Here's what I posted in the aircraft thread:
Eyup everyone.. Just thought I'd share the progress of my slat tech-tester with everyone else. I'm currently slapping together a 1/72 Revell Ju-88 with as a purpose to test the salt weathering technique. I know that I've overdone the chipped paint bit, but thats the idea for now.. Sorry about the pic quality, but I mad ethese pics with my mobile phone cam.
Now for my review:
Any dietitian will tell you too much salt is bad for you. In the case of modelling, too much salt is also not good. In the case of my Ju-88 I knew this was going to be a test-bed AC, so accuracy and detail took a back seat (or perhaps way back in the boot or even on the trailer). Oddly enough this was one of the best examples of airbushing I had ever accomplished. Woohoo! Anyway, I started off brush painting the thing in a sturdy coat of humbrol aluminium enamel. When that was dry I followed the instructions in last months FSM. Make wet, add salt. I found I could push the damp grains of salt around until I had them right where I needed them. I also used it to mask the bombardiers compartment windows. I put it on the wingroots, leading edges, cowling panel lines moving parts.. The list goes on. Basically it was a salt mottle. After that followed the blue-grey underside. When that was on I airbrushed the green-grey base for the top. This was done with a revell enamel on top, but I forget what I used underneath. It was also an enamel, though. I put on extremely thin coats of paint for this. I also ran into the first problem rearing its salty head. On German WW2 aircraft, a lot had, as you are well aware, splinter camouflage. This required hard edge masking. because of the salt buildup, I fount it rather difficult to apply a mask to these area´s without getting the risk of a soft bleed into the masked area. Fortunaltely when the salt rubs off, it takes most, if not all, of this overspray with it. After a few days break, I applied the grey (also revell enamel). The applying of this was tougher than expected, due to the difficult masking and the fact that the colour schemes on the instructions didn´t line up at all. At last I finally was able to apply the grey and removed the masking. I was left with a rather lumpy looking, but neat (ish) Ju-88.
Now here´s a quick word of authenticity warning here: I have no idea how authentic the amount and locations of paint wear are. I didn´t really do any research, as the only reason I chose this Junkers is because it was the cheapest kit on the rack at the time. Also the colours aren´t a proper match, though I´m pretty sure it was aluminium underneath :).
When the paint was dry (hot sunny day, thin coat, i.e. five minutes later) I started to go to work. I initially started with a piece of paper towl, but the jagged salt granuals shredded the paper. Then I moved on to a piece of cloth (a piece of a pair of old jeans). This was a bit of a bad idea, because it left its colour on the plane. It also left fluff on the bits of glue left over from the masking tape. When I was looking for a masking material all I could find was sellotape. Not my brightest move, because it tends to loose its glue after a while. I´ll be removing that with some terps and hope I don´t have to respray. Anyway, after a while of just using my fingers and nails the plane started looking nice and battered. It is such a dramatic difference from applying metal colours after the AC is painted. The salt crystals have nice, fractal edges, giving it a lot more randomness than any other method I´ve used before. As I mentioned earlier, I used it to mask the bombardier compartment windows. This gave a very satisfying result, as not only were the windows paint free, but the window frames were nicely weathered! The overall result is a natural looking erosion of all things painted. In some places you can see the imprints the grains of salt left in the paint underneath (underspray, perhaps?), but that will disappear when the wash goes on.
This is a great and dead-easy technique. The basic trick is to not overdo it. This goes for everything, really, but it can get O.T.T, as Shermanfreak rightly told me. Have a good, long look at pictures of your build-to-be and use sparingly (unless its a Japanese aircraft). Also bear in mind that you might have to mask the object as well. I am already a big fan of this method. I´m leaving the aluminium thats showing a dull colour. Reason being that the aluminium would be tarnished and dirty in the open air, unless frequently walked on.
Hope this helps, people!