Need some advise on deck painting/weathering

Depends upon what time period you're modeling her. Early in her career, pre-war, her decks would have been natural wood. Early in her war time career, when she was overall gray, photos in Raven and Roberts British Battleships book show her with dark gray decks throughout 1940-43. She refit and repainted in April-May of 1942 and came out with an Admiralty Disruptive scheme, and her decks still appear very dark. Her career basically ended in November of 1944 because she suffered from constant structural failures and major flooding when she put to sea, so she was used as the Flagship for the CiC, Home Fleet, Scapa Flow.

Obviously, dark gray is easier to paint than natural wood, and there's only a handful of people (I know only two myself, and one is Alan Raven) that can argue that she may have had natural wood decks.

Paint the decks gray, do a dark brown wash, and drybrush with a lighter shade of gray.

Jeff Herne

Thanks ,
I will take all that into consideration, I can already tell that painting the gray will be alot easier,but just say i want to go wood for the decks,what color or colors should i use.Also when it comes to the wash should i use acrylic,or enamel? And what is best
used to thin these two paints for the wash?
Eli Cannata

Here's a trade secret I use for deck washes...

Find a gaming shop...you know, Warhammer, etc. Games Workshop sells acrylic based inks, browns, chestnut, black, and something called 'Flesh Wash'. I use these on my decks, thinned with a little water of course.

Acrylics are more forgiving than enamels, but are also more susceptible to damage, scratches, etc.

Either way, spray your deck color, allow it to dry, then spray a coat of Future Floor wax over it, and allow that to dry for 24 hours. Once that's done, you can use a wash of thinned ink (as I do) or a wash of thinned paint. I prefer inks because the pigment is part of the carrier, not suspended in a carrier like a paint wash. I get very good results, and a $3 jar of ink goes a long way. Beautiful thing is...if you mess up, a small brush with clean Windex will remove the ink completely, even if it's dried and appears to have stained the paint. It's very forgiving.

If you do go with wood, I use a Polly-Scale color called Concrete, it matches weathered teak quite nicely...a tan with a gray hue to it. To thin acrylics, I use a 50-50 mix of rubbing alcohol and distilled water. For enamels, lacquer thinner.

Jeff