Best RLM 02?

[Otakar]

I just dug out my Iliad Design and Agama  chips and they also agree with the Monogram and Hikoki chips for the RLM02. It is a very dark color.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Jürgen Kiroff's RLM02 is a bit lighter than the RAF's Dark Sea Grey at 21% LRV and 15% LRV respectively.

[Fernando]

Hallo, gentlemen,

 

Old WEMM's 02 is a perfect "eyeball match" (as those matches go) to the "chip" in Merrick&Kiroff.  I guess the new Sovereign is the same, wish I had access to that line.

 

Just my 2 Reichsmarks...

 

Fernando

[stevehnz]

11 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

the RAF's Dark Sea Grey at

Dark Sea Grey Jamie or Dark Slate Grey. To my mind RLM02 & Dark Slate Grey are kissing cousins, Dark Sea Grey not so much.

Steve. 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

21 minutes ago, stevehnz said:

Dark Sea Grey Jamie or Dark Slate Grey. To my mind RLM02 & Dark Slate Grey are kissing cousins, Dark Sea Grey not so much.

Steve. 

 

Dark Slate Grey is darker than both at 12% Light Reflectance Value. I'm not bringing hue into it - merely the percentage of light reflected (i.e. the lightness / darkness). On a true monochrome film with no bias towards any particular wavelength(s) of light, RLM02 would look slightly lighter than Dark Sea Grey and substantially lighter than Dark Slate Grey. Medium Sea Grey is about 28% LRV, just for reference.

 

[stevehnz]

Fair enough Jamie, I was thinking hue I guess, to my eye against the Kiroff RLM02 chip & the RAF museum book Dark Slate Grey chip, the DSG looks like a somewhat darker version of RLM02. My eyeball isn't calibrated for reflectivity.😉

Steve.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

4 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Fair enough Jamie, I was thinking hue I guess, to my eye against the Kiroff RLM02 chip & the RAF museum book Dark Slate Grey chip, the DSG looks like a somewhat darker version of RLM02. My eyeball isn't calibrated for reflectivity.😉

Steve.

 

You may have unknowingly made a very pertinent point Steve - human eyes are typically twice as good at differentiating hue as they are at differentiating tone.

 

That can seem a bit of a dubious statement, and it's hard to imagine when two roughly similar colours are directly side by side like that. If however I gave you 3 colours and asked you to tell me which was darkest and which was lightest, you'd be worse at it (statistically, I mean, not personally) than you would be if I gave you the exact same tone but shifting hue and asked you to sort them.

 

e.g.

 

The answer above is that they're all the same tone, give or take decimal points - they're all 20% LRV shades. You will have no trouble appreciating the difference between the greenish grey and the yellow-grey though I imagine.

 

A more practical example is perhaps RAF Temperate Land scheme - everyone can spot the Humbrol 30 howler sticking out like a sore thumb because it's a slightly bluer green than RAF Dark Green which is yellow-leaning. Few comment that the tones are too close or too far apart.

 

You are far from alone there - very few people perceive tone more acutely than they perceive hue.

[Otakar]

I also have the B.A.C. WWII book and agree with the Slate Gray being a bit darker (and also has a bit more blue in it) than the RLM 02 but Sea Gray dark or medium have nothing in common to Slate Gray or RLM 02. The Sea Gray are just flat-out plain gray colors and RLM 02 and Slate gray have a green hue to them.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

All I was comparing was their tone using the widely recognised Light Reflectance Value, which I hoped I'd been explicit about.

 

I never implied they were similar in general character.

 

I merely gave numeric comparisons with other well-known colours which are also well photographed.

[stevehnz]

10 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

You may have unknowingly made a very pertinent point Steve - human eyes are typically twice as good at differentiating hue as they are at differentiating tone.

 

That can seem a bit of a dubious statement, and it's hard to imagine when two roughly similar colours are directly side by side like that. If however I gave you 3 colours and asked you to tell me which was darkest and which was lightest, you'd be worse at it (statistically, I mean, not personally) than you would be if I gave you the exact same tone but shifting hue and asked you to sort them.

