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John

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Good for you Jamie! Anyone want to wager me that if we could teleport ourselves back 75 years to a airfield with a Stuka, Bf 109 and He 111 on it that there would not be some variation in the "same" colours applied to all 3 aircraft? With all the thousands of liters of RLM 70 (71/02/65, etc,etc.) it would be improbable to think that ALL samples perfectly matched one another even on factory fresh machines...Thomas Hitchcock  ( Monogram Luftwaffe painting Guide) told me that he had seen (IIRC) 5 different actual examples of RLM 74 and none matched each other exactly. I think we modelers sometimes just have to accept the Wabi-sabi of the situation with respect to paint applied to a full size (or 1/72 sized) object as opposed to a color swatch from one of those thousands of liters of paint....

Then if we throw in paint application techniques, thinning, mixing on the real items, well you see where I am going here.

Sovereign makes excellent paints matched to a specific standard the final "look" is in our use and application of their product.

Edited by pat d
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As Nick Millman once said, and I quote;

 

Quote

There is always a tendency to conflate paint colour standards with applied paints so that people talk about aircraft painted with MAP Dark Green, or ANA this or FS that. But those are colour standards and the applied paints were manufactured to match them against a colour card, with each manufacturers own designation and formula for each paint colour, not always recorded (and with so far unknown criteria for tolerance and acceptance of variance in most cases). There is and was inevitable variance, by manufacturer formula, batch, application and weathering. One evidenced example of this is a RAE August 1941 analysis of Night and Special Night paints as applied in 11 different aircraft factories using paints supplied by five different paint manufacturers. The paints differed in reflectivity, the application methods differed in effectiveness and the appearance and resilience of the painted surfaces varied and that was before the aircraft entered service and were subjected to exposure, weathering and wear or tear. 

 

To cut a long story short, whilst extremes of variance in colour should probably be avoided I think modellers can relax about minor variance and just go with their preferred paint brand. The models are replicating applied paint and all the other factors affecting its appearance and not the colour standard per se. 

 

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Ratch

Quote

I have 'taken at the time' wreckage

What do you mean by wreckage, what has it to do with colour matching?

 

I refer to 'taken at the time' wreckage as it has a lot to do with colour matching  in that my wreckage matches the colours in Merricks charts., confirming for me anyway that he has colours that match those on the aircraft my wreckage came from.

Its not been dug up, it was taken from downed aircraft. access panels for example as they are easily undone and knicked before the home guard got there, or turned a blind eye !

 

Chemicals in soil WILL alter colours, of the three ways of proving the charts right, dug wreckage, colour photos and taken at the time items, the latter are the most dependable. That said paint starts changing colour from the moment its made and applied. Only remaking to original formula creates it as it was on day of manufacture.

 

Hi Jamie,

Can you photograph those three models again circa midday on a cloudy day with no sun on them and placed in the same photo under them the 1941 Merrick chart.

raise a wing so the other wing is parallel to table.

Also the underside in a second shot of the He111 obviously with blocks etc under wings to protect aerials etc. again one wing parallel to table.

I ask that as looking at the shadows it seems a low sun angle and maybe a yellowy evening sun as a result.

 

Only north light cloudy sky can be used to show colours and with colour face vertical but apart from the tailfin of the He111 we will have to settle for wings for large viewing area.

 

71 looks definite brown due to I think the sun. see again my 70/71 photo. 70 and 71 are both greens. Your 65 is looking promising, that will be the first time we have a non greeny blue for 65.

 

When I compare model paint brands versions of 70 and 71 I spray them out onto plastic card with no primer giving several passes until the kamoi tape I have used to stick it down with ceases to be seen as a different colour. Thus I have them all the same density. I dont compare them on models as users vary the methods, undershading post shading etc, though I have yet to know in this latest fad why abutted panels on wings emit grime. Creating the mattress effect might be a reason for this latest verlindeny effect though panels facing skyward dont get the dips in the metal giving a bit of shadow as would fuselage. Breaking up the monotony of a solid area of colour is the reason I suspect.

 

some pics attached :-

0Dut7yV.jpg

Pshop used to neutralise any colour cast using midtone pipette in levels size adjusted to work on just black and white of cross separately.

 

7JjHVwn.jpg

note the vertical aurfaces are best for assessing colour as light reflectance is far less than wings.

