Dirty Spitfire pictures wanted!

[Mitch K]

Edgar, were the primed with what in my time were called in my day "etching" primers, that almost seemed to eat down into the metal? These were incredibly tenacious, able to resist vigourous assault with a wire brush (in my experience), hence why they would survive while topcoats didn't. I don't know what the time line of the development of them was.

[Graham Boak]

Re NM Seafires - I could just say that there are always solitary exceptions, but more particularly these are "Boss"'s aircraft: the later ones in peacetime. HMS Indefatigable was the carrier that visited New Zealand after VJ Day, I believe? Normal practice is/was different. Look at the state of the painted examples behind - they do not have bare metal patches showing but are in a right scruffy state. There's a lot of effort gone into ONE aircraft. In another navy: the USN tried bare metal Panther(s) in the early 50s but rapidly abandoned it because of corrosion. Or recall the P-51Ds in 1950 rushed out to Korea on the deck of ships but without any preparation. They were unusable on arrival.

Yes, you can spend time keeping one example in mint bare condition, particularly in peacetime. That does not make it normal or proper practice in a stressed working saline environment.

[tonyot]

Another point to watch for is that carrier aircraft don't have bare metal. Because of the corrosive environment any chips are touched up ASAP. So they do end up with fairly tatty appearances, but no silver patches. (Seafires are Spitfires, aren't they?)

Point taken Graham,

I was just answering your statement above to show that there were exceptions to the rule!

Cheers

Tony

[iang]

NM Seafires: Indefatigable

There were at least 4 NM Seafires on the carrier at the same time: S/141, S/146 and two unknown. I have a deck park photo that shows the 4 together.

[Mitch K]

Not wishing to stir the pot, but could "bare metal" actually be natural metal finished with clear laquer?

Edited May 24, 2015 by Mitch K

[Edgar]

Edgar, were the primed with what in my time were called in my day "etching" primers, that almost seemed to eat down into the metal?

I don't know exactly; the drawing, which goes from 1937 to 1944, and includes the change to synthetic paints, just specifies "grey chromate" primers U.P.1 & U.P.2. The airframe material was to be either Alclad or anodised aluminium.

A later copy (post-war?) of the drawing does specify the use of the "approved etching primer."

[Brad]

Interesting. On carriers? Or on land? And is this bare metal or primer? One possibly relevant example is the way paint is removed from the nose of a Hurricane immediately behind the spinner. There is evidence of just such on one of the Sea Hurricane photos from Operation Pedestal, which has otherwise been interpreted as the remains of a white band (as another example appears to have the remains of checkers, this is perhaps reasonable.) However, as the others don't show such wear, and the Sea Hurricanes (the ones coded 7, anyway) had been on the carrier for 10 months, I feel that signs of wear would have been more obvious if they hadn't been touched up. As always, more photos would help.

Leading edges will wear away just from the air, and the dust/dirt flung back by the prop, and the hands of the men pushing the aircraft from place to place. I presume you mean that the chocks were often placed on the wing roots, but that does sound much more like a land-based practice than a viable one on a moving ship.

[Av8fan]

Interesting discussion.

For the picture posted by Mr. Brooks, I used the select paint by pixel feature on http://scalemodeldb.com/paint to get a suggestion as to the grey primer. Of course where you click can change the output result, and I would always want to test first. One result was Tamiya XF20. Duraluminum is well, probably whichever metal paint you like.

For me the struggle is to try to make something that is fairly accurate( goodness knows I have no where near the skill that many here have) while providing a bit of visual interest via weathering. The old saying less is more is something that I struggle with when it comes to weathering.

Thanks for the information folks. Something to think about when I can set up my bench again.

Edit for typos.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Av8fan

[tonyot]

NM Seafires: Indefatigable

There were at least 4 NM Seafires on the carrier at the same time: S/141, S/146 and two unknown. I have a deck park photo that shows the 4 together.

Cheers Ian,

Sounds like a cracking photo,.....I was ecstatic about finding out about one of them so four is brilliant!! Do they all have the serial removed from the fuselage?

All the best mate,

Tony

[Graham Boak]

Nice colour pictures of Seafires: these are 880 Sqn back on Indomitable after her repairs in America, but are only working up and have recently come from a land-base (and may even return to it before night). It was not uncommon to have units work up with one set of aircraft, often older, and receive new machines for the actual commission - although given the date, there was no such thing as an old Seafire. Which perhaps shows that wear and tear happened quite rapidly.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Graham Boak

[Bedders]

I think this photo is from a related set from Indomitable, though taken back in Scapa Flow in June 1943, following the ship's return from the US. Great book this, and this front cover photo has some good detail of Seafires scratched back to bare metal in some areas - caused not least by placing chocks on the wings.

[Graham Boak]

There is a saying that nothing on earth is inevitable except death and taxes, but you have to add to it that light alloy will rot in a saline environment. Despite these examples of poor practice, if you really believe that the FAA and other naval air forces weren't aware of this, and didn't take action to prevent it, you have a poorer opinion of their awareness than I.

[Mitch K]

There is a saying that nothing on earth is inevitable except death and taxes, but you have to add to it that light alloy pretty much anything up to and including 316 stainless steel will rot in a saline environment. Despite these examples of poor practice, if you really believe that the FAA and other naval air forces weren't aware of this, and didn't take action to prevent it, you have a poorer opinion of their awareness than I.

Fixed it

The fact that aeroplanes are made up of a most complex mixture of different alloys which will cheerfully electrolyse in anything ionic would have been no surprise. I would have expected that as well as maintaining the paint/laquer/whatever, washing the salt out would have been considered important.

[Peter Roberts]

So in the photos of the Seafires, is that bare metal we are looking at, or grey primer?

My eyes are having trouble discerning a difference between grey or metalic colour - could be either.

The presence of grey primer would fit with the posts made by both Edgar and Graham (but my heart is voting for bare metal - visually more pleasing to me)

PR

[Killingholme]

So in the photos of the Seafires, is that bare metal we are looking at, or grey primer?

My eyes are having trouble discerning a difference between grey or metalic colour - could be either.

The presence of grey primer would fit with the posts made by both Edgar and Graham (but my heart is voting for bare metal - visually more pleasing to me)

PR

If only they used Zinc chromate green primer, then it would be easy to tell!

Actually there's a point to be made there- on US aircraft of the same vintage it is easy to discern where the paint has been worn though only to the green primer, and then in some places worn through the primer to bare metal. The effect is obvious (an very appealing to model too!)

I suppose (guess) there must have been a similar process on RAF/RN aircraft too- unless someone took a key to the paintwork, there must have been areas gradually worn through to the primer and some smaller high-wear areas where it had worn even the primer down to metal. I suppose this is impossible to pick up in photos- tarnished aluminium and grey looking all but identical.

As for models, I always use Citadel 'boltgun metal' for wear on 1/72 aircraft, which when given a matt finish looks for all the world equally like either grey primer or oxidised metal. Keeps even the most eagle-eyed observer happy!

Will

Edited May 26, 2015 by Killingholme