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How Green Was My Interior - or was it grey? plus info on BS381


John

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A visit to my LMS revealed a "British production" pot of Humbrol 78 Cockpit Grey Green. Curious as ever, I bought one to see what this incarnation of the colour looked like.

The touchstone, as always, is the RAF Museum colour chip set and compared to this the new Humbrol paint is a bit too dark and green:

IGG4_zps5iectrcc.jpg

It actually looks a bit olive. I couldn't identify any useful visual matches against the standards I had to hand, BS381, RAL, FS595 and BS4800.

Against my most up to date acrylic pot, new style but marked "Made in China", the difference is marked:

IGG6_zpsoo28okfm.jpg

IGG5_zpst3h9ha5b.jpg

The acrylic is a bit too dark compared to the RAFM chip but doesn't seem to have as much yellow in it. It's probably useful for most requirements, even if you might want to add a touch of light grey:

IGG2_zpscc5qex8c.jpg

It's a bit lighted in real life than it looks here.

Compared to my BS381c 283 the acrylic is close:

IGG3_zpsbdhlni01.jpg

It probably falls around *4226 and *4227 in FS595.

Curious! I'll have a rake through the paint box and see what else I have that purports to match this colour.

John

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78 has certainly varied. I'll see what earlier tins I have and do some brushouts. I think I still have some of the very first acrylic release somewhere and I might have some of the 1970s/80s "grey band" enamels.

J

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A quick and none too thorough rake in the enamels box brought forth these:

IGG7_zpsrgrmmeye.jpg

I couldn't get Humbrol Authentics in my home town so Airfix M20 Aircraft Grey Green was my go-to interior paint for RAF models. I must have got through gallons of it. In about 1977 the word went out that a local plumber's merchant had a load of Humbrol paint sets in stock so naturally we all rolled along to see what he had. They were the 6 tin Authentic sets, not all of them but he did have the Cockpit Colours set which featured, among others, HD1 Aircraft Grey-Green. That's the one I left the shop with.

I don't have time to check through my acrylics just now but I'm confident there are even more attempts at GG in there.

J

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A few more brush-outs:

Precision 117, not bad:

IGG9_zps2tk7mtzk.jpg

WEM ACRN28, pretty good:

IGG8_zpsvztabrmz.jpg

Airfix M20 - something has gone badly wrong here. Acknowledging that memory can be a fickle thing, this isn't the colour I painted my Airfix 1/24th scale Hurricane with in 1974! I wonder if there has been a chemical shift in the paint over the years? It's much darker and more olive than it should be. As far as I can tell the tin hadn't been opened until today:

IGG10_zps0e0vzrrd.jpg

Some acrylics next.

J

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So, hang on... Edgar is saying that the correct interior cockpit colour is Humbrol 90; and John has a lovely separate thread on Sky featuring some old Humbrol 90 tins? So from now on I should paint my Spitfire interiors Sky, just like the underneath? Is that right? And 78 is a green herring, which has never been used in cockpits? Aaaargghhh...

:banghead:

bestest,

M.

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Hi John

Regarding Airfix M20, that looks how M20 looked, says he with remains of kits from the era done in Airfix paint.

One idea which might be of interest, Airfix paint RAF colours were good scale matches for some of the colours portrayed, I'm thinking in particular of M3 Dark Green and M5 Dark Earth.

I used Airfix paint a lot, as because it was Airfix it was right, (ah, the world was so much simpler then) , but I know age 8 that I was very disappointed at the blue hue of Humbrol 30 on a Spitfire, which I had got as it was listed as being the same, but the Airfix M3 has a much better take on the olive hue of Dark Green IIRC.

I also thought Airfix Flesh M7, was better than the Humbrol 'equivalent' 61 which was much redder.

Sorry if this causes an afternoon of rooting through the paint vaults.

If i wasn't so flippin lazy I should photographs some kit remains done in Airfix paint against the RAF chips...

One final point, in response to a request for spray colours, http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234987547-124-airfix-spitfire-mk1a-tamiya-sprays/

I stirred up some Humbrol 30 acrylic from a starter kit, checking to see if reformulated, while it was still to blue and dark for Dark Green it was a reasonable match for Extra Dark Sea Green!

