Colour of Rigging Wires

[melvyn hiscock]

8 hours ago, wmcgill said:

 

Conversely, do documents exist proving they were always to be left unpainted? These were warplanes first and foremost.

There is an answer right there. They were warplanes designed for limited life useage. Time spent painting wires, even with a lot of labour available, is not cost/time effective. Wipe a steel wire with light oil, lanolin cables, all time efficient.

[wmcgill]

On 20/02/2020 at 07:56, melvyn hiscock said:

There is an answer right there. They were warplanes designed for limited life useage. Time spent painting wires, even with a lot of labour available, is not cost/time effective. Wipe a steel wire with light oil, lanolin cables, all time efficient.

I'm afraid that argument is not particularly strong when one considers they frequently spent time painting almost everything else for protection, from both the elements and enemy, specially so after the first couple of years. Metal cowling panels, plywood, linen, fairings, brackets, internal bracing wires (rigging) and sometimes struts and propellers. 

 

The French also painted most of their rigging horizon blue. This can be seen on both good museum restorations and autochrome photographs in the Albert Kahn collection taken during WW1.

 

 

 

 

[Smithy]

1 hour ago, wmcgill said:

I'm afraid that argument is not particularly strong when one considers they frequently spent time painting almost everything else for protection, from both the elements and enemy, specially so after the first couple of years. Metal cowling panels, plywood, linen, fairings, brackets, internal bracing wires (rigging) and sometimes struts and propellers. 

 

The French also painted most of their rigging horizon blue. This can be seen on both good museum restorations and autochrome photographs in the Albert Kahn collection taken during WW1.

 

 

 

 

 

For Pete's sake, the RFC/RNAS/RAF didn't paint rigging wires (neither braided nor Bruntonised nor Rafwire).

 

And yet again the discolourations you are seeing in photos are from oil, grime, grease, exhaust and cordite gases. Have you noticed how often these dark wires are in sections such as between cabane struts, close to guns, engines and inner bracing wires? WWI aircraft were incredibly dirty to run and threw out a lot of gases and fluids whilst running. This is also the reason why on WWI flying clothing the leather on things like goggles, the upper half of flying coats is often significantly darkened.

 

But once again, you stated earlier that painted wires were "demanded" by British aircraft manufacturers and the RFC (I imagine you meant both the War Office and the Admiralty) so if you have documents which state this it really would be pertinent to post them.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Smithy
Typo

[wmcgill]

32 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

For Pete's sake, the RFC/RNAS/RAF didn't paint rigging wires (neither braided nor Bruntonised nor Rafwire).

 

And yet again the discolourations you are seeing in photos are from oil, grime, grease, exhaust and cordite gases. Have you noticed how often these dark wires are in sections such as between cabane struts, close to guns, engines and inner bracing wires? WWI aircraft were incredibly dirty to run and threw out a lot of gases and fluids whilst running. This is also the reason why on WWI flying clothing the leather on things like goggles, the upper half of flying coats is often significantly darkened.

 

But once again, you stated earlier that painted wires were "demanded" by British aircraft manufacturers and the RFC (I imagine you meant both the War Office and the Admiralty) so if you have documents which state this it really would be pertinent to post them.

The reference to horizon blue French rigging was as a refutation to the assertion that on war planes they would not bother painting rigging. Clearly they did.

 

Perhaps "demanded" was too strong a word since it appears to have been too distracting. By all means keep believing the RFC, RNAS & RAF never had thier RAF wires painted/japanned. Your WW1 models will probably still look very nice. Especially nice if you prefer the jewel-like glistening shiny silver rigging. 

 

Clearly until Black Knight or I locate and post/link to smoking gun reference documents you will be unswayed. And even then, I suspect it might not be enough for you to start believing what our eyes are seeing.

[Smithy]

18 minutes ago, wmcgill said:

The reference to horizon blue French rigging was as a refutation to the assertion that on war planes they would not bother painting rigging. Clearly they did.

 

Perhaps "demanded" was too strong a word since it appears to have been too distracting. By all means keep believing the RFC, RNAS & RAF never had thier RAF wires painted/japanned. Your WW1 models will probably still look very nice. Especially nice if you prefer the jewel-like glistening shiny silver rigging. 

 

Clearly until Black Knight or I locate and post/link to smoking gun reference documents you will be unswayed. And even then, I suspect it might not be enough for you to start believing what our eyes are seeing.

 

The RFC/RNAS/RAF did not paint wires on aircraft. This isn't some kind of conspiracy, it is just how things were done in the British Air Forces in WWI. I really don't know how many times I can say that.

[Army_Air_Force]

Bare metal will also reflect the colours around it, so looking at the bottom of a bare metal wire, it is likely to be reflecting the fuselage or wing to some degree. All the pictures in this thread appear to me to be bare metal with varying reflections and weathering.

