, if any, telltale signs you were using.

basically you can't unless that you get up so close to the seeker that you are blinded by the laser then your head explodes ! Actually the only way is to know what kind of missile your talking about. Some have single fuses, but most have at least two seekers. If I'm not mistaken, the laser fuse is similar to the proximity fuse, just using laser instead of radar. As for the SA-7s and SA-10 (and this comes into knowing what kind of damage you want to simulate). The SA-7 Grail (9K32M Streka to the Russians) has only one fuse - that being contact. The Russian SAMs are confusing to those that know them. The SA-10 Grumble (S-300PMU) is the complete opposite from the Grail. It is a HUGE 7.0m (as opposed to 1.47m Grail or 5.2m PAC-3 Patriot missile) missile with a standard 100kg warhead (73kg for a PAC-3) using proximity and contact fuses. It is a very capable system, the latest SAM system fielded by the Russians. To my knowledge Iraq didn't have SA-10s, but if they did, they were in very limited numbers. The missile is mounted in and four-pack cylinders on a ten-wheeled (or 8...not sure/can't tell) vehicle roughly comparable to a SCUD launcher. The launch battery system is similar to the Patriot in that the launch vehicle doesn't have an integrated radar; it needs a Flip Lid or Clam Shell radar and a control van.

The SAM system you're talking about is either an SA-11 Gadfly (9K37M1 BUK-1M) (radar), SA-6 Gainful (ZRK-SD Kub M93) (Radar), SA-13 GOPHER (ZRK-BD Strela-10)(IR shooting), or SA-15 GAUNTLET (9K331 Tor) (command guided). Personally, I think you're talking about the SA-13. For more information I'd go to www.fas.org and click on conventional weapons and ROW missiles.