Gun Barrel colours

[PainlessWolf]

Paul,
The Gunmetal Blue looks good unweathered as well. ( inserted a pic of the .50 cal on the Pershing ) To get to your stage of realism take a good deal more work. ;o)
warm regards,
Painless

[Bogeyman]

Loving your work guys, thank you for sharing, I to will look into that modelmaster gun metal blue, I am usually a Vallejo convert, but hey I will try anything once.

John

[scalawag]

Paul,
The Gunmetal Blue looks good unweathered as well. ( inserted a pic of the .50 cal on the Pershing ) To get to your stage of realism take a good deal more work. ;o)
warm regards,
Painless

Your .50 Cals look really good too Painless.

A good starting point is always helpful and those Tamiya .50's are excellent. I used several different MG34s and barrels for parts for the 2 in the picture. Research helps too, and I will usually download dozens of pics of the real thing before painting.

[jackalope]

I meant no disrespect with my first post if it came off that way I certainly apologize. I was only trying to say what was said in following posts by Mr. Scalawag and Painless.

Scalawag and Painless, WOW guys those look FANTASTIC! I now know how to properly paint my small arms thank you both.

[scalawag]

Hi jackalope.
No need for apologies as far as I can see, and certainly no offence taken by me.

Good to hear you picked up some ideas.

Paul

[hawkeye3guns]

Hi I don't know if this is of any help but I have had 38 years in the armanents industry (proofing and testing from .50 cal to 105mm L19's.
Most of the smaller calibre weapons are made of Gun metal which has a high chromium content and so was pretty good for corrosion protection, some of the smaller calibre weapons (.50cal to 30mm )in the early days right up to early 1980's had a phosphated exteria finish to which was added a dye to give the colour (in our case) a cobolt blue colour giving a bluey black finish. when dry it had a dull matt finish but after firing a proof the barrel became lighter in colour. This finish was really was not a lot of good for corrosion protection but did stop any reflections from the light and blended the barrel into the surrounding. I always told my students to give the barrel a light wipe over with an oily rag after shoots to give it some protection.
Other weapons had a surface finish called sulphinose which had 2 purposes, one to give the metal and tough surface finish and the other to give it a smooth overall black with a slight grey tinge colour.
Since the mid 80's a company in switzerland designed a paint called Glyclake which is cable of withstanding temparatures up to 700'c and you can have it in any colour you like so we then switched to it. The paint has to be applied in one coat and then baked at 3 differant tempuratures over 12 hours but gives an extremly hard and corrosion resistant finish to any metal (but at a cost its about $3000 a litre). still you get what you pay for.
Hope this is some help in answering your question.
As an aside most of the units I have come accross in the field vary in colour depending on the manufacture and what dye they used. The tendacy I have found is that the older units are darker in apperance than the newer ones. And depending on the maintainer a lot have light corrosion spekles along their lenght, Although I came accross one unit that the maintainer regually kepted a tin of black lead and gave all his units a polish to keep them tidy ( I always kept well back when he fired them the smell and fumes was horrendoes) but they looked good .
Regards Denzil

[scalawag]

Thanks Denzil, That some really helpful information.

[jtracks]

After seeing the scale accuracy you all have achieved has changed my previous mind set. I will try harder, thank you.

Joe

[scalawag]

After seeing the scale accuracy you all have achieved has changed my previous mind set. I will try harder, thank you.

Joe

Hi Joe,

It can be done, patience and attention to even the smallest details really helps, have a go and keep practicing. Go slowly and always do less than you think it needs, and stop before you think it is finished.

I really love the research side and detailing, I always have in most of the hobbies I have been involved with.

Paul

[jtracks]

I will Paul. I just purchased a WSN Tiger 1 for very cheap. I will use it to learn how to paint and make other modifications. If I don't like it I can always start over and not worry that I am ruining something nice.

Joe