Sea Fury legs & bays

[Graham T]

About to make a start on the Trumpeter Sea Fury with a few enhancements (cockpit, wheel bays & legs). Were the legs & bays aluminium or painted the undrside colour (sky)?

[Julien]

VR930 appears to have bays in light grey as well as the legs, where as WG655 is Chromate, with Aluminium legs. These are restored though.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/71759-hawker-sea-fury/

[perdu]

All the photos I've seen show silver/aluminium coloured bays, there are hundreds of suitable pictures out there

I think this is a preserved one in the RNAS museum, dont shoot me if im wrong

Edited October 24, 2014 by perdu

[Procopius]

Here's a prior thread on this topic: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/60961-sea-fury-questions/

Edgar states here on LSP that they were originally yellow zinc chromate.

[Edgar]

Edgar states here on LSP that they were originally yellow zinc chromate.

True, and it was Peter Cooke who found that out, while researching at Yeovilton, and asking the (then) curator, who worked with them in an aircraft carrier during the Korean war.

[Graham T]

As is often the case, no firm answer! I think for my 1/48 Trumpeter kit I'll go with the underside colour for the bays with aluminium lacquer for the legs, simply because I'm not personally keen on zinc chromate!

[NAVY870]

Two parts to the discussion here

Firstly the gear wells, at least on RAN aircraft were left in the "Hawker yellow" colour they left the factory in.

This is based on the relevant RANAMO and my experience with 3 ex RAN airframe (VW-623, VW-647 and VW-232)

The Hawker yellow V zinc chromate argument seems to have come from the habit of calling any yellow type primer zc and

would quite rightly be so as it was commonly used but not on (In my opinion and experience) British built naval aircraft.

A couple of examples of untouched Hawker yellow on the Thomas collections VW-647

Cannon blast tubes

Starboard gunbay

And vestiges of HY under the sloppily applied Sky paint squirted in the wheel well by persons unknown (Though I have a fair idea who)

And finally two nav light cover fairings recently found by myself while rummaging for Sea Venom parts. The one on the left is new old stock and has not been touched while

the one on the right has had ZC brush coated! on it. The difference is quite obvious.

I hope this is useful.

Edited October 24, 2014 by NAVY870

[Procopius]

Wow, Hawker Yellow looks (to my eyes, anyway) almost like a more yellow Sky.

[perdu]

As is often the case, no firm answer! I think for my 1/48 Trumpeter kit I'll go with the underside colour for the bays with aluminium lacquer for the legs, simply because I'm not personally keen on zinc chromate!

And after this torrent of good info I'm about to repaint the inner wells on my PJM?-MPJ?-Airfix? clone one a dusty yellow while I redo the upper scheme.

The info I have seen here has convinced me that museum refurbished colour schemes just cannot be relied on

(Shame though, it looks lovely in silver)

b

[NAVY870]

If it makes you feel any better, I spent a very long time thinking silver was the correct colour in the gear wells.

This was based on the only available example (at the time) VW-623 that was held on charge by VC-724 Squadron when I was

a mere boy and only just out of the training department.

623 had been given a bloody awful cosmetic restoration and some fool thought it would be a good idea to trowel several coats of

silver jam into the gear wells.

Some years later when 623 joined us on the Historic Flight, several days of intense steam cleaning removed the offending top coats and

revealed the Hawker yellow underneath. At the time we were head scratching what the hell that colour was.

[perdu]

Having a good look at those pictures reminds me of where I saw that colour recently

Hawker yellow is a spitting image of the colour of the mixedup ordinary Milliput on the mould for my Scout

Gives me a decent match for paint mixing

Sky, a touch of Tamiya Yellow Green perhaps, dot of white

When I finish remaking the main gear doors I'll be playing with that as a basic mix