De Havilland registration letters, interwar.

[stevehnz]

I've a build squirrelled away in the back of my head which I think will probably require me to print the registration letters. It's on a 1930s DH Gypsy Moth  & I'm wondering if there is a recognisable letter style that DH used or am I going to have to wing it from photos, very limited of the subject I have in mind.

Steve.

[John Aero]

Yes, DH had a characteristic G which had a bite out of the bottom vertical.

 

John

 

 

[stevehnz]

Thanks John, the aircraft I'm interested in is G-ABAK, Denys Finch Hatton's Gypsy Moth. Not the restored one from the movie "Out Of Africa" but the actual aircraft in which he crashed in May 1931. According to my readings, it had silver wings with a mustard yellow fuselage. Some photos I've found are obviously ortho film as the fuselage appears very dark. The only full view of a rego is the top wing in a photo in a volume of OoA I have, the quality is not so good & having had another look at it, its hard to see if the G is so formed. A side view which is enough to see exhaust details etc, has a local standing in front of the 1st part of the rego, but does have enough to see the form of the K, it looks like I'm on my way to learning to print decals, letter anyway.

Steve.

Edited October 30, 2017 by stevehnz

[Aeronut]

15 hours ago, John Aero said:

Yes, DH had a characteristic G which had a bite out of the bottom vertical.

 

John

 

 

I've never noticed that before. No doubt a graphic artist could explain why there is a lack of symmetry, but to my old draughtsman's eye it looks like a drawing office mistake faithfully followed by the signwriter. 

[John Aero]

Obviously the above is a beautifully restored example but the G is to be found on all original factory applied registrations and on the rudder. I included these G's in my later civil registration letters sheets.

 

John

[Aeronut]

10 hours ago, John Aero said:

but the G is to be found on all original factory applied registrations and on the rudder.

 

I'm not doubting you John. Its just that it looks like a mistake that was missed and then went into production - the shape of the bite is reminiscent of a pen stroke across the draughtsman / tracer's finger tips. It wouldn't be the first mistake to enter production because the final result looked good or even better than the original intention.

[John Aero]

No problem, I thought that you might be referring only to the restoration. I knew a chap who worked at DH's and apparently DH senior would often reach over draughtsmens shoulders and alter a curve with a B pencil. In many cases the blokes would rub it out and next day DH would say,"I knew that it would look better".

 

John

 

 

[lasermonkey]

On 29 October 2017 at 10:36 PM, John Aero said:

Yes, DH had a characteristic G which had a bite out of the bottom vertical.

 

John

 

 

Ah, this year's Gathering Of Moths. I may well have been standing next to you when you took that photo!

[John Aero]

I was probably wearing my cream linen jacket and my panama hat. I love the Moth Gatherings.  We used to get them into Hucknall, when we had an aerodrome there. I flew in a Tiger only a short while ago, only a separation of 55 years between Tiger flights.

 

I'm building a load of Moth models at present. I might write them up on Britmodeller.

 

John

[stevehnz]

FWIW, these are the only two photos of Finch Hattons Moth I've found, one on the net & one scanned out of a copy of "Out of Africa", using the latter for illustrative purposes only.

It is a little difficult to see if the G on the upper wing has the cutaway corner on it, to my eye not. Any suggestions as to a modern computer font which might be close to these would be welcome, I did try to find one once but merely succeeded in confusing myself.

Steve.

[John Aero]

I just looked up the history of G-ABAK and it's very short.  I think that it's a Yellow fuselage/fin /rudder, with Black lettering with Silver wings with fine Black outlined Yellow letters and there appears to be a Black stripe down the rudder. The wing letters appear to me to have rounded corners and it has the modified "G"

 

I've been recording civil schemes for many years and as they are almost always on old Black and White photos and it doesn't help when the contemporary observers seldom noted colours. In fact I have a letter from A.J.Jackson in which he says "we didn't much bother about colour schemes" and neither did the editors of Flight and Aeroplane who rarely thought to mention them.  But in the 50's we were just as bad, we just knew that Tiger OFO and Plus D, IXA were Silver and Black and Tiger OSD was Silver and with Red letters, cowlings and tank.. But this is probably the first time I've written it down.

 

John.

 

 

[AMB]

All 1930s inter-war civil modellers are DESPERATE for some period Alphabet sheets of letter decals with solid colours and 'hollow' format especially in white!  Absolutely NO ONE makes these!   I have suggested this to Fantasy Printshop and to 26 Decals but it fell on deaf ears.  These would be suitable for all  De Havilland, Miles and Percival types of the 1920s-30s. 

[stevehnz]

Thanks for that John, though I can't say as I'm happy about your revelation on the upper wing lettering colours, I can't see that being easy to achieve.  It does make sense though seeing as that photo is surely an ortho film print & I had detected an outline of some type. Do you know if DH had a standard yellow in their pallet or was that purely customer choice. I'm guessing mustard yellow as I've seen it described, maybe in Blixen's book, was that of mustard flowers so quite bright. At least now I know what I need to do come the day, far more so than when I began the thread. Anyone know of a 1/72 figure set with a tall bloke in a pith helmet? 

Steve.

[John Aero]

Steve,

As to the colours of the Moth you might do a little background research if the Yellow and Black (?) had any family significance.  For instance if the money was in shipping, what were the funnel colours. There

is one Tiger now flying in UK which is Brown and light Blue and I was informed that they were the colours of the chaps old school blazer!

