F3H Demon color questions

[CrowTRobot]

I'm heading to the paint shop with my Grand Phoenix Demon, but I have some questions about the colors used on the rear end of this bird.

The Ginter book for the F3H has numerous photos of the underside of the stabilator where you can see that the outboard portion is painted white and the inboard portion is much darker. It looks like natural metal, but I can't be 100% sure because the photos are black and white. It looks darker than the Gull Gray used elsewhere on the plane.

Also, the underside of the beaver tail appears to be very dark from the tip all the way to the exhaust. I suspect this is due to discoloration from the exhaust, but it's tough to tell for sure because this area is shadowed in most of the photo I have.

Does anyone have any advice on these areas?

[Murph]

If you haven't seen it, you might find this site useful. CLICK HERE.

Regards,

Murph

[CrowTRobot]

If you haven't seen it, you might find this site useful. CLICK HERE.

That's a good site, but unfortunately the museum planes in those photos have been restored to pristine condition, and the exhaust area bears little resemblance to that of Demons in active service in the Ginter book. The underside of the stabilators on the museum planes are painted solid white, but many service Demons show a distinct demarcation where the white paint ends and some darker color begins. Also, the beaver tails on the museum planes are very clean and white. Photos of Demons in service show what looks like significant staining on the under surface- almost to the point of looking black.

[Tailspin Turtle]

From the F3H-2 Painting Requirements re the bottom of the beaver tail: "Do not paint"

(You can often see that the lower edge of the side of roughly the last half of the beaver tail is unpainted.)

The bottom of the inboard part of the stabilators is to be painted with heat reflective enamel.

[CrowTRobot]

The bottom of the inboard part of the stabilators is to be painted with heat reflective enamel.

Interesting- any idea what color this enamel should be? It looks darker than Gull Gray in the photos I have, but there are shadows too

[Tailspin Turtle]

Interesting- any idea what color this enamel should be? It looks darker than Gull Gray in the photos I have, but there are shadows too

Unfortunately, no. I don't have the reference notes for the finish drawings. I had thought this area of the underside of the stabilators was bare metal, so something like a semigloss steel color might do it. Also, with respect to the underside of the beavertail, if you look at the pictures of the Naval Air Museum F3H, there is a concave section aft of the engine exhaust. This portion of the underside of the beavertail probably has a skin made of a darker and presumably more heat resistant metal than the flat surface of the beavertail aft of that. While it looks like the whole underside of the beavertail was darkened by the exhaust, you might want to start off with a base coat of two different metal colors on the bottom of the beavertail before applying the soot.