Weathering a DV6 with no experience... Any help appreciated!

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Hey! I recently ordered a DV6 kit from Korbanth, and could use some help when it comes to weathering...

I'd like it to be really aged to look like the prop, but I have zero experience with this.

And how would I go about making the hilt look "scratched up" the way a vintage Graflex does?

I'll update this thread with follow up pictures and questions when I get the hilt :)
 
Honestly I have a stonedrive way. 3/4" stones. I tape up what I don't want scratched and toss it down my drive way.

Our pool out back has cement pads around it, when pouring the cement we went over it with a rough broom to create a grip. I toss sabers onthat as well to chew it up

I also keep sharp machined car parts in a Tupperware container. (Connecting rods, timing gears, chewed up lifters, crank caps anything with a sharp edge) I keep these in the Tupperware container with other sharp screws and retired sharp kitchen ware my mom wants to throw away. Old road bike parts, cassettes, cranks, and bike chain also work great. I'll toss a part in there, close the container and give a few shakes

Now with all this little nicks and scratches I go over it with a black acyclic wash

There's a few ways to do it, spray it down with water and dab the acrylic paint on with a paper towel.

Or dab the paint on and then spray with a water bottle to create dirty runs

Black, umber, burnt umber, brown, yellow, mud red are all great colors I use

And being acrylic if I'm not happy with the finish I can wipe it all off with water and start over

Another thing I do to get it dusty is spray it with hair spray, cheap crap you can get anywhere. Then get a bag of fillers earth, pour it in a old sock. And then beat the sock around the grips and emitter, clamp card. Get the earth powder dust to settle in the cracks.

The hairspray holds it pretty good, you can simply wipe away all the extra on the saber to leave the dust in all the nooks and crannies.

This is tricks I have learned over the years, nothing fancy


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Oh that's the guy who made that 3po for Adam!

Thanks for the tips halliwax!

Can acrylic paint "for airbrushes" be painted with a normal brush? Saw this set of rust colors, curious if those can be used on the hilt. Would they stick? Should I go another route for rust?
 
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I've never had a problem with acrylic on any hilts. Here is a dagobah edition I was commissioned to do.

Right now I'm building him a all metal crystal chamber.

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My V2 is covered in acrylic. The rust on the stainless steel cube that the clamp lever screws Into is all acrylic. Many layers to simulate rust

I have recently learned of a new chemical way of making aluminum rust, so I'm hoping if I ever do another V2 I can try it on Roys clamp cube

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Acrylic all around the clamp pin and square. The inside of the clamp is also coated

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The clamp is also dabbed in a rusty brown coating, got it in the groves of the clamp to
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More brown to simulate tatooine dirt in the knurling of the cone knob
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I haven't tried brushing on acrylic spray paint. But I wouldn't be afraid to try it. I don't bush any of my weathering on, I use the paper towel trick. Soak it in water and dab it all over the place, then wipe areas I want clean.

If u look at the dagobah saber I covered the grips in a swamp color, and wiped clean, all the nicks and cuts in the grip keep the dirt and grime color, along with some on the button side of the grips

I also covered the d ring, and the end of the saber with the swamp color
 
Btw the grips are suppose to be crappy looking, I tried copying ever single imperfection on the wampa cave saber, since I think this is the same saber as the dagobah. That's why the end cuts look like crap


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I don't know if the paint will stick, but while waiting for my DV6 to arrive I decided to try some oil paints on my Graflex 2.0 for some weathering, and for some black screws... I'll get black phillips head screws eventually, but for now this'll do! :p I remember seeing on facebook a while ago that some old VHS tapes have the correct size (I think) black screws in them, tempted to give that a shot.

Oil paints didn't stick as well as I'd hoped on my bandai model kits, so if they don't stick to the saber I'll try again with acrylics when I go buy some

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My weathering techniques are quite simple and give great results with a little practice. I use acrylic paints and dry brush. Dry brushing is really easy to do. The key word there is dry. Dab your brush into the paint and wipe the brush till its not quite clean but still shows signs of color on the brush. I use cardboard or paper and keep painting the brush onto the paper or cardboard until it's hardly showing paint. Then I just act like paint is still there and brush back and forth until the desired look or color appears on your finish.

