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beaufighter mk1 question


oz rb fan

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I’m pretty sure the collector rings remained unpainted. 
 

I found a Beaufighter MkI photo on the IWM collections site, but I can’t get the link to share it presently. It shows a MkI Beau in flight, and the rings are definitely not painted over.

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I took some colour screen grabs of Blenheim collector rings and posted them in the link above. That should give you an idea of how they looked new. In some of the pics you can see how the collector rings start to change colour from the heat.

 

Cheers,

Mark.

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Post no.8 in this thread is a good start https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/32192-bristol-engine-collector-rings/&tab=comments#comment-346017

 

I'm sure there was a thread that had a diagram of how the various bits fitted together which helped make it clear which bits got hot but I can't find it - I thought it was the one above.

 

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Some collector rings were painted black, here you can see some of the paint worn away

beau10t

 

A color pic

beaufighter

 

and one in Italian service with unpainted rings

Italian%20Beaufighter-02

 

 

And some Lysander pics which should help give a good idea what they look like

lizzie-v9312-1

 

 

000645

 

 

 

Lysander_engineASM

 

You will notice the foremost ring remains aluminish as it doesn't get as hot

 and some Hurricane exhaust which is made of the same material

 

exhuast stacks

 

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4 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Later in the war heat resistant paint was developed in white and black, largely to cut down the glow down hot metal.  This is what is visible on the 1944 Beaufighter and presumably on the Mediterranean one too.

 

Was it developed then or was it just stove enamel used for that purpose. I grew up on a farm where the kitchen stove was wood burning and the heater in the old back kitchen and the furnace in the cellar were wood burning, too. They were all painted black that never came off.

 

 

 

Chris

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19 hours ago, dogsbody said:

 

Was it developed then or was it just stove enamel used for that purpose. I grew up on a farm where the kitchen stove was wood burning and the heater in the old back kitchen and the furnace in the cellar were wood burning, too. They were all painted black that never came off.

 

 

 

Chris

It wasn't  stove enamel, It was some sort of painted on  finish. The first reference I had of it was of its use on Stirlings where it had to be regularly re applied which was not a popular job!

 

Selwyn

Edited by Selwyn
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4 hours ago, Selwyn said:

It wasn't  stove enamel, It was some sort of painted on  finish. The first reference I had of it was of its use on Stirlings where it had to be regularly re applied which was not a popular job!

 

Selwyn

 

Was it an official order or just something that was tried out at squadron level and then spread out through the RAF?

 

 

Chris

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Things are not slapped on military aircraft by chance; they are approved by somebody, ordered by somebody, paid for by somebody, delivered by somebody.  They don't happen to come in just the right colours (even black and white) just by chance.  However, such records as are kept don't include inventory levels and what was delivered by which truck on which day, so the chance of finding out on the squadron level is slim.  Somewhere in the NA is a file covering heat-resistant paints: maybe it is mentioned in a book describing what good work paint company X did for the war effort if such a book exists.

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And from Paul Lucas article on the Sunderland in MAM a while back

Lucas.jpg

Admittedly talking about white but definitely anti glow paint as an official stores item.

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