Wood grain finish for the interior of Monogram's B-17G.

[Don]

Hello all,

I have been slugging away at the interior of my Monogram B-17G for the past week…boy there is a great deal of interior to this kit ;) ! Anyway, I need to come up with a way of duplicating/replicating the wood grain look to the floors, interior doors, and some other areas of the kit, but I have no clue as to how I go about doing this. Do any of you folks have any idea how I can make a plywood type of look on the plastic?

Thanks for any and all advice, I really do appreciate it!

Kind regards,

Don

[MickeyThickey]

Prime model with pale, matte enamel. White, sand, light tan, etc. Allow to dry thoroughly.

Dab blobs of oil paint on your primer. It can (should) be spotty, and you're better off with too little than too much.

Pull/drag paint with a dry, fairly coarse brush (those ones you used in grade school for painting? those are good). The coarse bristles will produce the grain, so if you use a really fine brush, it'll be too subdued.

Use a sort of dry brushing type motion, pulling the paint in one direction. If you need to add more oils for even coverage, try to do so fairly quickly, as you *could* soften and eat through the primer coat if it's not cured long enough.

Leave to dry for a couple of days, at minimum.

The oil paint will form ridges and valleys from the streaking. There there's more oils, it'll look like the dark portion of the grain. Where it's thinner, more of the primer shows through, and it will look lighter.

[The Migrant]

I used wood-grain decals when I built mine.

[madmike]

Mike

Did you make those yourself?

MikeJ

[MattN]

This is what I do when I have the hankering to build a tank with wooden boxes/crates for added external storage (I've done a cou8le of modern tanks fighting in Iraq, and they carry everything but the kitchen sink, it seems.....)

I paint the box with Tamiya Buff acrylic paint and allow to dry for a couple of days. I then brush on some burnt unber artist's oil paint in the direction of the molded-in, engraved "wood grain" lines in the plastic, then brush off the excess with Q-tips, again in the direction of the "wood grain" lines. The more artists' oil you brush off, the lighter shade of "wood" you'll have.

It's very similar tio MickeyThickey's process as above.

[Colin W]

here are a couple of pics done basically the same as described by Mickeythicky

Not hard but takes practice.

Looks better wet I think.

Cheers Colin W

Edited May 11, 2007 by Colin W

[onplasticwings]

Hi Don,

I have had some great luck with using "actual" wood.

If you have a cigar store nearby, ask the person working there if they can give you the thin wood sheets they use as inserts in cigar tubes. If they don't have any just lying around you may have to buy a cigar (in the tube) to get what you need but the last time I tried, they were more than happy to give me sheets of the stuff at no charge.

It has grain, can be stained, and glues easily using just white glue.

Hope this helps,

Mark

[Aggressor Supporter]

I used wood-grain decals when I built mine.

Wow!

[96Delta]

World War I modelers have had to contend with

this problem forever. Fuselage, instrument

panels, struts, props, etc.

Here is a quick selection of links to build

articles. A quick search on Google for the

term "1/48 wood grain" serves up lots

of useful links. <S>

http://wwi-cookup.com/albatros/diii/kitreview_eddiii_bl.html

http://www.wwi-cookup.com/albatros/dv/kitreview_eddv_bl.html

http://hsfeatures.com/features04/fokkerdviioawwb_1.htm

http://hsfeatures.com/albatrosdiiitb_1.htm

David

[Old Man]

A pretty quick method, Sir, that I find gives good results.

Get some washable markers (kids' toys will do nicely, but there are artier ones with a greater range of colors) in brown and yellow, and perhaps a tan tone or two.

Paint your surface a very pale buff or pale yellow, or a light tan if you want much darker final results, in acrylic or enamel.

Rub the markers on some tin foil to bleed some of their ink onto it. Pick up the ink with a brushful of water-base clear gloss acrylic. The result is a transparent brownish paint, that when brushed over the part quickly will leave a streaky result that looks quite like the patterns of wood grain.

You can also rub the markers onto the painted part, and go over that with a brushful of the clear gloss; the effect will be about the same, but tends to be a bit darker, in the range of whatever color mix you are using.

You can vary the pattern by moving the brush in a vee path, or an occasional sworl. But you should always make each stroke in the same direction on each piece you do this with.

Obviously, a little experimenting would help you get the knack, but it is pretty quick all around. You can vary the undertones on a single piece, or on different pieces side by side. You can vary the blend of the marker inks. Anything from mahogany tones to spruce or bass-wood is readily gotten.