NORTHDUK

@Paul Thompson, Paul, Thanks for the link to the DH-9 belt. I've copied the illustrations of the DH-9 belts and should be able to knock up something similar for the DH-4 and the DH-9 conversion that's going to follow it if the DH-4 goes well enough. With my best wishes for Christmas and the New Year, Gordon

@Paul Thompson, Paul. Thanks for the link to HGW. I had a look at the website but couldn't find any WW1 belts. As you say, they don't make belts in 1/72 but I think that Robin-42 thought they would be useful as a reference for making my own in 1/72. I'll keep looking at the site to see if they show any suitable belts. If not, I'll settle for plain lap straps with painted buckles. Best wishes, Gordon

@Troy Smith, Thanks for your reply. I've never heard of using lighter fuel as a paint thinner. One of these days, I might try it. I remember reading that it is very effective for separating decal sheets from their cover sheets if they have become stuck together but I've never had to try it. At the moment, I'm using Humbrol matt Cream as a base colour and applying thinned Humbrol matt 62 Leather as the darker colour. My wife teaches watercolour painting and has recently bought a set of brushes that she suggests might be useful in producing the grain effect. They're flat brushes but the bristles are not of uniform length. Instead, they alternate between long and short so that they look rather like the top of Bart Simpson's hair or a row of miniature battlements. I'm going to try them out shortly. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

@Robin-42, Thanks for your reply. I must admit that I've found this grain effect more difficult than I had expected. You're right about keeping it restrained, especially in 1/72 scale. For the belts you can look at HGW’s efforts for the 1/32 WWI. Could you clarify this for me? Who is HGW and where can I find pictures of this work? Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

@RC Boater Bill, Thanks for your reply. I've been trying out various techniques and my nearest approach so far has been to use a short bristled brush to dry-brush the top colour onto a matt enamel base coat (Humbrol 103 Matt Cream). If I can get this to work consistently, I'll let it dry for several days and then apply a 50-50 mix of Tamiya Clear Orange and Clear Yellow. This is acrylic so it shouldn't interfere with the enamels underneath. Thanks for the tip about Citadel bright silver. I need to look more closely at Citadel's range of paints but it will have to wait until after Christmas. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

@Seawinder, Thanks for your reply. I see what you mean about the risk that the thinned paint will dissolve the base layer. In the 1970s, I used to weather AFV models with washes of thinned enamels over an enamel base coat without any problem. Some of the washes were little more than slightly dirty white spirit (mineral spirits) but didn't seem to affect the paint underneath them. Paint formulation was different then, though, and I may just have been lucky. I'll go along with your suggestion to use a 50-50 mix of orange and yellow; it sounds as if it would cool the final colour a little. Thanks again for your help. Gordon

@Brandy, Ian, Thanks for your reply. I've been surprised by the use of such pale shades for the first coat but it seems to work so I'll see how I get on with them. Thinning the darker colour makes sense and I've seen the use of clear orange recommended for struts to give a wood effect so I'll certainly try it for this job. Thanks again for your help with this Gordon

@Paul Thompson, Paul, Thank you for your prompt and very helpful reply. I've never tried any of the Citadel paints but there is a Citadel shop in the town so I might give them a go. In fact, I've never used acrylics except for some Tamiya Smoke, so it'll be interesting to see how I get on with them. Thanks again for your help. Gordon

I am working on an Airfix DH-4 kit and have now almost completed a scratch-built interior. This will have to be painted to represent plain varnished plywood. I know that this will involve painting everything in a "wood" colour and applying a thin coat of a darker brown but I would like to know what colours people here use for this and what their preferred method is for applying the top coat to give a wood grain effect. In addition, I have not yet made the seat belts as I have no clear idea what they would have been like. My guess is that the pilot's belt would have been a simple lap strap but the observer sat on a circular stool like a piano stool and would have had to stand up, move about to fire the gun, operate the camera and face forward or aft as needed. Does anyone know what the belt would have been like and where it was secured to the fuselage? I can find no photographs of the cockpit interiors that show the belts. All suggestions or sources of information would be greatly appreciated. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

