So I had a plan....

I'm working on a Das Werk early Panther A. Looking at pictures of winter whitewashed panthers, it seems like there are a lot with a visible scratch on the skirts. I thought... I can do that.

I use Tamiya for the paint and sealer, and Heavy Chipping Fluid in place of hairspray. I mixed up a red oxide from Red Brown and Red and covered the skirts with that. Waited overnight. Sealed them with two coats of Tamiya clear (X-22). Waited overnight. Put on two coats of heavy chipping fluid then a coat of dark yellow and an overspray of olive green. I thought I'd do two levels of scratches, one on this coat, and then another when I went to do the white overspray. But trying to do the scratch here failed.

I used a cocktail stick, wetted the surface with water, then tried scratching the surface with the cocktail stick. It kinda worked ok mostly, but in several places it took the paint right off to the plastic.

It gave me an opportunity to try some other things. I used a sculpting tool (metal with a dull point) to try some scratches and it worked beautifully, so I'll use it next time.

After applying some vallejo acrylic to where the bare plastic was showing and realizing that was going to look too different, I started sanding the skirts down to start over. One notices that a coarse sanding stick gets some absolutely terrific scratching before applying it with enough force to take the paint off.

Anyone else have similar experiences and willing to share some tips on doing this?