RDM2 Special Night Query

[Max Headroom]

Quick question if I may.

 

I have the rather nice new Airfix 1/72 Defiant to paint soon. I rather like the all-black shark mouth version.

 

My understanding is that RDM2 Special Night was very prone to weathering and chalking. There are any number of various aircraft for instance where it is obvious that the finish is not ex factory.

 

 

 

 

Does anyone have tips on how to replicate this? I'm going to use rattle can black for the overall colour. I know that the finish is supposed to be chalkboard mat, so how do I get the variations in tone? Can this be achieved with patches of satin/gloss varnish or do I need to mix up the shades a bit?

 

Thanks

 

Trevor

 

 

[GrzeM]

Were the bombers on the photos painted in Special Night Finish, or just Night (which was less matt and slightly bluish)?

 

My idea to obtain Special Night is to paint whole model in very dark grey model paint (acrylic or enamel or laquer as you like, rather matt or satin than glossy), apply the decals - then apply some black artist oil paint over it with soft, good quality paintbrush, very thin layer carefully but not necessary evenly smeared with many strokes over the base. Finally, after the artist oil cures, some corrections can be done with dry cloth or cloth slightly wet with turpentine or other proper paint solvent.

[Max Headroom]

Thanks for the reply GM!

 

I have to admit a total lack of experience with oil paint - I'm just getting used to acrylics!

 

In my mind I'm used to the idea that the finish was rather unstable and would peel off to reveal a Night undercoat.

 

But maybe I'm just imagining things......

 

Trevor

[Nick Millman]

It seems to have varied. In the 1941 RAE report mentioned in the thread on Dark Green paint the reflectivity and resilience of the RDM2 finish depended on both the factory application method and paint manufacturer. The degree of "blackness" varied, reflectivity between 1-2.5% with the ICI finish (Blackpool Wellingtons, Manchester Manchesters and Lancasters) being praised as the preferred standard and the Cellon finish (Weybridge and Chester Wellingtons, Weston and Filton Beaufighters, Burton Wood DB-7s) criticised. The Titanine finish (Cricklewood Halifaxes) applied over its own Titanine UP1 primer was considered unsatisfactory but when applied over UP5 (Preston Hampdens) was ok. If the Titanine was applied over other primers it cracked, flaked off and sometimes destroyed the adherence of the primer to the metal.  A lot of the criticism was levelled at poor, unskilled and inconsistent application methods. 

 

An old method used to simulate the RDM2 finish on models was to apply an enamel blue-black Night then a poster paint black over that (Pelikan Plaka was favoured) but it resulted in a pristine looking, albeit dead matt black finish unless roughed up. The primer paint applied under the Night intermediate coat on the real aircraft was grey and would be revealed in extreme cases of weathering or damage to the paint surface.

 

Surface chalking can be simulated by lightly spraying a heavily thinned down pale grey over the black but I don't think that would work with the poster paint!

 

Nick