 

bO4pXlS.jpg

still capture from footage and again adjusted using midtone pipette.

 

All are not colourised footage but the real McCoy !

 

Here is my photo of Merrick/Kiroff again.

yRjOZMs.jpg

 

 

Merlin

Edited by Merlin
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8 hours ago, Nick Nichols said:

But it's not like paint chip 71 from Merrick/Kiroff's "luftwaffe camouflage and markings 33-45" vol 2.

 

We own both volumes and there are 3 separate paint chip cards (excluding the NSFK and primer coatings card in Vol 1) - there are different colours on each and those which are duplicated in name are very close to each other in colour measurement.

 

Our RLM71 does look a lot like Merrick & Kiroff's RLM71 at 100 microns wet film thickness once dried - and has done for some time as evidenced by this WEM-era tinlet sat on one of Merrick & Kiroff's RLM71 chips.

 

resized_1797657c-e377-457e-b545-5e6dc1ca

 

That was literally the entire point in my last post - and described far more eloquently by the Nick Millman quote than I shall attempt - it matches the colour standard. I did not apply it like that, and Arado who license built the He111 I am modelling probably didn't have especially tight control on applied film thickness either - chiefly because it's not easy to measure the film thickness without a modern digital paint depth gauge - and even then you can only spot check which is unlikely to be done even today over the entirety of an aircraft.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Merlin said:

 

Hi Jamie,

Can you photograph those three models again circa midday on a cloudy day with no sun on them and placed in the same photo under them...

bO4pXlS.jpg

yRjOZMs.jpg

Merlin

 

I hope this doesn't seem obtuse but I've already put in a long day at my fulltime day job and now have a lot to do for Sovereign tonight as well as trying to be a dad; I haven't read your whole post - it's too long. I just clocked my name skim reading.

 

To be honest the weather is not conducive to photographing at midday under clouds and I'm out at midday Monday to Friday and whilst precious, my weekends are consumed doing many things that to be blunt are far higher priorities than posing photographs of models. Even if I intended to do it, I promise I'll have forgotten about this by 7pm this evening.

 

The paints are colour matched to Merrick and Kiroff. How anyone applies them is up to them. My post above was simply to demonstrate that 3 models painted with the same 3 colours of paint using different modelling techniques look different.

 

I will duck out of this thread now because the time:sales potential ratio is a bit sick - I can only say the same thing so many ways before sounding like a stuck record.

 

We own Merrick books and cards. The colours are measured by spectrophotometer. 100 microns wet film thickness is the control point we use. The paint is tested after manufacture at 100 microns on a half black/half white test card and checked for tolerance. Tolerance for a new colour is as close as we can get, but always well within the Delta E criteria of a close match. Subsequent batches are made using the final pigmentation quantities used for the first batch and are checked against stored CIELAB target values now under my ownership; previously some shades were checked against the previous batch which can result in gradual drift from batch to batch. My 1941 Merrick card is physically at the factory now where it has been used for QC checks on Luftwaffe target CIELAB values against spectrophotometer remeasurements against Merrick. They have all been fine.

 

Off to spend time with my daughters now. My wife is still doing Sovereign work at her desk.

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Well I for one am very appreciative of all the work you've put into this thread, so thanks for that Jamie.  Enjoy your family time, and I will be ordering colourcoats WHEN I get round to building my HMS Belfast !  :cheers:

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Hey, did anyone notice that in the photo of the Me 109 in Post #79 has a blue band on the air intake? I still remember the thread about this a couple of months ago.

Joe

 

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On 6/5/2018 at 9:07 PM, Troy Smith said:

The notes on the chart in the  Luftwaffe Modeller's Guide says that 30 different mixes and applications were required, so that means they are paint chips, not printed.

 

 

Not necessarily I'm afraid. I have the original chart in front of me and its printed. The note on the chart may simply mean that the printing inks were individually mixed rather than standard colours used and the sheet run through several times to get all the colours printed in register 

At the time I bought the Modellers Guide (mid 70's, IIRC I got an "industry" discount on the 3 volume set plus the Guide) with chart included I was working as a draftsman at a publishing house producing school atlases (Jacaranda Press as was, in Brisbane) Printing colours were generally chosen from the Pantone colour atlas a major producer of printing ink. I still have a colour swatch from those days (17th edition). However colours could be matched to specific requirements ...an expensive option added to which the cost of running the sheets through the presses or whatever more than usual would also add to the cost (Colour printing was an expensive business and is why many companies shipped their stuff to Asia for printing...(cheap and cheerful) ) 

However as I used the chart as a guide for many years I'd be happy to be proved wrong😚

 

Hope this helps. John H.

