C VEICH wrote:
Dan Johnson II wrote:
They did that with that Buchon at Duxford. I thought it looked silly. It's not a model. Lopes Hope, Upoppa Epops, Dottie Mae, and the Jug that Paul Allen has all fit the bill as far as I can see. Let them weather naturally, not by faking it
What was done to the Buchon was hardly what I would classify as a legitimate attempt to realistically weather the aircraft. Much more of an artistic impression, and not a particularly good one IMHO. It would be interesting to see if your opinion might be different were somebody to attempt it in a far more realistic and methodical manner. Of course much boils down to personal tastes as well. As a builder and competitor in the flying scale model arena I am a proponent of weathering. However, I tend towards the "less is more" approach. That would be how I would approach it on a full size aircraft as well. "If your weathering is obvious then you've probably done too much of it" is how one well known scale modeler puts it. As far as weathering naturally, I agree to some extent. However, very few (read none) restored warbirds are going to experience anywhere near the level of use and abuse that these machines were regularly subjected to in service. Some weathering commonly seen in service would simply not ever happen naturally. At any rate I was just wondering if John or anyone else thought that we might be headed down that road in the future.
I'm a model builder as well and I often am amazed at the amount of weathering some folks do to their birds. It's all a matter of taste I guess. My favorite is always when Johnnie Johnson's Spit gets done and it looks like it's been showered with mud
Wing Commanders birds didn't tend to get as worn looking as others.
Being a Spit XII junkie this is my best example. Which one is weathered accurately, the Flight Commander in front of the wingman behind?
EB-B looks pretty darn clean and shiny. EB-D has seen some wear. Sierra Sue is in the EB-B category already after being flown. So I think the natural weathering is the way to go