I don't know if this belongs here but I don't see anywhere else where it fits better. Until the demise of Yahoo Groups in 2020, I was a member of a group called 72ndscaleUSMilair. When Yahoo packed up their groups, I thought that the group had migrated to Google Groups or possibly Groups IO. Recently, it belatedly occurred to me that I hadn't heard anything from the group for a long time so I e-mailed them at Google Groups but was told there was no such group. I then tried Groups IO with the same result. Does anyone know if this group is still in existence and, if so, where I can contact them? Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

rossm, Thanks for your reply. I'll chase that one up, especially if it has the exhaust glare shields. I can't remember seeing them on a Spitfire either. Since my last posting, I've come across this site: https://www.raf-in-combat.com/downloads/supermarine-spitfire-lf-16-post-1947-47-photos/ There are some very interesting photographs, well worth seeing. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

Since typing my replies last night, I have had a couple of lucky finds. These are possible alternative schemes for the Heller kit and I'm inclined to try one of them. The first is an aircraft of 17Sn which is an option in an Eduard 1/48 scale kit. Details can be found here: https://www.super-hobby.be/products/Spitfire-Mk.XVI-Bubbletop.html#gallery_start The second is an aircraft of 1 (Pilots) Refresher Flying Unit. I came across a photograph of FD*AC, which is apparently preserved in Scotland, and then found that FD*AA is a decal option in the 1/32 scale Tamiya kit. These links should show these: https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/science-and-technology/spitfire/ and: https://www.largescaleplanes.com/articles/article.php?aid=2987 At the moment, I'm inclined to go for FD*AC but I'll be doing a further Google search to see if I can find any other units before I put paint to plastic! In the meanwhile, my thanks to everyone who replied to my original post. If anyone knows of other possible marking schemes, I'd be grateful for the details. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

Graham Boak, Graham, Thanks for your reply. I agree with you that FJTK would be the actual code for SL569. Gingerbob is right, I think, in suggesting that the code layout T*KFJ is a mistake on someone's part. Alternatively, the code layout may have varied between sub-units (squadrons) within the school. Without clarification of the points raised in my reply to gingerbob, I'm thinking of putting the kit back in the loft and moving on to something else! Best wishes, Gordon

Jonners, Thanks for your reply and for the Pathe film clip which is very clear. For the layout of the code letters on the fuselages of these Spitfires, could I refer you to my reply to gingerbob? I must admit that I have watched these films many times but, until you mentioned it, I had never noticed that one of them was a high-backed version. Do you know if it is still posible to view these film clips as stills as it was when you originally sent links to them in the earlier thread to which gingerbob provided the link above? If so, how is it done? Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

gingerbob, Thanks for your reply and the attached thread. This was a thread that I joined when I first looked into making the Heller kit with different markings. The two Pathe films were most interesting and I thought at first that I might model either FJW*D or E. Further study of the films, however, posed questions that I couldn't answer and I put the kit aside until I had further information. I came across the kit in the loft recently and that prompted my current posting. It isn't entirely clear in the films but it looks as if the wing leading edges might be painted black. It also appears that some of the aircraft retained their cannon armament and others didn't. The film stills weren't clear enough to tell with certainty which had and which hadn't. The final straw was a streamlined object above the port wing of FJW*E, near the leading edge. I thought it might be a housing for a camera but don't really know. It appears only briefly. As far as the layout of the code letters is concerned, they seem to follow a common pattern. On the port side, they are F*JWE but on the starboard side, they are FJW*E. All of the aircraft that I could see reasonably clearly follow this pattern. Best wishes, Gordon Mclaughlin

stever219, Thanks for your very prompt reply. As Graham Boak says, F was the prefix letter for Flying Training Command and T was the prefix for Technical Training Command. A list of codes for both of these appears in Squadron Codes 1937 - 56 by Michael Bowyer and John Rawlings (PSL, 1979). This would make the unit code FJT and the individual aircraft letter K. For some reason, the display of the codes on this aircraft doesn't follow this pattern although the codes on the other Spitfires in the Pathe films linked by gingerbob and Jonners do. I agree with you that the spinner is probably red. Thanks again for your help. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

