British Camo Rubber masks

[Van]

Interesting link showing stills from a wartime RAF film on repainting a Spitfire at squadron level. No mats used, but panels were puttied.

Van

[Steve in Ottawa]

What link?

[Van]

What link?

oops http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F02334/ it was via hyperscale

[Graham Boak]

I don't think there's ever been any suggestion that camouflage mats were issued to squadrons or stations. The lowest level you might see them would be at an MU. Given that some manufacturers certainly didn't use them, they're unlikely to have been RAF issue at all.

[Vanroon]

Camouflage outlined in chalk. Then, masking tape for roundels. Note the use of a cardboard 'dodging card' and the admonition, 'keep the surface smooth'.

Gad! Just a dodging card! No rubber.

G

[Stonar]

You are missing the point. Nobody has ever suggested that masking mats were issued to the RAF or other allied air forces. The film is illustrating a repair or re-spray of the camouflage and was intended for service personnel. The point has already been made above.

The contention is that mats were used by some manufacturers to facilitate the spraying of camouflage schemes at the point of production. I say 'contention' but the evidence is good enough for me.

Steve

[Van]

I thought the film was interesting, that is all. I have no axe to grind over the use or otherwise of mats...

[AnonymousAA72]

I find the idea of rubber mats appealing, it makes perfect sense to me, and goes a long way in explains the how's and whys. Now just to help my understanding of this a bit more, can I ask if anyone knows the order in which paint was applied? On a model one would tend to apply Dark Earth first, mask this off and paint then paint the Dark Green. Is this how it was done at The aircraft factories? Dark Earth applied. Mats laid, Dark Green added? When was the lower colours applied ?

[Black Knight]

I don't have to hand, a b&w photo I have of a P40 pair of wings being sprayed, they are vertical, one man doing each wing, and it looks like the lighter colour is on and they are doing the darker. It also looks like the under surface is already painted

[Edgar]

Two Hawker employees told us they sprayed Dark Earth, then laid the mats on, and sprayed Green; if they needed to do the mirror scheme, the mats were flipped over (when dry, of course,) and the other side was used. We can only guess (because they never mentioned it) that the undersides (Sky, white, grey) were done first, but with the black done last.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Edgar

[MilneBay]

Well light to dark is logical and the most effective way of ensuring that the lighter toned colour is not darkened by being applied over the darker tone. This might also explain why in that pic in the interesting but now (unfortunately) closed thread on the Dark Earth on Hurricanes the large aircraft in the background appears to have a much darker Dark Earth than the pair of Hurricanes. Perhaps when that was camoed the Dark Green was applied first then the Dark Earth.

[Edgar]

As I've just pointed out to a friend, in response to his E-mail, at that time of the war, metal aircraft were camouflaged over a grey undercoat, while fabric/wood had silver between the red shrinking dope and the camouflage colours. This was designed to reflect sunlight away from the fabric, since it could cause premature rot. Fabric was scheduled for replacement every 5 years, and, probably when it was realised that most airframes weren't lasting that long, anyway, the silver was discontinued (except on the Mosquito.)

Edgar

[MilneBay]

Thank you Edgar however was that Ensign camoed in that designated fashion or perhaps painted somewhere other than at a maintenance unit. You must admit that the unfortunate closing of the Hurricane thread (for which I could see no justifiable reason) left the discussion somewhat at a loose end. Perhaps it was painted with grey undercoat from dark to light.

[Work In Progress]

The whole of the Ensign had previously been finished in aluminium dope for its previous life as a civilian airliner.

[AnonymousAA72]

ManyThanks for the replies, I've been out of WW2 modelling for too long, so it's all helpful stuff! Looking at photo's it's fairly clear in most of them that green is sprayed over the top, wherever there's any overspray it appears to be green. As it seems aircraft had sub-assemblies, wings, fuselage etc., painted separately it would have required an incredibly accurate method of painting to ensure patterns on the fuselage, and wings matched - hence the mats I suppose?

[Graham Boak]

You don't need a particularly accurate system, that's thinking in modern terms. All you need to know is what is on the scaled drawing - how far from a reference point is the change of camouflage. Then a simple stick and piece of chalk will ensure you hit the same place time after time. I'm not saying that's exactly how they did it, just that some such simple method is all you need to do the job.

After all, not every manufacturer used mats, but they all managed consistent camouflage patterns.

[AnonymousAA72]

Thanks. Yes that makes sense Graham. My initial thoughts/questions applied to aircraft painted in the factories when built, in I would assume controlled conditions in the particular factories paint shop. What about at MU or squadron level though?. Would these facilities vary much, from each other and the factories?

I would imagine that the latter two scenarios could be the reason for many of the anomalies discussed on other threads here? I'm particularly thinking about the differences noted in squadron code colours as mentioned by Michael J Bowyer in Fighting Colours for example...and maybe the differing shades of "Sky" ? (Though not necessarily light earth/light green Hurricanes!)

Questions? Maybe I'm just thinking aloud!

[Graham Boak]

The MU would have controlled conditions, but not the squadrons which basically had no facilities at all. However, they would only rarely be required to repaint aircraft overall. Yes, I'm sure that would explain the varying shades of grey on squadron codes, where only small amounts would be needed and less attention paid to proper stirring/mixing, but am less impressed by this argument for variations in Sky. Nobody is suggesting one wing in shade A but another in shade B, which would inevitably have been the case if things were quite that freehand.

However, in the case of repainting on the frontline the aircraft wouldn't be disassembled, so there'd be no problem in matching the pattern on different parts. But let's not forget how rare this will have been. Fighter Command had only two uppersurface colours schemes throughout the entire war, and they shared one of the two colours. Undersurfaces only changed twice.

[MilneBay]

The whole of the Ensign had previously been finished in aluminium dope for its previous life as a civilian airliner.

Yes - I am assuming that Imperial Airways would have repainted it in camo in their own facilities. I'd doubt if it was disassembled for painting so would it have been done without mats with the areas marked out to be filled in with paint? In the colour pic it is most certainly darker - dark to light? Or did that existing silver dope require a darker undercoat to cover it?

Edited July 26, 2014 by MilneBay

[Work In Progress]

No undercoat needed: aluminium dope was in any case a standard undercoat to block UV degradation, as Edgar pointed out above. I would expect them to clean the aluminium dope finish as thoroughly as possible and spray the camo colours directly over the top.As to whether they bothered making any masking or did it freehand over chalked lines I have no idea.

[MilneBay]

Well something - either an undercoat or the batch of camo paint used has made the tone darker.

[Work In Progress]

Or subsequent surface treatment, which I mentioned as a possibility on the other thread.

[modelfreak]

Say they did use rubber masks then what would happen to the used ones and why don't we find them now.

[Stew Dapple]

The fact that we don't find the old paint tins doesn't mean they left the aircraft unpainted

Cheers,

Stew

[Edgar]

Say they did use rubber masks then what would happen to the used ones and why don't we find them now.

Would you keep something coated in paint and thinners? Also, rubber has a finite life of only a few years, after which it crumbles into dust; the CAA won't allow rubber O-rings to be stored for more than 6 years. In Tangmere museum, they have an example of a German rubber dinghy; beside it is a note that, because the RAF's version was natural rubber, all have disintegrated over time, while the Germans used a synthetic rubber, which survives.