Has anyone used the Salt Technique...

Hey moses,
It works pretty well. The geometric quality of the salt is more in line with chipped paint. It sort of like a mini-mask. It aslo looks good up around areas that get scoured by road action or equipment wear (helmets & equipment banging around, crew use and wear). And under close scrutiny you see the chips as undercoat showing through rather than painted on. The only concern of mine (and this is purely persoanl) is that it's one more coat of paint over the whole model or the area you are going to use the effect on. .ie. Primer, base coat color, camo color or over coat. Where as I am used to doing it as primer coat, camo color or over coat then the "chips" or "scouring" is done only on the points of the area of the effect.

Maybe because it is done with an airbrush the extra coat may not be as thick, and is in all actuality no doubt negligible, but its my personal mental hurdle to get over. I like my paint to go on crisp and I like my detail crisp. One more coat just softens it up.

The effect though is a nice trade off. If not overdone. I tried it out first on my test model. (That failed piece that is relegated to airbrush testing, paint tests, glue tests, hot iron effects, dremel tool bits....)

Mike

Thanks Mike, much appreciated. I agree about liking my detail crisp, and extra coats of paint might definately soften it up a bit. I will try it out on a test model first. Thanks again.

Rob

I was fascinated by that article. I may also try Cookie's silly putty idea!

Here's another question. Does the salt technique work for very small areas, like just a little chipping or wear? Does it wear away a lot more paint than just the places that the salt grains were when attached?

Only the area that is coverd by the salt. Remember that the grains become masks. Once they are rubbed off, only the area that they were covering will have the effect. If you rub the area with the loose grains captured in the cloth, the abrasive action will take more paint with it. (For that matter I suppose you could use a coarse grain sandpaper, but be careful the sandpaper will gouge the plastic not just the paint. The grains of salt captured in the rag have "give" because of the resiliiency of the rag material or paper towel or tissue so they tend not to gouge plastic. The crystaline structure of salts is also more fragile than the quartz or silicon found on sandpapers) The finer the salt, the different the reaction. Table salt will look more like sand or road scouring. It will create a finer effect than say margarita salt or the pretzel salt used in the article. The density and frequency to which it is applied will also have varied results as well.

Mike