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Hawker Tempest - Hard or Feathered Camo Transition?


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Hi Guys,

 

I'm working on my Eduard Tempest Mk. V Series 2, and beginning to paint.  I probably won't get to the green part of the camo on the upper surfaces until next weekend, so I have some time to hear from the smart guys here.  I've seen various opinions about whether the camouflage transition between the Ocean Grey and RAF Dark Green should be feathered or hard.  I can't really tell from the photos which was actually the case.  Is there a more or less definitive opinion on how Hawker painted Tempests from the factory?  Certainly, a hard transition would be easiest to do, so I'm really rooting for that, but I'd like to make my airplane as accurate as I can.  Thanks for your thoughts.

Edited by Curt B
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When I was painting my 1/48 Eduard Tempest I seem to recall that it was hard edged from the factory but soft edged when touched up in the field. So you could have both on the same aircraft.

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Might I also suggest that the templates used to spray the camo were not always without gaps, leading to spray getting underneath.

 

Dale

Edited by Nachtwulf
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Thanks for the thoughts!  I'm thinking that doing the feathered edges on the wings will be fairly easy, on the fuselage, less so.  But perhaps, I can do the edge on the fuselage freehand.  

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Okay guys, one more question to drive you all crazy with goofy queries...  I am building my Tempest with the color/marking scheme that has the dark blue spinner and auxiliary fuel tanks.  What do you think is appropriate weathering for those fuel tanks?  Were those tanks a rarely used  item, or, as I’m inclined to believe because the tanks match the spinner, were those tanks in place for the long term?  What do you think the weathering on those tanks ought to look like?  Any damage/scuffing from handling when installing and removing?  How much, if any, chipping?  In particular, seems to me that marks/scratches/chips, unless aluminum underneath, would hardly be noticeable.  If, however, the tanks ARE aluminum, any of those weathering marks would be pretty distinctive, a ‘bright’ silver, and would be really obvious and not subtle at all. Would you agree with that, or am I wrong?Thoughts?

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Curt-

 

  I’ve searched the inter webs and don’t see any wartime photos of the Tempest you are modeling (W2 Y), however, there is an image that pops up of her sister ship W2 X and the tanks don’t appear weathered at all.  The decal option for W2 Y is postwar- those tanks weren’t going to intentionally dropped anytime soon and since they bothered to paint them, I would go with little to no weathering.  My $0.02

 

Steve

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Thanks Steve/Dale.  I guess I’m going to try to keep my tanks pretty much pristine, maybe a little bit of luster off the satin finish that I’m going to give to the whole airplane. 

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