need help weathering pby cat

Your question vexes me.... I assume you are asking: "What color should I use as a wash..." when you have these two different colors?

I for one have always believed that black washes are too black for most applications. I would try a dark to medium grey but something that is a little darker than your medum sea blue-RAF ocean grey you mentioned.

Your right, I mean for the blue of course. The medium grey works fine for the grey underbelly but, hardly shows up on the blue. I don't want to use black, but maybe a bit of insignia blue may work. Or maybe, I should go with a lighter color. And how does rust play a part?

"Life sucks, wear a helmet."

Black isn't such a bad idea, but fool around on a scrap piece of whatever painted the same colors as the PBY. Try some different colored washes, you'd be surprised what looks good.


Fade to Black...

I would try a black wash, the only reservation I would have on the cat is the width of the panel lines, black may exagerate them too much. A dark grey may work also. But panel lines are technically shadows and should be black, unfortunately on many kits they are out of scale and the black becomes too dark.

It's all in the technique...


Fade to Black...

QUOTE: And how does rust play a part?

It doesn't, they were fabric covered aircraft.
Useless trivia: Watertight integrity was not tested by putting the aircraft in a tank of water, they simply put a hose in a side blister and filled the aircraft. If it couldn't leak out, it couldn't leak in either.

Perhaps some early Catalinas had fabric covering portions of the wing and I believe even the later versions may still have had fabric covered control surfaces. But Catalinas were not fabric covered aircraft, they were all metal.


Fade to Black...

Blackwolf, I saw a special on it once and was surprised by how much fabric there was. I thought it was metal with fabric control surfaces but a surprisingly large portion was fabric.

claymore,
I've got to go with blackwolf on this one, I just stood underneath a PBY on Father's Day at the San Diego Aerospace Museum and they are most certainly all metal. I don't know how much fabric they may have had in some spots but the fuselage and wing are metal, at least on the one I saw. I could definately be proven wrong.

There should be no rust..not on an aluminum aircraft..just corrosion. Aluminum corrosion is typically whiteish or white power.

but even corrosion should be non-exsistant. Aircraft (especially navy aircraft) were kept in decent condition and crews would have used corrosion preventative to stop any from forming

Right on! Thanks for all your help. Iwas not aware of the corrosion factor. Ido believe all the major stress parts (non-moving, i.e. not rudders or elevators) were aluminum, I, too banged against the PBY-6 being restored at the airport in Santa Rosa,CA but the plane had tipped over in a freak funnel-cluod type windstorm so they may opted for more aluminum(?). Anyway, seems metal to me, but the beds in the back evidently used to treat shot down pilots and such were surprisingly comfortable. Also got a good look inside the craft itself. anyhoo just got done runnin' fiber optics for runnin' lights and navi. quarters, cockpit, etc. will take pictures when done. Any photo tips Wolf?

"Lifesucks, wear a helmet."