 

e.g.

 

The answer above is that they're all the same tone, give or take decimal points - they're all 20% LRV shades. You will have no trouble appreciating the difference between the greenish grey and the yellow-grey though I imagine.

 

A more practical example is perhaps RAF Temperate Land scheme - everyone can spot the Humbrol 30 howler sticking out like a sore thumb because it's a slightly bluer green than RAF Dark Green which is yellow-leaning. Few comment that the tones are too close or too far apart.

 

You are far from alone there - very few people perceive tone more acutely than they perceive hue.

Thanks Jamie, for straightening that out, I confess to having missed your initial point of tone rather than hue, tone of course, being so important when trying to interpret (I'd rather try & herd cats ) monochrome photos. The whole thing of colour science as applied to modelling is something that seems to polarise folk but something I find fascinating in a amateurish way. I credit the efforts of @Nick Millman to cast the scales from our eyes, I'd like to think in my case he was at least partially successful in that I feel I gained an appreciation that there is much more to the subject than what you can see, or think you can see. I don't profess to being able to understand the science completely but it is enough for me to know it is there & it should form the basis for the knowledge of colour as applied to our hobby, beyond that, all an individual can do is use it as a base line to make an reasoned guess as to the colours they use.

IMHO that is.

Steve.

[Bo hermansen]

On 5/16/2020 at 10:11 PM, Otakar said:

In this particular picture, this looks about right considering it is in bright sunlight. However you can find virtually a hundred pictures of the same aircraft and the tint will look different. Once again, we are talking pictures. as can be viewed on your monitor. If you print any of these pictures the color will once again change.

 

That is not RLM 02, its RAL  6013 Shiefgrün

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Bo hermansen said:

That is not RLM 02, its RAL  6013 Shiefgrün

 

to expand and clarify on this

http://www.hyperscale.com/2015/features/avias19972ye_1.htm

 

Quote

Yoav Efrati – 20 October 2014         

 The color applied to the Avia S-199 has eluded modelers since KP first issued a model of this Czechoslovakian manufactured airplane nearly 30 years ago. Post World War II black and white photographs of the S-199 in Czechoslovakian service, show light and dark colored airframes next to each other, which have been interpreted to be differing shades of a locally manufactured color MNO 2036 smalt 02 - similar or the same as RLM 02 or RLM 02 + a bit RLM 83 Dark Green.

 

    

In a mid-1994 visit to the Israel Air Force museum by former "Messer" pilot, president Ezer Weismann, he insisted that the gray painted S-199 on display was painted the wrong color. On 02 January 1995 I met with president Weismann, who pointed to the RLM68 color chip in my Official Monogram Painting Guide to German aircraft 1935-1945, further stating that the color was more of a khaki color, "as seen on soldiers uniforms".

 

 

Less than a year later, IAF museum curator, Avi Moshe Segal was presented an original painted S-199 fuel cap by retired IAF maintenance officer, Shabtai Katz. The color of the cap was compared to Tambor paints RAL standard color catalog by my friend Ra'anan Weiss and was found matching RAL6013 "Reed Green".

 

 

By September of 1996 the S-199 airframe in the IAF museum was painted to match the color of the fuel cap, with markings of "Messer" number D-120. With no clear UV coating applied to the newly painted airframe, D-120 faded to an overall gray color in less than a year.

The recent new tooled KP release of the Avia S-199 "Messer" renewed speculation as to its actual color, with Humbrol 31 quoted in the new kit's painting instructions. With my name credited for the markings provided in the Israeli boxing of the S-199, I had to see the originally painted fuel cap with my own eyes.

On October 12, 2014 I visited the IAF museum where curator Avi Moshe presented me the key to his vault where the original Avia painted S-199 fuel cap was kept. With Tambor German RAL, United States FS595b, British Standard BS381c/1964 and Humbrol color catalogs at hand, I compared the color of the S-199 fuel cap in direct and indirect sun light. The fuel cap's khaki color was a direct match to RAL6013, it was slightly darker than FS595b-14257, and had no equivalent BS381c and Humbrol color. Fortunately for us model builders RAL6013 is available in the Revell enamel range of paints as SM362.

