Metallic??

I took these photos of a preserved USAF F-4 at the Seattle Museum of Flight. I imagine the USN bare metal would look the same

You certainly are on the right track.  Some brands of paint have a "burnt (burned) metal" color, which can be used to simulate heat oxidized bare metal, either steel or a fancier metal such as titanium. Go very easy on the rust- these components may show a slight amount of brown but not too much.  I'd describe it as a "warm" gray.  Sometimes there are the slightest amounts of red, blue, violet, similar to burned chrome but not nearly as much.

Thanks for the photos, stick.

Yeah Don, I agree - very little on the "rust".  I just remember there being a hint on most of the tailpipes I've seen in the fleet.  You can't operate the vanes very well if they're rusted.

Thanks - if anyone else has a lead, let me know.  It looks like a  layered approach - steel, black wash, reddish grey, maybe some blue.

Reid

If you really want to go nuts with it, Alclad has several relatively new colors created specifically for tackling this issue: the Hot Metal line.  They're transluscent colors meant to simulate heat effects on metal.  I haven't tried them myself, but they certainly looked good in a recent build in FSM.

Poster with the tag of Out2gtcha on Large Scale Planes has been doing a *magnificent* build of the Sukhoi Su-27 in 1/32 for half a year (almost done with it... check it out under the 'From Russia With Love' group build section), and he came up with an even better idea.  He bought the metal aftermarket AB set, and physically annealed it with a lighter flame.  Nothing simulates burnt metal like... burnt metal.  :-)