Spitfires and Zinc Chromate (Yellow)

[Daniel Cox]

If it is under the fillet it is simply unweathered Dark Green. The fillet was applied over the prepainted wing in assembly.

Thanks Milne Bay,

Much appreciated, as promised earlier here is some more ZCY on a Spitfire Mk.IX wing fillet as shown below.

IWM TR1536

Cheers,

Daniel.

Edited December 7, 2010 by Daniel Cox

[Edgar]

Sorry, I was "incommunicado," during this debate. Why does the colour have to be ZC? One ex-609 Squadron "erk" told me how, in an emergency, they would slap the nearest available paint onto a repair.

Zinc chromate, whether yellow or green, was never specified for the internal (or external, for that matter) parts of the wartime Spitfire, so you can safely assume that those yellow patches signify a repair of some sort. Also, ZCY is bloody difficult to brush paint, being (almost) as thin as water.

In fact the yellow has every appearance of the "normal" roundel/wing l/e yellow. Experience with painting ZCY shows that it darkens, markedly, with age, and very quickly (often within a day,) too, until it's almost a brown.

Oil tanks, like (most of) the rest of the interior, were painted in undercoat U.P.1, followed by aluminium cellulose to D.T.D. 63A, so painting ZC, on top, would, largely, be a waste of time, and paint. Post-war, they did use an "approved etching primer," but then had two coats of interior green on top.

Sorry, Nick, but the use of ZCG, on K5054, is another of Paul Lucas's "guesses." Green, yes, in fact "a yucky green," according to Mitchell's nephew, but what type of green is just anyone's guess.

Edgar