 

 

[Otakar]

The idea of the pictures was that it is a color that is close and that out of as many pictures you look at of the same aircraft, they all look a different color. Of course it is not RLM-02, that aircraft was refinished some years ago and when the Czechs originally painted it after the war, it was only something close to RLM-02. Paint that was left over from the war.  The original color on the S-199 and the color used for the restoration also were not exact. I am not sure that the color used was even a match to 6013 or just some local mix. It may even be FS14255 or FS14257. Who really knows. Your chip comparison is what I also get between my RAL deck and the Hikoki chip. The Czechs mixed paint in batches that were done by eye from mostly leftover paint from the war. There were numerous variations on the S-199 ranging from (approximately) from RLM-63 to RLM-82. Once again, the idea was to compare a similar color to RLM 02, on a single subject, on a bunch of pictures to show that photographs are not a good reference for determining a true color. Once again, I thought that this was a discussion comparing RLM 02 to known photographs. I'm just saying and my point is, that it should not be done. No matter what the color is. Not even black or white. How many people thought for years that the Lockheed U-2 in which Powers was shot down in over the USSR was black when in fact it was Semi Gloss Sea Blue FS25042.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Otakar

[Work In Progress]

2 hours ago, Bo hermansen said:

That is not RLM 02, its RAL  6013 Shiefgrün

Interesting. Would that also be the colour used for those examples of the S-92 (Avia-built post-war Me262) which have also generally been called out as RLM 02  in the past?

[Otakar]

As just mentioned. That was a local mix for that period of time. The RAL was not yet used in Czechoslovakia, or I am not even sure if even established at that time.  The MNO 2036 smalt 02 was a Czech standard supposed to represent the RLM 02. I am POSITIVE that the post war years in Czechoslovakia, pigment was not a priority or easy to get for that matter. so "close" was good enough. Look at the restored aircraft in the Museum in Prague. Those were done  many many years after, most likely in the 60s-80s and none of them are right because of lack of correct paint.  What do you think it was like in 1946-49? I am having the exact same problem building my Avia CS-99 aircraft EV-7 (Bf-109G-12, mid production G-6 conversion) It could be anything from silver to RLM 75. I finally decided on a color by Peewit, C-4610 https://peewit.wixsite.com/masky/autenticke-odstiny  which is something in between RLM 63 and RLM 76. If you take a look on the website chip, the color looks nothing like the paint color actually is. The actual paint is actually closer looking to the two chips directly above and below the chip for C-4610 Nothing in the RLM or RAL or FS standard even close but an actual documented color used on Czech training and liaison aircraft such as the Czech built Bu-181 and Yak-11 and others. All I can say about the color to describe it is that it is a very light version of RLM 63 and extremely light version of RLM 02.  What is known is that the single seat S-99 aircraft were painted in "Steel Gray" something like RLM 75 but it is "thought" that the dual seat CS-99 were silver. Take a look at the pictures and see what you think. It is however "known" that all the later versions of the CS-99 made from the G-10 and all the CS-199 were actually silver. I attempted to photograph my color chips of that paint under numerous lighting conditions and just can not get he correct color representation in a photo. No matter what the lighting. There are just some colors that present that problem.

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by Otakar

[Rolls-Royce]

The RAL system was first established in 1927, with a set of 40 colors, and expanded over time...

Edited May 31, 2020 by Rolls-Royce

[Graham Boak]

Yes, but it was not followed by the RLM.

[Rolls-Royce]

2 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Yes, but it was not followed by the RLM.

I didn't say it was, Graham. I was responding to the comment by another poster that he wasn't sure it had been established by the postwar period.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Rolls-Royce

[Otakar]

OK, I stand corrected. The Czechs did not adopt it until sometime into the second millennium. So the S-199 would not fall into the RAL color coding. They used left over German paint and usually mixed it together so they had enough of one color and also adopted many of the VVS colors. Which than was integrated into a Czech color system MNO

Edited May 31, 2020 by Otakar