French 5 colour camouflage

[AMStreet]

Does anyone know the Methuen codes for the colours in the French 5 colour camouflage?

I'm lucky, I have the Methuen Handbook so any references would be useful for the Spad 13 I am about to start.

I do have the June 1980 copy of Scale Models, which did a table of the colours but as it uses the old Authentics I don't want to try and convert the paints used as I reckon that will just lead to drift.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

[Rowan Broadbent]

Does anyone know the Methuen codes for the colours in the French 5 colour camouflage?

I'm lucky, I have the Methuen Handbook so any references would be useful for the Spad 13 I am about to start.

I do have the June 1980 copy of Scale Models, which did a table of the colours but as it uses the old Authentics I don't want to try and convert the paints used as I reckon that will just lead to drift.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

From the "Color Section" (sic) of French Aircraft of the First World War by James Davilla and Arthur Soltan (Colour artwork by James Durkota - so I think the referrences are his):

Roundel Red 10C-D8

Roundel Blue 22-23D4, 23C-D8 (pedants should note the colour range!)

CDLinen 2-3A3-4, 3B7, 4A3, 4C3

Camo colours:

Chesnut Brown 6F 5-7

Dark Green 29F3-6

Light Green 30D-E4-6

Beige 4-5D-E6

Ecru (underside) 4-5C-D3-4

The equivalent Pantone references were also quoted and these are what I used in our artwork for the recent decal sets for the Wingnut Wings Salmson kit (reviewed here by John Stokes: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234966515-salmson-2a2-132-pheon-decals/ ).

If you don't have the Wingnut kit, then the instruction booklet can be unloaded from their website which quotes some very good Tamiya paint refs which I think are a very good attempt at matching the dope (with aluminum pigment added) and enamel paints:

http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/product?productid=3085

Hope that helps a bit.

Rowan

http://www.pheondecals.com/

[JackG]

If you are using Humbrol, there's a list on the ipmsstockholm colour chart http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/colorcharts/stuff_eng_colorcharts_france.htm

Maybe use that as a starting point, and with the values Rowan has provided, fine tune them from there? it would interesting to see how close, or distant, the Humbrol suggestions are.

regards,

Jack

[AMStreet]

Thanks to you both.

I'll take Jack's suggestion and using Rowan's references I will see how close things are with the Humbrol mixes.

Thanks again.

[AMStreet]

Sorry about the delay. I have tried out the colours and taken photos of the results but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to embed them in a reply.

I've looked at the advice given on the topic here on the site and still can't work out what's going wrong.

To summarise my findings:

Dk Brown is much too dark.

Dk Green is near but is not yellow enough as the Methuen reference is more olive.

Lt Green is too strong a green and needs more yellow and a touch of grey to get nearer.

Beige is a good match for Methuen 5 D-5.

Ecru or Linen is a match for Methuen 4A-4.

Sorry if this means little to people without the Handbook, I'll keep trying to embed the photos but will post the PhotoBucket pics if I can't.

[melvyn hiscock]

One thing that often gets missed out of the descriptions of these colours used on the fabric had aluminium oxide included as anti UV protection. The paint on the metal panels did not. A close up view of the Memorial Flight SPAD and Morane AI will show this. The roundels were also different with those on the under wing painted and those above being pigmented dope with natural fabric for the white.

The colour matches were obtained from existing examples of fabric taken from under fittings where there had been no deterioration and from original documents held by the Musee de l'Air.

I got a good approximation by mixing in a little Humbrol Satin gold, which seemed to work fine in 1/48