I'm planning to revive a long-neglected build of the Heller Spitfire 16 in 1/72. I want to make a model of one of these aircraft in post-war RAF service in overall silver. After deciding against the Heller decals, I found a photograph on AircraftPhotos.Company that might be suitable. Here is a link to the photograph; I hope it's all right to post links here. https://www.aviationphotocompany.com/p934046062/hdcacb10#hdcacb10 The Spitfire in the photograph is SL569, T*KFJ of the Central Gunnery School. It has Type D roundels and fin flashes. The photograph is in black and white and the aircraft is seen from the port side. Before I start to apply decals, I need to know: 1) How would the code letters appear on the starboard side? Would KFJ*T be likely? 2) What colour was the spinner? Comparing the tone of the spinner with the roundel and fin flash suggests, unhelpfully, that it could have been either red or blue. The question is complicated a little by the next question. 3) Comparing the tones of the fuselage roundel and the fin flash shows that they appear quite different. It almost looks as if the flash had the colours in the wrong order, the leading stripe being decidedly darker than the trailing stripe. It could be newer paint or an effect of the light, I suppose. Does anyone know? Either way, it doesn't help with Question 2! Has anyone seen a picture of this aircraft from the starboard side or seen another from the same unit? My references provide no useful information unfortunately. Failing that, has anyone a reasonably clear photograph of another silver Spitfire 16 of another unit for which the colours and markings are known? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

Dromia, Thanks for your reply. I'll be ordering some tomorrow. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

Dr. Quack, Thanks for your reply. Several people have recommended the W&N Galeria varnish and I intend to try it. Apart from being reliable and easy to apply, it seems to have the great virtue of being cheap! Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

Jenko, Thank you for your reply and your helpful comment regarding the availability of Humbrol products. I'll keep it in mind. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

Graham, Thanks for your replies here and on Braille Scale. I'll definitely try the Winsor & Newton. Much appreciated. Best wishes, Gordon

My old bottle of Humbrol Matt Cote has finally run out. The local model shop has had it on order from Humbrol for a couple of months but has had no supply yet. I bought a new bottle from an E-Bay seller but it doesn't give the usual clear matt finish. There is a slight sheen to the finish and there are whitish streaks in places. On-line prices from other sources are surprisingly high. This has led me to wonder if there might be an alternative product that might be more reliable and more readily available. What do other modellers use? I need a product that can be applied by brush as I don't have an airbrush. All comments and suggestions would be of interest. Gordon McLaughlin

@Geoffrey Sinclair, Thank you for your reply. I have never come across Hathi Download Helper but will certainly try it. It sounds as if it would speed up the process of downloading books and periodicals considerably. I've never had much luck with the Hathi Trust but this sounds like the answer to the problem. @Space Ranger, Thanks for your reply. It certainly looks as if your method would work well. It's a pity that they only allow downloading of one page at a time. It makes for a very slow and laborious process and is presumably intended as a deterrent. Many thanks again to you both for your help, Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin

@Geoffrey Sinclair, This is a most interesting find. How do I download a copy? Hathi Trust seems to have been set up to deny access to any of its books and periodicals to as many people as possible! Regards, Gordon McLaughlin

When I was in the ATC in the 1960s, the seat belts were a fairly bright blue. Humbrol do, or did, a paint called WW1 Blue and this was a close match to it. The circular quick release was pale gold in colour. The colour tended to wear off revealing a dull silver colour underneath. The whole interior of the aircraft was matt black. The parachute harness was a slightly greyish light brown colour, the canvas parts were a light khaki brown and the quick release box was black. We were repeatedly warned that, if the lower straps and cords were not assembled correctly, baling out would result in a sudden change of sex. We flew in our ordinary battledress uniforms but had to leave the beret on the ground. I hope this catalogue of trivial detail is of some use. Best wishes, Gordon McLaughlin