Thanks for all your informative posts on paint and taking the time to this, very helpful.

cheers

T

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Aircraft Grey-Green is not, nor was it ever, Cockpit Grey-Green; as B.S. (never used by the Air Ministry in WWII) 283, it's nearest equivalent seems to be the green used on Irish aircraft.

Years ago. Humbrol matched Cockpit Grey-Green with 90 Beige Green, but never told anyone (except for its appearance in one of the issues of the Airfix 1/24 Spitfire I.) If you can find an original "proper" colour chip for 90, rather than in a printed leaflet, go by that; I suspect that the authors of the Patrick Stevens book on the 1/24 Mk.I, matched the colour in the airframe now hanging up in the Imperial War Museum (by pure chance, it had just been brought down for cleaning, giving them access.) Several years ago I was able to inspect skins taken from AR213, after its first-ever rebuild, and, after cleaning off layers of dirt, found the cockpit colour also matched 90.

I addressed this at my blog in August last year and have commented about it here before. A 1941 memorandum from the Master Provision Officer (which I reproduced at the blog) refers to "Cockpit, Grey Green" with the same stores number that appears on the main stores list for (the only) Grey Green appearing there. The wartime MAP Colour Standards book includes a swatch for Grey Green (# 6) which is exactly similar to the chip in the RAF Museum book, the extant paint I examined on some Spitfire interior components and the current BS 381c # 283 Aircraft Grey Green.

It is also worth quoting Ivor Ramsden inter-alia in a comment he made on the same subject here in July 2014:-
". . . in our museum collection we've got numerous samples of interior paint from a number of crashed WW2 aircraft including Spitfire, Hurricane, Dominie, Botha and Anson and some other samples on unused wartime spare parts and on parts recovered from airfield dumps. All of them are grey-green and all of them are close to Humbrol 78. A couple of the samples, from different aircraft, are identical to it and one Anson's interior parts show 3 coats of paint, all of which are different, but all are close to 78."

The interior colour that you describe was possibly intended to match the standard for Eau-de-Nil. The modern BS 381C 1996 # 216 Eau-de-nil is exactly similar to the BS 381 1930 # 16 Eau De Nil and is very close @ 1.86 (where less than 2.0 = a close match) to FS 14533. The original cockpit paint in the Supermarine S6B appears exactly similar to Eau-de-Nil.

Nick

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Hi John

Regarding Airfix M20, that looks how M20 looked, says he with remains of kits from the era done in Airfix paint.

One idea which might be of interest, Airfix paint RAF colours were good scale matches for some of the colours portrayed, I'm thinking in particular of M3 Dark Green and M5 Dark Earth.

I used Airfix paint a lot, as because it was Airfix it was right, (ah, the world was so much simpler then) , but I know age 8 that I was very disappointed at the blue hue of Humbrol 30 on a Spitfire, which I had got as it was listed as being the same, but the Airfix M3 has a much better take on the olive hue of Dark Green IIRC.

I also thought Airfix Flesh M7, was better than the Humbrol 'equivalent' 61 which was much redder.

Sorry if this causes an afternoon of rooting through the paint vaults.

If i wasn't so flippin lazy I should photographs some kit remains done in Airfix paint against the RAF chips...

One final point, in response to a request for spray colours, http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234987547-124-airfix-spitfire-mk1a-tamiya-sprays/

I stirred up some Humbrol 30 acrylic from a starter kit, checking to see if reformulated, while it was still to blue and dark for Dark Green it was a reasonable match for Extra Dark Sea Green!

Thanks for all your informative posts on paint and taking the time to this, very helpful.

cheers

T

As I said, memory is fickle!

I quite liked Airfix paints back in the day as well, and I still have some in the stash. The brushout of M20 I have here is similar visually to FS595 24201, much too olive for IGG and nothing like the colour on the lid of the tin. It's almost spot on for RAL6013.

I must have used something else on that Hurricane...

John

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Here it is when applied to airbrush Mr PAINT It coincides with the remains IXc Spitfire Mk 133 in my collection

mrpaint-spiti-003.jpg

spit-cokpit-stene-edo-ix.jpg

P.k

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At risk of dragging in another former controversy. I had a piece of IAC Seafire which had both interior and exterior colour on it. They were different but similar and both resembled Aircraft Grey Green or Humbrol 78 which is now the accepted colour for the Irish aircraft. If anything the interior colour was greener than the exterior colour but that could be simply down to the fact that the exterior was naturally faded and of course the exterior was painted later probably using a different batch.