Look up dry brushing techniques on U tube and you will find some nice tutorials. Dry brushing will give you great weathering details. You should be able to touch your paint brush without getting paint on your fingers. Then it's ready to go. Practice on cardboard or another rough surface.
 
I would avoid oil paints, the chemicals used to remove them if u need to may damage some parts of the flash or finish.

Acrylic doesn't hurt anything, sticks to pretty much everything. And comes off with water and a rag if u don't like it


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I would avoid oil paints, the chemicals used to remove them if u need to may damage some parts of the flash or finish.

Acrylic doesn't hurt anything, sticks to pretty much everything. And comes off with water and a rag if u don't like it


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Good to know! Wiped off most of it with a damp paper towel - it didn't stick much! There's a tiny bit left but it doesn't matter much, atm just looks slightly dirty

Thanks guys!
 
Good to know! Wiped off most of it with a damp paper towel - it didn't stick much! There's a tiny bit left but it doesn't matter much, atm just looks slightly dirty

Thanks guys!

Oils take a very only time to dry. Once they are dry i think would would have stuck

Again, I haven't used oil to weather but took oil painting class for years. Always seemed to take days before it was cured

Keep us posted with your progress! ;)
 
Oils take a very only time to dry. Once they are dry i think would would have stuck

Again, I haven't used oil to weather but took oil painting class for years. Always seemed to take days before it was cured

Keep us posted with your progress! ;)

It's been at least a month since I painted it, and I can still pretty easily rub off the pain from my bandai Falcon, so I don't have much faith in my oil paints ahah. Maybe getting the cheapest ones I could find wasn't the best idea!
 
It's been at least a month since I painted it, and I can still pretty easily rub off the pain from my bandai Falcon, so I don't have much faith in my oil paints ahah. Maybe getting the cheapest ones I could find wasn't the best idea!

Is the paint still wet? Maybe because the oil isn't soaking into a canvas it takes longer to dry? I don't remember my oil paintings taking a month to dry lol

Try some acrylic wash on some old toys, or broken appliances, anything laying around that's you could use to practice on

Honestly I think weathering is my favorite part
 
Surprisingly... The saber arrived before the accessories, even though the accessories were all ordered from within Europe! :p

Anyway, so the saber arrived today and I'm super excited!

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I've also got some acrylics, as well as a tube of silver that I bought to weather my Bandai K-2SO. Do you think the silver paint would work to make the black... thing around the emitter look "chipped"? Or should I try to actually wear it out? Will that even expose a silver color?

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And when it comes to the emitter, I'm thinking of spray painting it matte black. Would this can of spray paint I already have work? I bought it recently to color some picture frames.

From the back: Alkyd lacquer for surfaces of wood, metal, aluminium, glass, stone and various types of plastic. Sand the surface and make it clean, dry and free of grease. Protect surroundings. Apply a primer. etc etc etc

If I prime it, can I just spray it with this one? I don't have any primer yet but I'm probably getting that tomorrow. Would be good to know if I need to get some better paint as well, as I'd rather not mess this up with my lack of knowledge

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Bonus pics of my 5 month old cat Leia and my new 12 week old kitten Solo (full name Han Solo, but that sounds a bit odd in Norwegian!). On day 3 of getting Solo now, and they're starting to get along :)

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I really hope Solo can keep Leia enough company so she'll stop trying to play with my Kylo model kit - for some reason that's the only one she tries to play with. Today she got his arm off!
 
Aaaaand primed! Stripped the crap out of a screw so couldn't get the internals out, but decided I didn't really care, I'll paint that black again anyway

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Scratching it felt wrong on so many levels, yet sooo right at the same time. Tried silver paint at first, buuuut eh, actual scratches look better. Gonna paint it to look a bit dirtier once I'm done with the emitter
 
That looks great buddy!! Don't be afraid to scratch, unless it's a mosquito bite! Never scratch those, once scratched you can never stop! ;)


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Painting the emitter done!

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While I was busy adding some paint, I got a notification about an auction I was watching ending in 5 minutes... So I thought I'd wait a couple minutes and then put in a bid. 5 minutes go by and I get the notification it ended... D'oh!! It was the Empire subscriber special magazine... sold for a fair price, too!

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Decided not to get WannaWanga grips, but I might reconsider and get that eventually. For now, stock grips it is!

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Got a fair bit of weathering left to do, but it's so nice seeing it assembled! DV6 is such a beauty

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