Appearance of Painted Wood Decks vs. Painted Steel Decks

[Thomas E. Johnson]

In my experience with real wood, when painted with the same color paint as steel or fiberglass, it still has a different color and appearance than the latter, different color reflectivity I guess.

Would this also have been true on ships like US BBs during WWII, that had wooden decking painted with the same color paint as the steel decks, ex; the painted wood and steel could be differentiated from each other?

[StarCruiser]

Well - there are several factors involved, the base tone of the material (wood vs steel), the surface texture and the fact that the wood will absorb some of the paint.

I would expect the deck to be a little lighter than the steel sides and superstructure and the deck would look a little rougher in texture - duller.

If you are actually trying to paint a ship model, might consider painting the wood deck a simple wood tone and then apply a slightly lighter version of the final color.

Also, take note of these ship modeling sites:

http://www.modelwarships.com/index1.html

http://www.steelnavy.net/

Both have a large community of modelers absolutely addicted to ships!

[Thomas E. Johnson]

Well - there are several factors involved, the base tone of the material (wood vs steel), the surface texture and the fact that the wood will absorb some of the paint.

I would expect the deck to be a little lighter than the steel sides and superstructure and the deck would look a little rougher in texture - duller.

If you are actually trying to paint a ship model, might consider painting the wood deck a simple wood tone and then apply a slightly lighter version of the final color.

Also, take note of these ship modeling sites:

http://www.modelwarships.com/index1.html

http://www.steelnavy.net/

Both have a large community of modelers absolutely addicted to ships!

Yeah I'm a member of Modelwarships also.

I have a pre-colored/stained deck for my 1/200 Missouri. It is actually several shades lighter than the 20B Deck Blue that the steel decks are to be painted with, even though on the real ship the wood and steel decks would be "painted" with the same stuff. Navy regulations however limited the number of coats of paint to 2 coats, so I'm not sure it that would be thick enough to make the wood look the same as steel. I don't think the paint was allowed to soak deep into the wood, because once hostilities were over, they started holy stoning the decks back to natural teak.

[StarCruiser]

I can't say much about the pre-stained wood deck. One maker may get the color right while another misses it by a mile...

Not a big fan of the whole "real wood" deck thing anyway, since it doesn't really look that scale (remember the graying effect - with range).

[Thomas E. Johnson]

I can't say much about the pre-stained wood deck. One maker may get the color right while another misses it by a mile...

Not a big fan of the whole "real wood" deck thing anyway, since it doesn't really look that scale (remember the graying effect - with range).

For small scale stuff yeah. But in the scale that I'm working in, a real wood deck looks pretty good and adds a nice touch to the model.

[StarCruiser]

Yeah - I guess in a YUUUGE scale kit, it would work. You will probably have to overcoat it with something to darken the deck a little, or maybe fade the hull color a litter to look a bit more worn..?

[Thomas E. Johnson]

Yeah - I guess in a YUUUGE scale kit, it would work. You will probably have to overcoat it with something to darken the deck a little, or maybe fade the hull color a litter to look a bit more worn..?

I thought about whethering the model, but not quite sure how to create the desired effects in such a large scale, I decided to keep 1/200 ship models as more of an admiralty model type display.