I think perhaps the only thing we can safely say is that the colour varied somewhat but generally fell within the general parameters we know of as Humbrol 78.

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This subject has been aired before:-

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/49211-i-think-i-may-have-interpreted-edgars-thread-correctly-or-maybe-not/page-8?start=140

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/51985-humbrol-78-and-raf-grey-green/

Edgar's # 149 in the first thread is pertinent but as far as I can see has still not been answered. There is evidence of a lighter, more yellowish interior colour but whether it was Eau-de-Nil, a variant of Grey Green or something else is still unknown. The fact that Humbrol 78 appears to have got darker and greener has not helped.

FWIW I think the current BS colour followed the MAP colour (in the wartime swatch book) and not the other way round.

Nick

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The Spartan is an unrestored 30s airframe, but I think it's similarity is just a co-incidence - lots of light green colours used for internals at that time (RLM 02 anyone?) including vehicles.

I've re-read the thread and I don't think anyone has said it WAS a BS colour during the war - 1930s BS381 didn't have an 83 as far as I can see - but it became a BS colour (283) when the Air Ministry colours were incorporated into BS381C in the early 60s.

Regarding the correct term for the colour, the MAP colour standards book called it 'Grey Green', as you can see here in this image from Mark12

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v634/Mark12/Album%204/MAPChips001.jpg

EDIT Inserted the cover of Mark12's book - note the reference to DTD 83A, DTD308, DTD 318, DTD420A and DTD 517

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v634/Mark12/Album%204/MAPchips01.jpg

The inclusion of Ocean Grey, PRU Blue and Middle stone suggests a post-1942 date

FWIW I think Grey Green and 'cockpit grey green' from the stores listings were the same colour.

It became Aircraft Grey Green at a later date (Possibly when incorporated into BS381C).

Regarding Spitfire cockpits, I believe it was pretty established that early examples at least were painted in a colour that was different from Grey-green, although still in the overall greyish green ball-park - IIRC the RAFM example that the Medway group restored revealed this when they did that piece of work. (Apple green springs to mind)

As for 78, I have 5 I've found so far, 3 acrylics and 2 enamel, all different! :-)

Edited by Dave Fleming
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'Cockpit, Grey Green' and 'Grey Green' must have been the same colour unless there was a 'Grey Green' without any stores reference but with a MAP swatch and/or a 'Grey Green' with a stores reference but no MAP swatch.

At the risk of setting another hare running RLM 02 is not really a 'light green'. All the samples and standard chips that I've measured are Munsell Yellows. It is more a yellow-tinted or warm, slightly brownish grey.

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2010/12/colour-of-rlm-02-grau-grey.html

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2011/03/notice-of-update_10.html

It has been seriously confused with RLM 63 which is a true grey green.

Nick

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At the risk of setting another hare running RLM 02 is not really a 'light green'. All the samples and standard chips that I've measured are Munsell Yellows. It is more a yellow-tinted or warm, slightly brownish grey.

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2010/12/colour-of-rlm-02-grau-grey.html

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2011/03/notice-of-update_10.html

It has been seriously confused with RLM 63 which is a true grey green.

Nick

Visually it's a grey-ish/greeny/light olive/not-blue-black-or-red colour, which is the point I was making! :-)

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Please, no; don't tell me you're saying that a 21st century rebuild of a civilian aircraft can be used as a guide to how military aircraft were painted. That really is stretching things a bit.

This is (part of) the interior of a Tempest before any rebuilding took place, and it's nowhere near 78:-

PICT0026_zpsmieyy4t5.jpg

It seems that I have to repeat myself, over and over again, but, by their own admission, British Standards had no input into aircraft colours, which remained the sole province of a department in R.A.E. Farnborough; they devised the colours, mixed samples, then sent them out to the various paint manufacturers.

As far as I'm aware, and I see Dave has already commented on this, G-ACYK is unrestored and remains as it was when it was recovered in 1973. What it could, possibly, be is a surviving if somewhat weathered example of a pre-War proprietary grey green finish available to and used by the British aviation industry and as such is surely of some interest to this thread. Nor, for that matter, do I think that either civillian aircraft or BS381c:283 are beyond its scope.

Middle Stone was a BS381 shade when it was adopted by the RAE, but that *is* beyond the scope of this topic.

John

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