Burnt Iron

The metal of exhausts, barrels and nozzles

Burnt iron is a dark metallic tone with a brownish gray underside, the kind that forms on steel after a long spell of heat. Modelers reach for it wherever clean steel would look too new: on the exhaust pipes of radial engines, on the barrels of guns and machine guns, on mufflers, stoves, blacksmith tools or on the end section of a jet nozzle.

The manufacturer is a Slovak brand that builds its whole range on a lacquer binder and on a very finely ground pigment. The metallic shades of this range therefore do not sit on the surface like a powder but bed into the lacquer, so they cannot be rubbed off with a finger and they will take masking tape. With metallics that tends to be the biggest difference from water-thinnable paints.

How the shade is worked

The paint arrives thinned to a consistency suited to an airbrush, so it goes into the cup straight from the bottle. Work at a low pressure of around one atmosphere and spray from a short distance in thin coats, otherwise the metallic pigment will clump into patches.

The shade gives the greatest depth over a smooth dark base. Anyone who wants still more out of an exhaust can go over the edges with rust pigment or a dark oil once it has dried and let the metal show only on the edges. Shake the bottle before you take any out, because metallic pigment settles faster than in covering tones.

You can reach for it outside vehicles and aircraft too. On figures it matches armorer's steel and old ironwork, in a diorama it suits stoves, boilers, chains and tools hung on a workshop wall. Everywhere there it looks more convincing than silver, because it absorbs light and does not shout with glossy highlights.