Hey guys,
I have an old Revell USS Arizona in 1/720 scale. I built the exact same kit about 25 years ago and it was my very first plastic model kit. I'm now an armor fanatic and I haven't built a ship in years. How should a weather it? Should I use a wash and then dry brush? Or just use pastels? Any help would be great.

Don

Donatelo:
Weathering is not my speacilty, but I have been reading atricles and experimanting a little with it. On another site there is a guy who wrote that since the older BB's were coal burning that he used a pencil lead scraped on the verticle surfaces to represent the stain the coal left from the stacks.
He would scrape the verticle details with the lead then smudge it with his fingers or a brush in a downward motion. This give the ship the look of coal being washed off by the crew.
http:www.modelwarships.com
Click the how to link and the aricle is there
I posted the exact link somewhere on the warship forum thread but I can't find it.
Hope this helps and good luck.

Hey Warlock,

Thanks for the info and the link. I need all the help I can get!

Don

anytime hope it helps and hope you show us the results soon

Donatelo and Warlock, your tip for weathering a coal fired battleship sounds good to be. The thing though the USS ARIZONA was oil fired. That is what kept her out of WWI, because the British had limited oil reserves and they had to keep them for their own oil fired ships, such as the Queen Elizabeth class and the R class.

I would like to see some WWI High Seas Fleet or Grand Fleet coal burners done this way. I would think it would look very good.

Half:
You are abslolutly right. The Arizona was Oil fired, but I think the weathering may look the same. It was late when I wrote the post after a long day. . I keep forgetting that the zona was built for WWI and not WWII due to the association with Pearl and that war I keep forgetting that. Memory is not what it used to be. Too many thinner and glue fumes I guess. Soory about the mis info Donatelo, but I have seen pics of the Zona weathered with the lead and it looked great. Hope I didn't throw ya off and hope to see some inprofress piscs real soon
Paul

Another thing to consider is the fact that the pre-war Navy did have their sailors gainfully employed in upkeeping their vessels. Especially the BBs with Admirals onboard. So I guess mcautions is don't overdo it!