Create Chipping Paint With Salt

Weathering models with salt to represent chipped paint has been used my military modelers for quite some time but what is it, and how do you do it? Additionally, what should I not do? 

Weathering your models with salt yields some very realistic effects and can be used on most materials such as plastic, wood and brass. It is a great way to simulate peeling and bubbling paint. 

Prototype photo by David Lopez.

What is this weathering technique, you might ask? Simply put, it is a process where you paint over salt and then remove the salt when the paint is dry. There are many tutorials on how to do this online, however, I am going to take you through the process and explain what not to do (by experience!).

A Good Base

When you are finishing your models, the base coat is very important. For this type of weathering technique, the base is equally if not more important. This is because your rust is going to be showing through your paint. Now keep in mind, your base coat can only be applied to areas you intend to weather not the entire project. Also, you will want to build up your rust effects. 

Start with a good rust color, in my case I used Roof Brown. This gives a nice base color that will eventually be rust spots on my project. Again, you will want to build your rust colors before and after painting your top coat and we will talk about that as we go.

Applying the Salt

Patience here is a virtue. To begin, wet the areas with water where you want to apply the salt.

This will enable the salt to stick to the model. Be sure not to move the salt too much or it will dissolve. The goal is to have the grains of salt act as a mask not a coating. Further, be very gentle with your model at this point as the salt will fall off.

Let the water dry completely..

Painting

Once the piece is dry, you may begin painting. For this article I'm using caboose red for contrast.

I have applied two coats of caboose red to my cab and as you can see in the image above, the salt is working perfectly. Let your paint dry for a couple of hours (again patience) before moving to the next steps.

Removing the Paint.

Now we can begin to remove the salt to reveal the rusty undercoat. As you prepare to remove the paint I would like to stress care here. Your fingers can easily destroy your paint job. Take your time removing the salt and paint with a very soft paint brush. 

To remove the paint, run your model under the faucet and gently begin brushing the salt off. 

Final Notes

This technique can produce very realistic results but your fingers can do a lot of damage to your work. Below you can see spots that I grabbed and the salt removed my rust color revealing the primer. Now you can go back and repair the damage but it will leave scratches and gouges.

There you have it. A very easy way to create some rather nice weathering effects on your models. Once you have the desired look, you can go back and add more rust effects with washes of oil paint. The key is to build the color.