Tinted Canopies

[GTX_Admin]

Hi folks,

One aspect that often causes grief for modern modellers is trying to replicated the gold/other tinting on modern combat aircraft canopies (see examples below).  What techniques do you use?  What works? What doesn't?

[Litvyak]

Very apropos as I consider what to do for my CEF-108 build. I've been thinking just to use a thinned clear yellow to paint it...

[Spey Phantom]

tried it once with Revell clear orange, was a disaster, could try thinning it and add multiple coats, but the problem is that the canopy might lost its transparancy, however, the recent revell F-16 releases (exs. the tigermeet 2009 F-16) comes with a pre-tinted canopy.

[Wulf]

ive heard of a few drops of yellow food colouring in kleer/future.....never tried it tho

[Frank3k]

I've tried gold Rub N' Buff and it worked fairly well. The first application will be opaque; I then rubbed off most of the material until it was transparent (with a slight gold tint). Further applications made it darker. One advantage of using Rub N' Buff is that the canopy gets polished in the process. Just make sure it's well supported internally while polishing, or it may develop stress fractures.

I've also used Tamiya clear yellow and it works just as well (straight or mixed with Future).

[GTX_Admin]

I've tried gold Rub N' Buff and it worked fairly well.

Do you have any photos off this Frank?

[Frank3k]

I tried a couple of canopies, and discovered that the Rub 'n Buff has to be fresh - if it feels grainy, the effect won't look good.

Here's the first canopy and the Rub 'n Buff:


That didn't look good, so I tried with the second canopy.

Here's the "raw" second canopy. It's about 20mm long and not very clear:


One layer of gold Rub 'n Buff applied, allowed to dry then removed (by rubbing with a soft cloth):


You can see the problem; the Rub 'n Buff was grainy (probably drying out in the tube) so there are thicker and thinner spots and a general uneven finish.

I removed the gold Rub 'n Buff and applied  silver  Rub 'n Buff from an unopened tube. It went on smoothly:


Removed most of that layer:





It's more of a smokey silver, but you can still see through it:


As a second experiment, I wanted to try Tamiya clear yellow, thinned with denatured alcohol. First, I removed the Rub 'n Buff with some denatured alcohol on a soft cloth:


The Rub n' Buff polished up the plastic a bit.

With the thinned Tamiya clear yellow:


As an experiment, I put some of the crappy gold Rub n' Buff on the Tamiya and buffed most of it out:


The gold spots are annoying; it should have been a smooth color, like the silver Rub 'n Buff but some of the gold did give the Tamiya yellow a gold sheen; it's easier to see in person.