i love how the right hand plate finish came out, can you explain how you made it?
For the weathering I used Krylon Fusion paint for plastic - Nickel Shimmer - sprayed like 5 heavy coats. Then I used Rustoleum Hammered Finish for plastic - Dark Bronze (I think it was called, basically dark gray textured) - and sprayed one thin coat (not thin enough though, live and learn). Then I used 400 grit wet-dry and lightly sanded off the dark gray so the silver showed through.
I like the Nickel Shimmer and the dark bronze 'cause they both have a tiny yellow tint. The Nickel is not too silvery and the dk bronze is not too black. It leaves a more subtle weathering effect.
I did the left handguard yesterday, but didn't rub off so much of the dark color, plus I added little scratches to kind of mix it up. I came out very nice, and gives me even more ideas for the larger pieces.
One interesting lesson I learned:
If you look closely at the weathering pattern, you'll notice the darker "ring" around the very edge, in a couple mm from the edge. When I sprayed the heavy coats of silver for the base color, I held the sprayer almost horizontal, to make sure I got the sides of the piece covered well. I didn't consider that doing so would build up a tiny ridge of sorts all around the rim of the top surface.
The air currents caused by the sprayer gave it a "sand dune" effect. As the current went up the side and hit the top edge, it swirled forward and down, dropping more paint near the edges than on the rest of the top surface. This built up just enough so that when I sanded the darker topcoat off, it came off the higher ridges first.
On the other pieces, I'll be sure to spray straight at the top surfaces so this doesn't happen.
~ BC
