French colours , Tamiya if possible

[melvyn hiscock]

This is frustrating.

 

In my current splurge if model making I decided to see if I could make a decent SPAD XIII since, as we all know, the only way to get a new kit into the market is to invest a lot of time and afford into making something not quite as good, and just as you are about to finish Wingnuts or Copper State announce a new, totally accurate model. So far this has not worked and I have hit a problem.

 

Many years ago I made a 1/48 example and was even able to find decals of the a Memorial Flight example. That went, along with my house and previous life, some years ago but I did manage what I thought was a good match in the colours. There is even a post on here from 2004 where I mention adding humbrol satin gold to get the sheen. I had used humbrol enamels and I had been given small bits of fabric with the paint on to match to, those are long gone too. Adding in satin gold, rather than silver was because the aluminium powder was anodised, something missed by a few of the so-called experts. I know my colours were pretty close, but I have no records and I am not using enamels this time

 

I do still have access to the original, but it is in France and I am on max lockdown here in sunny (allegedly- I’m not allowed outdoors) Southsea so that is not much help. I have spent much of this morning trying to find some paint matches and they are few and far between. I do have a lot of SPAD pictures, but most are in the loft and I’m still not quite strong enough to get up there after my last relapse.

 

So, help please. Can anyone offer some close Tamiya matches for the colours I’d be grateful. I have found a diagram for the Keller camouflage pattern and I will need the colour for the underside grey, as ours was not done in linen. 
 

thanks in advance. I will then have to get the markings scrounged or printed. I can probably find a Lafayette Indian head on the (currently closed) ‘beg steal of borrow’ pages, and I hope someone might help with masks for the pilots badge and the roundels. Those on the underwing are paint but the upper wing uses pigmented dope for the blue and red with natural fabric for the ‘white’.

 

thanks

[Troy Smith]

11 minutes ago, melvyn hiscock said:

So, help please. Can anyone offer some close Tamiya matches for the colours I’d be grateful. I have found a diagram for the Keller camouflage pattern and I will need the colour for the underside grey, as ours was not done in linen.

Wingnut wings has Tamiya recommendation for their Salmson 2-A2

http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/productdetail?productid=3085&cat=4

 

I tried to find colour matches for a Spad XIII a while back, and IIRC these are the same or similar.   Apologies if total cobblers, WW1 is not an area I'm that up on. 

Page 1 does say the later versions have the 'standard' French 5 colour scheme, so I think this is why I looked it up.

 

HTH

[melvyn hiscock]

Thanks Troy, that should do it.  I just hope I have the colours here as otherwise it is mail order.

 

interestingly, some years back we found some correspondence in the Musee de l’Air about early experiments on Nieuports and those were done using ordinary house paint from the Ripolin company. Since Ripolin are still going it *should* be possible to cross reference that exactly. Later on pigmented dope was used, as on the SPAD.  
 

results will be posted

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[72modeler]

I found a Tamiya acrylic paint  mixing guide, circa 1980, and while it doesn't have WW1 colors per se,  I thought you or others who use their acrylics might find it to be useful. See the link below.  I hope the other links are useful; best I can do, as WW1 is an era for which I don't have a lot of references- sorry!

Mike

 

https://www.ipmsnymburk.com/tamiya mixing/MixTamiya.pdf

 

This link is to the Aerodrome website- I'm not a WW1 modeler or much of an authority, but you might find some color references here- there are some FS equivalents, but be aware that FS595 is not an exact system to use, especially for WW1 colors.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47708

 

 

This is a link to Urban's Color chart, via IPMS Stockholm; it is an excellent overall paint reference guide, as it covers all eras and cross-references different paint suppliers as well as FS equivalents. It is used by a lot of modelers, so it must be pretty good.

 

https://www.ipmsstockholm.se/home/urbans-color-reference-charts-part-i/

 

 

[europapete]

Hi Melvin, hope you are well. Also check out WW1aircraftforums.com go into the camoflage and markings section. there is a nice write up from France about the five colour system. Regards, Pete in RI

[melvyn hiscock]

Thanks all, 

 

It is frustrating having the actual references available but not being able to get to them. The Memorial Flight references are excellent and in some cases certainly more accurate than some of the highly regarded published sources who have missed things due to translation mistakes.

 

luckily I have all the colours mentioned, so don’t have to mail order anything, and I’ll mix until it looks right to scale. 

 

 

 

 

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[Harold55]

Eduard has a Spad XIII and many of they instuctions are available online through Scalemates as well as their own site.  But easier to find on Scalemates.  Anyway, many of these instructions include a table for paint colors that includes Tamiya.

[melvyn hiscock]

Thanks Harold,

 

I am happy with what I have now, it is interesting how many people miss out the metallic additions and for for silver when it was anodised!

[europapete]

Hi Melvin,  are you still happy with adding gold to get the sheen? I prefere enamels to acrylics, so probably won't be using Tamiya, but I do have a good stock of other brands. Am filing all this info for the future stash builds of the WNW Salmson, CS N17, and Roden S7, plus any others that come along in the future. Regards, Pete in RI.

[melvyn hiscock]

Hi Pete, 

 

The simple answer to that is yes and I used X31 as the metallic part in the SPAD I am doing and that is not that far from the old Humbrol (I think it was satin gold) that I used many years ago on the Dragon 1/48 I nearly finished. I am happy with the results I am getting.

 

When we first did the colours on the memorial flight SPAD, there was a LOT of research. We had Project Burtterfly which has its good points but, as to be expected in a study that large, there are errors. Some of these are clearly down to translation and the same reference material was available to the Memorial Flight guys who were, of course, working in their first language.

 

We also had access to some excellent samples. Some of these included complete, untouched, wingpanels with original covering. The consensus on Project Butterfly is that the aluminium power has anodised over time,which is possible, but it has done so very uniformly and we were able to remove fittings uncoverering material that had had no exposure to sunlight or air since 1917/18 and the powder was clearly anodised. We also had access to a company that produced pigments and who were able to chemically analyse the original pigments and, please remember this is 30 plus years ago, the consensus was the powder was anodised.

 

One advantage that is clear even when you are trying to replicated this in scale paint, is the yellowness of the anodised powder does not shine as brightly as pure aluminium, so work better for camouflage, yet will still have almost equal uv protection. Anodised has always made much more sense to me than plain aluminium.

[Troy Smith]

6 hours ago, melvyn hiscock said:

I used X31 as the metallic part in the SPAD

Hi Melvyn

In the Wingnut Wings i linked, they have a mix  2x XF-16  Aluminium + 1Pt XF-19 Sky Grey, to be added to the other colour.

 

Are you adding X-31 Titanium Gold to white or pale grey, or just a little x-31 added to the base paint?

 

Any recommendations are to how good the Wingnut Wings recommendations are?  Be interesting to hear what mixes you finally settle all is all.

 

Thank you

T

[melvyn hiscock]

Hi Troy, I just added the satin gold. When I first did this (for the Dragon model years ago) I was matching to small swatches taken from tests we did for the SPAD. This time I am just doing it from memory and photos. I’ve been mixing the paint until it looks about right and then dropping in a little gold which has worked out ok. I may have added a little too much in one or two cases but it appears to be ‘sparklier’ if it has had masking tape on it. It is still an experiment in progress. I will post some pictures soon, they may be a while as I have had a bad chemo week and a Covid scare, so I am taking things easy, but no poxy little genetic mutation or snotty little virus is going to stop me getting my SPAD to where I want it as, let’s face it, WNW will eventually release one and I will be compelled to make it!