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  • 4 months later...
On 7/3/2018 at 6:05 PM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

We own both volumes and there are 3 separate paint chip cards (excluding the NSFK and primer coatings card in Vol 1) - there are different colours on each and those which are duplicated in name are very close to each other in colour measurement.

 

Our RLM71 does look a lot like Merrick & Kiroff's RLM71 at 100 microns wet film thickness once dried - and has done for some time as evidenced by this WEM-era tinlet sat on one of Merrick & Kiroff's RLM71 chips.

  

resized_1797657c-e377-457e-b545-5e6dc1ca

 

That was literally the entire point in my last post - and described far more eloquently by the Nick Millman quote than I shall attempt - it matches the colour standard. I did not apply it like that, and Arado who license built the He111 I am modelling probably didn't have especially tight control on applied film thickness either - chiefly because it's not easy to measure the film thickness without a modern digital paint depth gauge - and even then you can only spot check which is unlikely to be done even today over the entirety of an aircraft.

 

 

Hello
This is my 70/71 mix on other chips from the book Merrick & Kiroff

 

IMG_9637.thumb.jpg.3b2606e8cc09f29226dbcIMG_9635.thumb.jpg.abb790603f38592f76833IMG_9632.thumb.jpg.4f56eee0cb143cff801b3IMG_05.thumb.jpg.5a90e7bec8c414738ba8ab5IMG_04.thumb.jpg.fe68e907444909d27477dcdIMG_06.thumb.jpg.f6edf2d1559e50462c2d552

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  • 5 months later...

Nick,

Great to see someone using Merrrick Kiroff and making their models match the charts.

Thats the first time in ages I have seen 70/71 looking correct, the Stuka looking correct etc. actually in your photo the Do17Z 70 loks a tad more bluish yet if both are from the same tinlet/mix thats a bit odd, angle of light/refelcetion perhaps.

Everyone note, that stuka is what stuka models and 70/71 should look like !

 

In fact b/w photos of Ju87B's see a lesser contrast than others such as He111, I wonder if the manufacturers had a slightly different paint batch, add a drop of 70 into 71 when doing stukas perhaps !

For those who think the Luftwaffe got 70/71 too similar, do what Nick has done, mix to Merrick then photo the model indoors, then outdoors on a dull 10/10 cloud day, then in full sunlight at middle of day (not yellowy dawn dusk area( and you will see the contrast go much greater in the sun, the Luft did know what they were doing, we are all studying colours too much indoors.

Quote

Jamie: Despite most colour chips now showing RLM70 and 71 to be equally dark and with a slightly different hue, it's seemingly impossible to bludgeon the high contrast fancies out of modellers.

I call it 'the Luftwaffe got it wrong' syndrome, they have to do the colours as they think they should have been, or they cant be bothered and argue that given variances some might have looked like it.

When I saw as Ju87B in what appeared to be 71/02 I cant accept such laziness. They are trusting in paint manufacturers to get it right.

 

Merlin

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  • 1 year later...

One problem is that people rely on a small selection of photographs rather than considering a wider range.  There are quite a number of photos where the 71 looks considerably lighter than the 70, but these are on fairly well-worn aircraft and are showing the effects of fading.  Basing an opinion on those photos can be misleading to those with the very best intentions.  We haven't all being doing this for years and have large libraries.  (OK, I have and do. but anyone offering enough money can truck it away... well, most of it.)

 

Jamie: I think you are being a bit critical of the wartime paint shops.  I can't argue about the technology of paint thicknesses, and don't want to anyway, but it seems unlikely to me that either Heinkel or Arado (or anyone else) failed to have a professional paint shop, even under wartime conditions, which had hardly begun to bite at the time these aircraft were built.  They will not have been able to precisely measure the thickness of the covering, but they would know how much volume of paint was required to cover an He.111, and if one painter (or shop) was using more (or less) than expected, questions would be asked.  The same would apply if any noticeable difference appeared in the resulting colour - which is after all what we are talking about.  Whether a repaint would be insisted on is another matter...

