Aircraft Battle Damage

First of all, welcome to the forum.

Battle damage isn't something I've played around with too much. But I've heard that the secret to making realistic bullet holes is to thin the plastic. This simulates the thickness of a sheet of aluminium seen on a real aircraft. Use either a motor tool or sandpaper to thin the plastic right down.

The bullet holes don't have to be perfectly round, alot of the bullets actually tumbled through the air. Some of the holes would be jagged, some round. Also, make the bullet holes random. By this I mean, don't put all the holes in a straight line.

Pait chipping is also a good way of simulating battle damage. It sounds like you've got the technique sorted.

hope this helps

Check out the current issue of FSM (ok so mine arrived yesterday and it won't be in the shops for a while).
There is an article on a 72nd damaged Hog.

The real key to realistic battle damage is to evaluate your circumstances. But that I mean determine whether you are building a bird that has survived a harrowing experience and has returned to base, or your going to build a diorama depicting a downed aircraft.
Also the aircraft will determine the amount of damage. I have seen several remarkable pictures of bombers returning to base with incredible damage. Fighters were a little different. They were built to absorb a degree of damage but damage to critical areas was usually fatal. Think about what you want to show and study your references.

Damage to fighters in critical areas were usually fatal...unless you were in a P-47 in which case you could pretty much do anything to it and you'd probably end up walking away from it. I have one book which talks about a P-47 which crash landed and didn't stop until it went through a house. The pilot walked away. I also read a story where a P-47 returned to base with much flak damage to it. The crew chief stared at the engine in disbelief because some of the engine cylinder casings were blown away and he could still see the pistons going up and down.

But getting back to technique, I read once where a person actually cut away a jagged area in the fuselage of their plane and then covered the hole with Bare Metal Foil. He then carefully handled and painted the plane and then poked and pulled up some of the BMF area with an Xacto. This made it look like the plane had received a major canon hit and blew out a big chunk of the metal skin. I thought this sounded prety interesting and I've been wanting to try this sometime.

Eric

Thanks for the help guys, the idea about using the bare metal foil is pretty good. I would assume that for truly good detail it would be wise to include fuselage ribs and the like on the inside as well.

I use a pretty crude method but it works. According to the subject, scale and things, And what is damaging it anti aircfraft or whatever, I select a scale metal tool heat it up and jamb it in! It actuall works like a dream and it's to scale! .... well i said it was crude! Apply some heat to the model before also thins it out

derrmatt,
Let me add my welcome.

The one tip I would give before doing battle damage on my model is to practice, practice, practice. Take an old build that you don't care too much about (maybe something never finished), an unbuilt kit that you don't fancy too much anymore or even go out and pick up a cheap kit (Testors has a 72nd Dauntless for $4 and anything by A model will work). Then you can practice one technique on one wing, a different one on the other. Do the bare metal thing on one side of the fuselage and the thinning technique on the other. Once you are satisfied with the technique that works best for you, then try it out on your final build.

For me I take a drill bit and drill out from the inside to where I'm las most completely through and then take qn approp size needle and poke from outside