Wimpy camo poser

[Monty Python]

Quick question. Did the green/dark earth camouflage on the Wellington have a hard or soft edge.

 

TIA

[Potato Pete]

I'd go with hard, certainly on early Wellingtons

 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/items/tga-7050ph-7/nash-black-and-white-negative-a-vickers-wellington-bomber

 

The black more variable? In the link above it looks hard but ragged

 

This one hard but tidy

 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/items/tga-7050ph-7/nash-black-and-white-negative-a-vickers-wellington-bomber

 

Pete

[Julien]

2 hours ago, Potato Pete said:

I'd go with hard, certainly on early Wellingtons

 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/items/tga-7050ph-7/nash-black-and-white-negative-a-vickers-wellington-bomber

 

The black more variable? In the link above it looks hard but ragged

 

This one hard but tidy

 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/items/tga-7050ph-7/nash-black-and-white-negative-a-vickers-wellington-bomber

 

Pete

both of those link to the same picture?

[Potato Pete]

Let's try again - a selection of hard edges to the night undersurfaces

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vickers_Wellington_-_RAF_Bomber_Command_HU107786.jpg

 

And

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Three_Wellington_Mk_ICs_of_No._311_(Czechoslovak)_Squadron_RAF_based_at_East_Wretham,_Norfolk,_March_1941._CH2265.jpg

 

Pete

 

 

Edited January 26, 2020 by Potato Pete

[JWM]

All schemes with masks (and in UK there were masks in factories for painting) had hard borders. I never seen soft border on WWII UK plane - are there any examples?

Regards

J-W

 

[Graham Boak]

Depends what you mean by soft.  The kind of vague borders produced by blind use of an airbrush or aerosol can, no.  However there was a permitted overlap of one (or perhaps two, I'm unsure) inches between the colours on the upper surfaces, so there was not a true hard demarcation but a tight soft one. However there seems to be a hard demarcation between the upper and lower surfaces.

 

It hasn't been proven that the British industry universally used mats, although some companies did.  There are photos of painters spraying to a chalked line on the wings of large aircraft.  It seems that the mats were used to mark out the demarcations but removed before the spraying started, which would certainly lengthen their life.  Remember that aircraft could be repainted in Maintenance Units before entering or re-entering service, or for overseas requirements.  As these MU were less likely to have professional painters, the demarcations may well have been somewhat softer in these cases.

 

My personal ruling for models is that for 1/72 a hard demarcation is entirely reasonable and even desirable, because the level of expertise required to work to this tightness is very very high and a fuzzy border looks wrong.  A fine overlap is possible to be achieved in larger scales, given some competence.

[JWM]

Of photos I have found only that one showing that in US Curtiss used masks for application of RAF camo

 

 

[RJP]

There is a thread right here that you should find illuminating.  Understand that the topic generated a lot of fire and brimstone and basically came down to those who were there (or were experienced modellers reporting what they were told directly by careful observers who were there) vs. those who were not.  There was also some division based (as I recall it) by what side of the Atlantic you were on.

 

I do have two things to add:

1.  Base your model on what you see in actual photographs.  After all, rules are broken every day. If you don't have a shot of the actual subject, a close serial number gets you to a production batch and, maybe, a paint crew.  Also remember that standards were enforced at the factories.  Men's lives depended on standards and there is no reason to think paint standards would be slack if everyone else was doing his job.

2.  Do the math.  If there is talk of, say, a 1-inch fuzzy border, in 1/48 we are talking about a whisker over a half millimetre on the model.  In 1/72 it's just over a third of a millimetre.  Multiply that by the viewing distance from the model and again by how good your eyes are and you come to realise we're talking about angels and pinheads.  Or, at least, pinheads!  As for me, my skill level just isn't that high anyway.

 

Here's the thread:

 

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by RJP
spelling clean-up

[Monty Python]

Thanks to all who have posted an answer. I asked the question as I'm building the new Airfix wimpy and this is the first time I've moved into the dark side of 72 scale, usually do 32 & 24 scale where you can get away with a soft edge. So hard edge it is.