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Methuen to Humbrol or F.S. conversion


bertopinal

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I'm building an Eduard Fokker E.I 1/48 and i want to colour as one of the Austro-Hungarian planes on the Isonzo front.

In the famed "Austro-Hungarian Army Aircraft of World War One" the overall green colour was described as " Greysh-Green 30C6" in the Methuen color book.

Can any help me in 'translating' the Methuen colour in Humbrol enamel or F.S.595 number?

TIA

Roberto from Italy

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30 C 6 is quite a lurid yellow-green colour. Nothing very close in FS 595. FS 34552 is about the closest but is too yellow and should be a little more towards 34524 which is too green and not yellow enough.

Nothing in current Humbrol looks close but the old Authentics Unbleached Wool which is a little lighter would probably be ok for scale. Here is the Colour System mix for that:-

28 x 103 Cream

17 x 34 White

1 x 101 Mid Green (adding a bit more should get you thereabouts)

But I seem to recall the colours in that book being de-bunked and that greys should be used instead?

Nick

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I've no clue either, but am interested as I do have one of these in the stash. The Aerodrome forum had some discussion on it, and include a few other methuen numbers as well.

But with the number given, all I could find in chart form online is from http://artquill.blogspot.ca/2012/12/methuen-color-index-and-classification.html

17A.jpg

The site does not provide the 6th row where 30C6 would be located. From what I understand the row in question should be about 25% lighter. Using a paint program, the given "C" swatch above looks to be hex colour code #a6b153, and can be viewed online here:

http://encycolorpedia.com/a6b153

Conveniantly, if you scroll down a bit on that site, they provide a 25% lighter sample, as #bdc57f.

Inputting that number to the paint data base here: http://scalemodeldb.com/paint

the closest match is actually tamiya's XF-21 Sky, but the distance is 11.27, which really isn't an acceptable close match.

5251.png

regards,

Jack

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Thanks to all for the exaustive replies.

Following an old Humbrol conversion table (edit more or less around 1990) the old Authentic MC30 is equivalent at the standard range 95 (no more produced).

I'm lucky enough to have a very old (1980?) Humbrol colour chart with painted colours chips; in this chart the 95 chip is a strange yellowish-green color with a pale shade of grey and match near perfectly the FS595 34554.

At this point i think every yellowish-greys-green is good enough..................

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Roberto, just a quick word on the reported 30C6 colour for A-H Fokker Eindeckers.

This match was originally put forward by the late Dr Martin O'Connor in his excellent book Air Aces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 1914-1918. Dr O'Connor spent a great deal of time and not a little money researching this subject, including interviewing a number of the then-surviving Austro-Hungarian pilots. One of these was Gottfried Banfield, who agreed to an interview in the morning, followed by a meal in a Trieste restaurant at Dr O'Connors expense. The interview was apparently coming to a close when the good doctor produced the Methuen book of colour and asked Banfield (by all accounts an irascible old gent) to point to the closest approximation to the colour of his Naval Fokker E.III.

Now bear in mind that this interview took place in the early to mid nineteen eighties, more than sixty years from when he had last seen the aeroplane and also that Banfield is reported to have said later to another researcher that he was fed up with answering interminable questions, hungry and looking forward to his lunch so he just pointed to any colour in the book and stuck to it in order to get things moving lunchwards!

It is a good story and has the ring of truth - particularly as the colour is so unexpected - given other possible E.III finishes. Note that this was a Navy aircraft, not one of the Army machines flown on the Isonzo Front. I'd be inclined to go with a "Fokker Beige" or "Fokker Grey" colour for those, WNW suggest Humbrol 83 for the beige and Tamiya XF22 (sorry, no Humbrol match given) for the grey. In the book you mention, on page 398, I'd suggest that the top example (03.43) is wearing the grey colour and the next photograph of 03.47 seems to show a beige colour and the third photo apparently has both colours in the line up: 03.42 and 03.41 look grey and the other two beige! Just to compound things, the final photo on that page shows a dark fuselage and transparent clear doped wings........

Incidentally, Wingnut Wings interpretation of the A-H Navy green, as listed in the instruction booklet for their Fokker E.III Late is Tamiya Deep Green XF67 - nothing like 30C6 - and I have great respect for their research and most of their colour choices.

Ah, the joys of WWI colour interpretation!

Edited by Rowan Broadbent
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Rowan, thanks for relaying that account. I think I remember seeing this, or something similar at the Aerodrome forum. Wasn't there another author or researcher that has also been raked over the coals?

Anyways, any thoughts on the MisterKit paints dedicated to WW1? It's interesting to note that their Austrian paint set includes Fokker Pale Green. Perhaps another option to ponder.

clear-doped-linen.jpg

regards,

Jack

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Jack, I think the "researcher" you might be referring to was the late Rodney Gerrard, who shamelessly invented "reports" from a fictional British Army officer or officers on camouflage and marking colours and also faked "samples" painted onto fabric which purported to be from actual aircraft. Before his deception was uncovered many of these colours had been published and entered the record, many of which are still circulating as "true colours", despite repeated attempts to correct them. This case is somewhat different but it also shows the resilience of an inaccurate colour, once it enters the record through a reputable source. I'm afraid to say that I suspect that the MisterKit shade in your post comes from this same "30C6" source as outlined in my last post and was no doubt prepared in all good faith.

The root problem, I thinkl, is that modellers, most of whom have an interest in building accurate representations, are understandably very keen to pin down "exact colours", so that their hard work is not wasted on an inaccurate result. Sadly this, quite legitimate, concern causes them to latch onto any colour reference which is apparently legitimate and to be very reluctant to budge from it thereafter.

For WWI colours in particular it is right to be, shall we say, wary of those few who peddle certainties without "showing their working". I am pleased to say that a legitimately cautious approach seems to be gaining ground. If you read the Wingnut Wings booklets, you will find that they are themselves generally cautious on the subject of colours and Ray Rimell in Windsock Magazine continually urges such circumspection.

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I take a good look at the pictures at page 398 of the book Austro-Ungarian etc.etc. and, as usual in the case of printed pictures i was very cautelative in my judgment.

Usually the pictures of WW I are copies of copies of copies of original glass plate, re-shot with unknow film from a contact print, in the better case.

The printing done his job in modyfing the tone, hue and the contrast of the pictures.

The picture of 03.43 was shot with few sun, instead the picture of 03.47 was shot in full sun (see the shadows) : the lone sure thing is the colour of the fabric is darker than the withe of the cross background.

More interesting is the picture with the line of the aircraft : all have the same colour; darker than the white but if 'green' , 'grey' or 'beige' is impossible to decide.

De Banfield ( or von Banfield in german parlace ) was a Navy officier and he made very few flights with the Fokker, assigned to the Army. It sounds everytime to me 'strange' the formidable memory of the colours he had of a plane not in his heart.

I was lucky enough to personally meet De Banfield the year before his death but the colours of his planes was the last thing i think to ask him :analintruder:

By my personal experience, the human memory is always not so reliable. In middle '80 i aided to paint a Special Colour F104 and i preserved a sample of the original colours; some years ago i made a model only by memory, sure of my ! The last year i finally found the real colour samples (buried under a pile of old magazines) :

OMG !!

i simple used the wrong colours.....

Roberto

R.

Edited by bertopinal
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  • 3 weeks later...

Right, they are. But they're not remotely the same kind of thing that the FS595 is. Apples vs. spark plugs.

Not at all. Apples and spark plugs are different things. Methuen, Pantone and FS 595b are all catalogued representations of colour and therefore quantifiably comparable. They are differentiated more by purpose and limitations.

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