The "salt" technique is a way of simulating chipping and heavy wear on white washed or repainted tanks (it is unlikely that factory painted tanks would have this type of problem - winter or desert cammo is the most likely use).
Step 1: Paint the vehicle the base colour. In my example this was Testors Acrylic Soviet Tank Green. I left it overnight for the paint to dry completely.
Step 2: I prepared a small bowl of luke warm water with a small drop of dish soap (the stuff you would use to wash dishes in the sink) and a small bowl of ordinary table salt. If you don't use the dish soap the water will "bead" on the tank and make the work more difficult.
Step 3: After carefully chosing the areas which I thought would most likely be subject to wear or chipping, I used a paint brush to dab water on certain areas of the tank (i.e. along the edge of the turret). You don't need a lot of water - just enough to make the surface wet. I then sprinkled the table salt over the wet area. The salt will stick to the wet spots, the rest can be blown off. In areas where I wanted a lot of wear effect (like the rear deck of the tank) I really piled on the salt. While it is generally not a good idea to re-apply the water over the salt (it tends to desolve) you can build up the salt if you let it dry for a bit of time.
Here's what it looks like:
Once the water has dried, the salt will be stuck in place - you can use an old brush or tooth pick to remove it from any spot where you don't want wear effects. For example, around the engine access hatch on the rear I removed some of the salt so that only the area around the hatch would look chipped.
Step 4: Once the salt is good and dry (I left it overnight again) you can apply the secondary colour over the salt. As far as I know, you can only do this with an airbush -I have not tried brushing paint over salt. I used Tamiya acrylic flat white. Make certain you do a couple of coats of paint from different directions. Otherwise you can leave "shadows" on the paint that make it look less like chipping. Leave the second coat of paint to dry for a couple of hours.
Step 5: I used an old "fine" brush to gently scrub away the salt. For the most part it comes off really easily, leaving the green underneath showing. Watch out if you've already applied fine details like etched brass grab handles - they will fly off with the salt! In some cases I used an ordinary toothpick to scrape off the salt in tight corners. Also, where the salt had really stuck to the paint, I used the end of a sharp jewellers file to remove the salt.
Step 6: Finally, I used a bit of drybrushing in the base (green) colour to join together some of the chips. I found in certain areas it looked a bit like someone had thrown a handfull of gravel at the tank and the "chipping effect didn't look natural. For example, along the top edge of the turret I used paint to join the chips together a bit.
Step 7: I then used a wash of thinner with just a bit of black enamel paint to highlight some of the features of the tank. You have to be careful when doing this with a winter cammo scheme - too much and you'll make the white apint look too stark or, alternately, make it all look grey.
My last step will be some highlighting with a bit of rust, which would show up against the white paint.
Hope this helps
Dave
