I'm just finishing my DML Stug.III G Early (DX07 Georg Bose Special Ed) and wanting to go along and picture the actual vehicle I've come up against one of my "modelling boogeymen" namely: THE DREADED WHITEWASH!

I've studied the subject a bit and decided to try my hand at the hairspray method.

This is what I did and what came out of it:

Testbed: Old Italeri Sd.Kfz.234/4 built some years ago and painted with enamels.

Step 1: Cleaned and coated the kit with clear gloss auto varnish. Left to dry for a week or so.
Step 2: Sprayed with hairspray all over. I used a simple Schwarzkopf Palette spray - cheapest I could find at the store. Left to dry overnight.
Step 3: Spray-painted the white cover on using Humbrol Acrylic paint thinned with Tamiya X-20 Acrylic Thinner and matted with some Mr. Hobby Flat Clear

HERE BE TROUBLE! as the paint started drying it - or most likeley the hairspray underneath it reacted to the paint and/or thinner and.... shrunk?, best way to put it really and cracked... Had to spray more paint over the cracks to get a more or less even (but by now quite thick) coat...

Step 4: I started chipping and rubbing off using a hard paintbrush, toothpicks, a rough sponge and water. I did this after different drying times (5-60 mins) to see how the paint would come off best I guess.

My impression of this step of the process: easy enough at times, the more the paint had dried the easier it was to work on, but still managed to build up in blobs of gunk that I hade to scrape or cut off.

Here are the pics, all suggestions and comments regarding other materials, application processes, times etc will be greatly appreviated!!!!!

It was probably a reaction of the paint. i wouldnt mix different brands of acrylic paints together.

Hi,

first of all: you don't necesserely need to dry the hairspray overnight, give it just some 40 minutes and you can start spraying the white paint over it...and let that dry a bit...

now, about the cracks: it has nothing to do with mixing different brands of paint...I had the same problem with plain Tamiya...it's possible that the layer of hairspray is too thick and cracked when drying...I had the same thing, but you can use the cracks to your advantage...it doesn't look too bad in my opinion

although your whitewash doesn't look too bad at all, I'd suggest a more moderate approach: I just use a small piece of sponge and here and there a very little bit of toothpick...

anyway, keep on trying, you're on the right path...

good luck

cheers

Hi

What you need to do is only apply a thin cote of white, just enough to give coverage, It might also have been better to us a paint that is known to be easy to remove, something like Tamiya flat white, I find Tamiya Mat paints will come off if the wind changes direction, well not quite but you know what I mean. I have also seen very good results where the white wash medium was just crushed chalk mixed with water and that too came off easily. Also with the two above methods you may not even need to use hair spray, just use a good cote of spirit based varnish to seal the base cote so that the water applied to remove the white wash dosen't effect it.

Paul