color?

[NICHOLAS]

hey all have a question i am building a spitfire MK,Vb and i know the bottom color is asher blue. but i dont know what the top colors are?

[MattC]

If its a north african example, I'd go for Mid Stone and Dark Earth on the top surfaces.

If you're using Humbrol, Hu29 will do the Dark Earth and Hu 225 will do your Mid Stone

Its worth checking references though, do you have a particular scheme/example in mind?

Which kit are you building and which decals?

HTH

Matt

[Edgar]

Er, that's Azure Blue, which was a standard colour for the undersides of Spitfires in the Western desert. The upper colours were Dark Earth (same as one of the U.K.-based fighter and bomber colours, especially at the start of the war,) and Middle Stone, which is a yellowish sand colour.

Edgar

[NICHOLAS]

Er, that's Azure Blue, which was a standard colour for the undersides of Spitfires in the Western desert. The upper colours were Dark Earth (same as one of the U.K.-based fighter and bomber colours, especially at the start of the war,) and Middle Stone, which is a yellowish sand colour.

Edgar

would a field drap work fork for the base on top then the dark earth?

[MattC]

I don't know what a field drap is I'm afraid....

My approach would be;

Get the model smooth and prime it with a pale grey like Hu 147, then just paint on the top colours.

[NICHOLAS]

If its a north african example, I'd go for Mid Stone and Dark Earth on the top surfaces.

If you're using Humbrol, Hu29 will do the Dark Earth and Hu 225 will do your Mid Stone

Its worth checking references though, do you have a particular scheme/example in mind?

Which kit are you building and which decals?

HTH

Matt

im building the Tamyia 1/48 one. the markings im using are the same on the box art.

[MattC]

This one?

http://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?FULL=TA61035

Nice and easy scheme, as stated above

Most paint manufacturers have a match for those colours in their line up, so it shouldn't be difficult to find them

[NICHOLAS]

yep thats the baby!

[k5ikl]

I just finished painting that exact scheme on a 1/32 MkVb. Azure Blue underneath with

Middlestone and Dark Earth on top. Testors MM Field Drab will work for the Dark Earth.

Not sure what brand of paint you are using. HTH

Jerry

[Edgar]

would a field drap work fork for the base on top then the dark earth?

I'm not sure what your question is, but the usual method of painting the real thing was to paint the whole top surface in Middle Stone, then lay flexible (a rubberised compound) mats, cut to shape, over that, and paint the Dark Earth, giving a hard-edged pattern, or, at most, 1" of overspray between the colours. The pattern was precisely laid out (I believe that Tamiya usually give you a template in their kits,) so that spare parts, e.g. wings, would match, straight away, without any need for a repaint. There were, of course, some anomalies; Ian Gleed's VB, marked with his initials IRG, appears, at one stage, to have had a wing with a differing pattern, as does the South African WR-D, in an often-published photo.

Edgar

[jrallman]

I just finished painting that exact scheme on a 1/32 MkVb. Azure Blue underneath with

Middlestone and Dark Earth on top. Testors MM Field Drab will work for the Dark Earth.

Not sure what brand of paint you are using. HTH

Jerry

If you are going to use MM paints, why not just use MM Dark Earth? They have a Middlestone too

[Jason C-C]

I'm not sure what your question is, but the usual method of painting the real thing was to paint the whole top surface in Middle Stone, then lay flexible (a rubberised compound) mats, cut to shape, over that, and paint the Dark Earth, giving a hard-edged pattern, or, at most, 1" of overspray between the colours.

I thought the general opinion was that rubber mats went out with the Mk.I, or thereabouts? To my eye the feathering on later marks looks much looser than what you might expect with a hard mask.

cheers,

Jason

[Edgar]

No, the mats stayed in use throughout the war; in fact Hawker were still using the system for their Hunters, in the 1950s, and a friend saw an article in which early Tornadoes were being painted with mats. One of our oldest IPMS(UK) members did aircraft painting during the war, with and without mats, and tells how he had five goes, spraying freehand, at a repaired Stirling, before the foreman was satisfied that he'd achieved the necessary 1" maximum permitted feather. I assume that he just sprayed the outline first, before inspection, and only filled in the rest when the foreman was happy with it. His description of the mats leads me to think that, instead of being solid rubber, they were made of rubberised horsehair, like the packing material that was in use until fairly recently. A fellow club member remembers going to a factory, in 1943, with the ATC, and seeing heavy mats being laid on the aircraft, before painting.

I've been asked why no examples exist, and you must remember that rubber has a fairly short "life," before it perishes and falls to bits. The museum, at Tangmere, has an example of a German wartime dinghy, but makes the point that they were made of neoprene, so survived, but the British used pure rubber, so they've long gone. Here, the CAA will not allow pure rubber items to be stored for more than 5 years (sorry, I've digressed.)

It was known, early on, that overspray gives a rough-textured finish, far worse than matt paint, and attempts, by ordinary workers, to sand it smooth, often resulted in paint being removed from rivet heads, etc., necessitating a time-consuming repaint. However, don't forget that there were several levels of work, and it's unlikely that a replacement panel (for instance) would lead to the whole airframe being repainted. There's also the consideration of gravity; the mats were just laid over curved surfaces, both convex and concave, and it was possible, in areas where the mats didn't lay down hard on the surface (wingroots for instance) for the spraygun's airflow to lift them slightly, allowing overspray. At times, too, Squadrons would do their own spraying, and they certainly wouldn't have had time to mess about with masking. In an article, many years ago, Ian Huntley told how Boulton Paul used to chamfer the edges of their mats, so as to achieve a slight feather, but within the permitted limits.

All of my rambling really means that no-one can say, with certainty, that any one method is correct, but a brand-new airframe should have had a hard-edged finish, with repaired items going every whichway, so remember, it's a model, it's your model, so, unless your critic has a photo of your particular aircraft, he can't say, with absolute certainty, that you're wrong.

Edgar