[melvyn hiscock]

Fuselage bracing wires on some aircraft are painted. Not flying wires.

[Smithy]

5 hours ago, melvyn hiscock said:

Fuselage bracing wires on some aircraft are painted. Not flying wires.

 

Exactly Melvyn. I really have no idea where this idea of painted flying and landing wires in British air forces use during WWI originates from. It's utterly baseless.

[Brandy]

As others have stated, rigging wires were not painted during WWI, nor are they on most modern replicas or restorations.

 

Ian

Edited February 22, 2020 by limeypilot

[wmcgill]

4 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

Exactly Melvyn. I really have no idea where this idea of painted flying and landing wires in British air forces use during WWI originates from. It's utterly baseless.

At least we have progressed somewhat from "For Pete's sake, the RFC/RNAS/RAF didn't paint rigging wires..."  to agreeing that "....bracing wires on some aircraft are painted". Small steps is all it takes.

[Smithy]

26 minutes ago, wmcgill said:

At least we have progressed somewhat from "For Pete's sake, the RFC/RNAS/RAF didn't paint rigging wires..."  to agreeing that "....bracing wires on some aircraft are painted". Small steps is all it takes.

 

I really don't understand what you are trying to do in this thread apart from trolling. Fuselage bracing wires are entirely different from flying wires.

 

Here's the facts...there were braided, Bruntonised and Rafwire used by the RFC/RNAS and RAF during the Great War. Every single one of these flying and landing wires were unpainted.

 

So there you have it and once and for all I'm going to put it in capital letters on the off chance you might actually read it...

 

ALL RIGGING WIRES ON BRITISH AIRCRAFT DURING WWI WERE UNPAINTED AND HENCE STEEL COLOURED (YES THERE WAS DISCOLOURATION FROM EXHAUST GASES; GREASE, OIL, ETC) BUT FLYING AND LANDING WIRES ON BRITISH WWI AIRCRAFT WERE UNPAINTED.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Smithy

[melvyn hiscock]

16 hours ago, wmcgill said:

At least we have progressed somewhat from "For Pete's sake, the RFC/RNAS/RAF didn't paint rigging wires..."  to agreeing that "....bracing wires on some aircraft are painted". Small steps is all it takes.

Rigging wires, the subject of your fascination with proving everyone in the world wrong, were not painted. Internal piano wire bracing, never mentioned by you at the time, was painted along with brackets. This would have been done in batches as they were standard fittings whereas bracing wires, you remember those, the only thing you originally referred to, were not. 

 

In over thirty years of hands-on experience and with access to some of the best regarded research across several continents, and to stored, normally inaccessible, museum artefacts I have never seen a painted bracing wire. There is an outside possibility that overpaint *may* have happened when applying personal liveries but even that is unlikely as the positing would most likely be done when the aircraft was disassembled. 

 

On the remains of Albatros DVa, that was thought to be 5787/17 but was painted in Bavarian Blue and white stripes, there is a drip of blue paint along the side of the engine. Is this proof they painted the engines? Of course not.

 

As has been stated here enough, RFC/RNAS/RAF flying wires were not painted. In 30+ years I have not seen ANY paint on French flying wires.

 

There is no ‘smoking gun’ just a reluctance to accept fact. 

 

And finally, on a purely mechanical basis, the wires move, they vibrate and stretch, a stranded wire simply wouldn’t retain a proportion of it’s paint. They were oiled or lanolin.

 

Mods, it might be time to close this one. 

[Paul Thompson]

10 minutes ago, melvyn hiscock said:

 

Mods, it might be time to close this one. 

Seconded. I don't want to call someone a troll, but that is what it increasingly looks like when someone ignores evidence and reasoning, and just keeps repeating his opinion.  And I've wasted 2 minutes of my morning typing this (I know, no-one forced me to, but I'm getting to be an old man and occassionally enjoy the odd ranty moment).

 

Paul.

[Smithy]

21 minutes ago, melvyn hiscock said:

Mods, it might be time to close this one. 

 

Thirded.

 

5 minutes ago, Paul Thompson said:

Seconded. I don't want to call someone a troll, but that is what it increasingly looks like when someone ignores evidence and reasoning, and just keeps repeating his opinion.

 

I don't like calling anyone a troll either but when someone just keeps doing this over and over again, you do start to wonder.

[DMC]

Well, never thought my request for help would develop into such a contentious issue.  Anyway, I’m going with NMF for all the wires.  My wife has donated a spool of white elastic mater—can’t really call it thread—that I think will do just fine.  I’ve impregnated a piece with Vallejo ‘Steel’ and it looks okay, not too shined.

 

Thanks again to to all that replied, regardless of whether you were on the painted or unpainted side of the fence.

 

Dennis

 

[Julien]

wow. some people here really need to step away from the keyboard for a while.