FIRST AID BASIC WASHES

A Starter Set of Five Washes

Anyone picking up a wash for the first time usually lays it on too thickly, and the result then looks like a model drowned in mud. This set goes the other way: it gives only what a normal tracked or wheeled vehicle really needs and lets you learn the right measure. A wash works by capillary action, finding its own way into the engraved lines, around the rivets, under the tool brackets and into the shadows beneath the fenders, where a brush could never reach across the surface.

Inside lie five products, each aimed somewhere different. The shade for the running gear works on the wheels and the track links, a light rusty tone sets down the first hints of corrosion on the exhausts and on unprotected sheet metal, and a universal dark one darkens the panel lines across the whole build. The fourth product makes the vertical streaking grime running down the sides of the hull and the turret, and the fifth brings an earthy summer tone associated with the battlefields around Kursk in 1943.

The procedure is always the same and it forgives mistakes: let the painted surface dry, apply the wash precisely into the recesses with a pointed brush and, after a few dozen minutes, wipe the excess away with a cloth dampened with mineral spirits. Working from top to bottom gives you a natural direction of flow.

To start with it is worth sacrificing a spare piece of sprue and trying each product on it. You will see how the solvent behaves on your particular finish and how much the tone darkens once it dries, which cannot be guessed from the bottle. Only then does it make sense to touch the model.

The proven order of the steps runs from darkening the panel lines across the surface through targeted work on the tread and the track links to the vertical streaks, which go over everything else and therefore belong right at the end. Reverse it and the last coat will wipe away the previous one and you start again.