Hi Jeff, It’s a rather simple method actually. With the purpose of getting a chipped paint effect one needs to softly moisten the primer/aluminium painted surface and then losely apply kitchen salt. Some countries have a rather refined, small grainy salt while others tend for a much chunky salt grain. Either work fine, though the finer grain gets you smaller effects obviously.

Then, after the salt and surface dries, move to the next paint coat process, and as soon as possible (but with paint already dry) use a old toothbrush, cottonswab or stiff brush, again moistened with water to scratch the areas where the salt was applied. Go easy with the water amount. Too much ruins it, too little gets the job too tedious. I used acrylic paint sealed with enamel varnish over the primer coat only. The second paint coat, again acrylic, had no varnish applied.

Personally, I’ve not yet used this method because I have some “chipping effects” AM products that I feel very comfortable using so far, but did try over an old model a few years ago just to see if it works...and it does

Thanks for the explanation, Pedro!

Hi Jeff! I use this method with acrylic paints (actually with Gunze and Tamiya, but not with Vallejo-like paints). I was using it for my Hellcat and there are WIP pictures, covering the process. Just scroll to the bottom a little – http://imodeler.com/groups/group-build-d-day/forum/topic/d-day-build-148-hellcat-mk-i/?topic_page=2&num=15

Hi Jeff...I've never tried the "salt method" either, but I'll tell ya what DID work pretty well (at least for me). I sprayed the surface with aluminum, then applied the top coat. Then using low tack tape (in this case, 3M Blue tape), laid it over the surface and yanked it off. The top coat came off, revealing the aluminum undercoat. Just gotta use care so as not to take off too much of the main color (small pieces of tape). Good luck.

Thanks, Craig. It seems to be a much simpler method than others I found.