 

EDIT and after 11 months no-one noticed I'd transposed 70 and 71...  Or the offer of the books for a suitably large sum of money.

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  • 11 months later...

So as a enthusiast I drfit to the website. Happy that it is still available. I click on the purchase click on Belgium.... and .... £19 shipping ?????

Are they for real. I guess a polite email might work. Otherwise I need contacts in the UK to do the purchase and let them send it to me.... will be much cheaper

Edited by Steben
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No, it won't, because you are being shipped material that counts as hazardous and cannot be carried by air, which is the usual method nowadays.  There are unscrupulous people prepared to offer cheaper postage on some paints, but this is illegal and the penalties would be severe.  As for the particularly high postage to the Continent, this is a consequences of Brexit and works both ways.  It may yet settle down when agreement is reached on a more sensible trade deal, but embedded positions on both sides make this unlikely in the short term.

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23 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

No, it won't, because you are being shipped material that counts as hazardous and cannot be carried by air, which is the usual method nowadays.  There are unscrupulous people prepared to offer cheaper postage on some paints, but this is illegal and the penalties would be severe.  As for the particularly high postage to the Continent, this is a consequences of Brexit and works both ways.  It may yet settle down when agreement is reached on a more sensible trade deal, but embedded positions on both sides make this unlikely in the short term.

Shipping within UK is a hazardous £1.9 :D 

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2 hours ago, Steben said:

Otherwise I need contacts in the UK to do the purchase and let them send it to me.... will be much cheaper

Send me an email, see the IPMS link, or see my profile.  My message box is full.   

A large letter to Europe, up to 100g, is £3.25

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2021-03/royal-mail-our-prices-april-2021.pdf

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

No, it won't, because you are being shipped material that counts as hazardous and cannot be carried by air, which is the usual method nowadays.  There are unscrupulous people prepared to offer cheaper postage on some paints, but this is illegal and the penalties would be severe.

Steben is not after actual paint, but a paint chip chart. 

 

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4 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Send me an email, see the IPMS link, or see my profile.  My message box is full.   

A large letter to Europe, up to 100g, is £3.25

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2021-03/royal-mail-our-prices-april-2021.pdf

Steben is not after actual paint, but a paint chip chart. 

 

Thanks! I'll send them an email first if you don't mind? I am a crazy person who wants to test their flexibilty and interest :P 

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On 02/02/2018 at 11:19, Nick Nichols said:

 

I myself mixed colors on the paint chip from the book Kiroff / Merrick.
Painted RLM02/71 old unnecessary models:

 

IMG_5135.jpg IMG_5147.jpg

IMG_5153.jpg IMG_9755.jpg

 

Well done!

Edited by Steben
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In case you guys might be interested (reply to my question how the Iliad swatches were made):

 

Hi, Steven,

It’s not easy to recall all the colour references we used, as we started this project about 25 years ago! There are, of course, the usual references you’d expect such as Don Thorpe, Ian K. Baker, the Monogram set of colour chips, and the colour charts from Michael Ullman and Jerry Crandel’s Warnecke & Bohm chips. Years ago I was also able to borrow an actual wartime RLM colour chart from a friend. There were items like the Max ABT sets of French colour chips and booklets, which are virtually impossible to find today. The British colours were probably based on the RAF Museum colour chart.

As this project started back in the mid-late 1990s, some of the original research material origins are a bit fuzzy and forgotten now!

Actually, as a modeller myself I would not use “factory fresh” colours, as I don’t feel they look good when applied to a small model… the “scale colour” effect that we all argue about, I suppose.

Hope this helps a bit... and stay safe over there!

Bob Migliardi

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On 30/05/2021 at 12:34, Troy Smith said:

Send me an email, see the IPMS link, or see my profile.  My message box is full.   

A large letter to Europe, up to 100g, is £3.25

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2021-03/royal-mail-our-prices-april-2021.pdf

Steben is not after actual paint, but a paint chip chart. 

 


Did not get a reply yet.
But recieved a 10 € refund for the RAF colours 1976 book. "Shipping proved less expensive" :D 

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