 

The Yellow would be a customer call but DH would have a standard (Cellon) range. Honestly at this distance I'd opt for a Yellow which takes your fancy. As for the man in the hat, are you taking the pith?

 

John

 

AMB

I did a whole series of sizes of letter decals over 30 years ago and I still have boxes of some of them were the varnish has now yellowed. The larger letter sheets were expensive to produce.

[stevehnz]

1 hour ago, John Aero said:

Steve, As for the man in the hat, are you taking the pith?

 

John

 

AMB

I did a whole series of sizes of letter decals over 30 years ago and I still have boxes of some of them were the varnish has now yellowed. The larger letter sheets were expensive to produce.

Only slightly,  It'd make a nice mini dio with F-H about to prop swing like in the 1st photo. I don't 'spose any of your left over letters are in yellow with a black outline perhaps? 

This is the Winchilsea coat of arms. F-H was the son of the 13th Earl, maybe there is a clue in there.

Steve.

Edited November 4, 2017 by stevehnz

[AMB]

On 11/3/2017 at 10:58 PM, John Aero said:

 

 

AMB

I did a whole series of sizes of letter decals over 30 years ago and I still have boxes of some of them were the varnish has now yellowed. The larger letter sheets were expensive to produce.

Yes, John I still have some but it's a shame they have yellowed and are no longer of use. Shame the backing sheet couldn't have been of non-yellowing paper like Modeldecal, Xtradecal etc? 

[lasermonkey]

Ive had a lot of success with using sunlight to bleach yellowed decals. Recently I tried it with an ancient set of KP decals which were awfully yellow and it works very well indeed.

Has to be worth a try!

[wyverns4]

Very happy to assist in the bleaching of decals!

 

We get just over twelve hours of intense sun, day in, day out all year round and have lots of windows for the attaching of said decals. Plus, it would give me some reason to be here... Apart from looking after the lovely Yvonne.

 

Christian, exiled to africa

[John Aero]

I too have had some success in exposing yellowed decals to sunlight. Unfortunately when we had these printed we had no idea that they would yellow and purchased from the printer in good faith. I think I might experiment with a UV lamp if I can find one.

 

John

 

Steve

 

I will look to see if I have any Yellow letters suitable for a 1:72 Moth. I have the fuselage Black ones (un-yellowed) I think I would draw the black outline on the letter whilst still on the sheet, by using a Rotring orMars Staedler draughting pen (the hypodermic type) filled with the drawing ink used for plastic draughting film (not the ordinary ink for drawing paper).

 

John

[malpaso]

On 01/11/2017 at 8:26 PM, John Aero said:

I'm building a load of Moth models at present. I might write them up on Britmodeller.

Yes please, John that would be great!

[stevehnz]

6 hours ago, John Aero said:

 

Steve

I will look to see if I have any Yellow letters suitable for a 1:72 Moth. I have the fuselage Black ones (un-yellowed) I think I would draw the black outline on the letter whilst still on the sheet, by using a Rotring orMars Staedler draughting pen (the hypodermic type) filled with the drawing ink used for plastic draughting film (not the ordinary ink for drawing paper).

John

Anything you might have in that area would be great John, maybe PM me when you've had a chance to look & we can take it from there.

Steve

[Roger Holden]

Very interesting. I think I see 2 different colours on the aft portion of the rudder; maybe red vertical band and dark blue aft ie like the Royal aircraft. Finch Hatton's Wikipedia page says he played host to the Prince of Wales in 1928 and 1930 and perhaps had those colours marked on the aircraft. It also says he was an alumnus of Brasenose College,Oxford, whose colours are yellow and black....

[stevehnz]

The joys of interpreting B & W photos.  Your thoughts on the colours of Brasenose College certainly dovetail with Johns observations above so maybe that is a reasonable way to go. Unless there are other photos in old books, these are the only two I've found so it will be a case of making a call come the time I think, but info such as yours & John's allows a more informed call to be made, so thanks.

Steve.

[John Aero]

Glad to see Roger here, his modelling skills far surpass mine. (I haven't forgotten about the Percival and BA Eagle drawings Roger. If you are at Telford I'll fill in the detail).

 

Pre-war civil colours are always difficult, but sometimes you strike lucky. Yesterday I was browsing through an ancient copy of Air Pictorial and came across an article by John Stroud on his early Croydon  and Hatfield days, in which he gave the colours of each visiting and incumbent aircraft he noted on his visits.

 

John

[Roger Holden]

Hello John. Glad to be here; I've been considering it for a while. I see you are giving some demonstrations in Hall 3 at Telford, so I assume you are there all weekend ?  I'm going on Sunday for a change. After sitting in a tailback for an hour to get in the car park (at 7.45 am) on Saturday last year, I didn't fancy repeating the experience (or worse). So I'm hoping

Sunday will be better. I think the event is becoming a victim of its own success.

 

Civil aircraft colours are often a problem, but many times you can get there. Contemporary newspaper or magazine reports and manufacturers' brochures are often useful. In the case

of my favoured American types, sometimes the factory records or paperwork still exists.  I think 90% of British and American civil aircraft were painted using a limited range of quite common colours. The other 10% were custom paint jobs for wealthy or corporate purchasers.

 

i know that Stroud article. He was a reliable witness.