Advice on Washes for Warships

1. If using acrylic, you can use acrylic, enamel or lacquer for a top coat, just be aware of the wash. If using an acrylic wash, use enamel or lacquer for the topcoat.

2. If you're making your own acrylic wash with water, use acrylic paint.

3. You'll have to come up with your own technice for washes. YouTube has some good info but I use a mix of techniques. I rarely use a broad wash and prefer to use a pin wash (small areas such as panel lines or hatches). I also use oils for rust, oils and such.

I use an acrylic clear coat, regardless of the paint (s) under it.

I make my washes from artist oil paint diluted in odorless turpenoid. Both are easy to find cheap at Michael's.

The turp won't attack the acrylic, and if the weathering goes wrong it's not difficult to remove.

Your SMS ship burned coal, which would meke her incredibly dirty.

Bill

Use a clear gloss, Pledge/Future, over either acrylic or enamel.  Satin or flat clears have 'flattening particles' in the clear coat which will trap the wash particles resulting in a muddy appearance.   Clear gloss is a barrier and helps move the wash around and helps remove too much of the material.  

Use a non-acrylic wash solvent wash.  No windex, ammonia, alchohol.   Water may be ok.   I make mine with artists oils and turpenoid.   It is a mild solvent.   Use Payne's Gray, raw or burnt umber.   Black is too harsh.  

The Tamiya panel liners; black, light gray, and rust brown are pretty good for pinpoint washes

I mix in little paper cups. The usual recipe is a couple of tablespoons of Turpenoid with a little scoop of artists oils about the size of a small grain of rice, mixed up. It's a whole lot easier to add more washes that to try to take too much wash off.

Flow it over an area of the model and let it sit for 15 minutes or less. Then wipe it. It goes slowly but results are far better than creating a sludgy mess.

And yes, it works best (really only) on a glossy surface. A flat surface will grab the wash and create stain spots.

This is how I weather armor and aircraft. For ships, I like using powders. I guess because they are big and can use up a lot of wash.

Bill

If the intent is to pop out surface detail, a suitable shadow contrast color can work better than pure black or black/brown (brown is good for wooden decks in natural colors).

Less is more here.

Ships are tough for this, too, as they will often have huge swathes of blank, featureless plastic which will hold no wash at all (unless yo use refernce photos and scribe in surface details, which takes a light hand as well.)

Scale effect is important here--viewing a 1/350 model at 12" is the equal to seeing the real thing from 350' away.  There are a lot of details that "vanish" at that distance.

Which bring the next issue:  Weathering.  Naval vessels seldom go more than 6 months without a port visit, and every 30 days for more food is more typical.  Ships operate in a rust-creating environment.  If conditions are good, a portion of the ship's crew can be put over the side and repaint the hull in 2-3 days.  As long as she's sitting still moored, at anchor or the like.

While underway, there are a few dozen sailors with the only function of seeking out peeling paint and rust, and correcting it.  This is especially true from the main deck and up the superstructure especially around the bridge. 

The masts and stack tops might get neglected at sea, but will nag as the XO until the next Port Call, at which point the Deck Division Officer will be assigned to set the deck apes to correcting bad paint.

This is part of the reason why warships seldom show weathering in photos.  Warships also have excess sailors who need to be put to work lest they get up to mischief, too. 

Merchant vessels are only manned to need, and are often beat up and rusty.

And I suggest working from photos as much as possible. The SMS existed in the era of photography, so there's lots to find.

Modelers often think they know where the weathering is, but this often leads to replicating tropes seen on other models.

Bill