I am just in trhe finishing stages of my SBD-2 and in a hour or so will have it futured and ready for weathering/decals... now here's the question... the aircraft was relatively new when it flew in the Battle of Midway so there's not going to be a lot of chipping and grime on it... but with salt air/water and the sun beating on it days on end while in flight ops I imagine there would be some fading to the control surfaces and such...
Have any of you weathered a mid war USN aircraft with the blue/gray over light gray scheme?
My thought was to take the blue gray and add a smidgen of either white or maybe better the light gray itself and mask and mist the control surfaces (don't want to make it too heavy) was also thinking about hitting the upper engine cowl before adding some smoke from the guns.. (saw a few references and they showed this same weathering pattern over the cowl, I imagine from engine heat and sun. beyond this I am going a light wash of the panel lines and a moderate exhaust stain and that should be about it...
The second thought I just had was either a very thin light gray wash over the masked control surface or drybrushing it.. or both... I imagine at the frames of the control surface the weathering would be a bit more.. (thinking of my wifes swing with the canopy in the backyard, it's green but faded, but at the frame edges it is more greenish white...) so dry brushing the edges would add to that I believe...
any thoughts on my plan of attack? the times I've weathered before it's always been to grime it up... this time I am trying to lighten it up so not sure if my plan is fool proof yet haha...