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RAF Black and White Underside


nheather

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 I normally do military vehicles but I have a 1:48 Hurricane Mk I stash and I’m considering doing this with the early half black, half white underside.

 

Question about how to paint this, should I use white and black paint or is it better to use a very dark and very light grey, or something else?

 

And, is it difficult to do, being relatively experienced, would I better sticking with a sky finish - I have decals for either.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

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Personally, I'd use white and black (the regulations called it either "matt black" or "Special Night", which is not a pure black). Then you can use a thin pale grey wash to get the appearance you want.

 

I've been contemplating this very subject for a Spitfire I project.

Edited by Rolls-Royce
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Just now, Chuck1945 said:

I typically use Tamiya’s NATO Black since it isn’t an absolute black

Thanks, and what do you use for panel lines - do you go darker or lighter?  And what would you use as panel lines on the white?

 

Many thanks,

 

Nigel

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16 minutes ago, Rolls-Royce said:

Personally, I'd use white and black (the regulations called it either "matt black" or "Special Night", which is not a pure black). Then you can use a thin pale grey wash to get the appearance you want.

 

I've been contemplating this very subject for a Spitfire I project.

“Special Night” is/was RDM2A which was a particularly rough and draggy finish and didn’t, if I remember correctly, come into use before summer1940.  The finish in use for most bomber and fighter undersides was simply Night, a smooth, not-quite-matt, not-quite-black finish with a hint of very dark blue and very dark grey about it.

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1 hour ago, nheather said:

Thanks, and what do you use for panel lines - do you go darker or lighter?  And what would you use as panel lines on the white?

 

Many thanks,

 

Nigel

TBH, I don’t usually do panel lines anymore. In this case if I were doing panel line washes, I would probably use a very  much lightened burnt umber on the white wings and black on the black wings

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1 hour ago, nheather said:

Thanks, and what do you use for panel lines - do you go darker or lighter

Neither. That's not how aeroplanes work. Leave them alone for colour. Where it is an an opening or moving part which is  likely to  denote a demarcation line in dirt and oiliness, e.g. a break in the cowlings or the radiator flap, depict that change by all means.. But don't colour in panel lines otherwise.

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1 hour ago, stever219 said:

“Special Night” is/was RDM2A which was a particularly rough and draggy finish and didn’t, if I remember correctly, come into use before summer1940.  The finish in use for most bomber and fighter undersides was simply Night, a smooth, not-quite-matt, not-quite-black finish with a hint of very dark blue and very dark grey about it.

Indeed. A.30/41 amended A.926/40 to add reference to Special Night. I mistakenly assumed that Night and Special Night were two names for the same coating. My bad.

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41 minutes ago, Work In Progress said:

Neither. That's not how aeroplanes work. Leave them alone for colour. Where it is an an opening or moving part which is  likely to  denote a demarcation line in dirt and oiliness, e.g. a break in the cowlings or the radiator flap, depict that change by all means.. But don't colour in panel lines otherwise.

Agreed. From 50 feet away, one can't see most panel lines on a painted aircraft unless they are movable, removable, have fluids seeping out from them, or demarcate areas of color and bare metal (such as the exhaust blast panels on the F-4 Phantom II).

Edited by Rolls-Royce
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3 hours ago, nheather said:

I normally do military vehicles but I have a 1:48 Hurricane Mk I stash and I’m considering doing this with the early half black, half white underside.

 

Question about how to paint this,

Related to this, be careful of the details.  

 

Also, if the B/W underside you refer to are from the options you got off your decal request,  and the only one that fits is DT-A/ V6864, it's  Sky with a Night port wing, which was introduced in November 1940, along with Sky spinner and bands.

Have a read of this

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Modeling-References/Camoflage-Markings/03-Hawker-Hurricane

which explains what happened when, and sometimes, why.

HTH

 

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3 hours ago, Rolls-Royce said:

Indeed. A.30/41 amended A.926/40 to add reference to Special Night. I mistakenly assumed that Night and Special Night were two names for the same coating. My bad.

Easily done.  Ultimately Special Night wasn’t that special: hard to apply, knocked lots of knots off flying speed and loads of miles off range, had poor adhesive qualities and showed up more easily in searchlights that normal Night.  Maybe there was a Luftwaffe mole in the Ministry of Aircraft Production or Research and Development coming up with duff ideas that sounded like a good idea at the time.🤣🤣

Edited by stever219
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I use both white and black for this and use a little highlighting on the night side to highlight areas.

 

There's lots of fellas around here who are far more skilled than I but for me this works...

 

cXJYKdF.png

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7 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Related to this, be careful of the details.  

 

Also, if the B/W underside you refer to are from the options you got off your decal request,  and the only one that fits is DT-A/ V6864, it's  Sky with a Night port wing, which was introduced in November 1940, along with Sky spinner and bands.

Have a read of this

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Modeling-References/Camoflage-Markings/03-Hawker-Hurricane

which explains what happened when, and sometimes, why.

HTH

 

Thanks for the heads up.  I have decided yet which I want to do, torn between a Sea Hurricane and a Battle of France/Britain RAF. Have always liked the half and half underside as something different.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

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11 hours ago, Rolls-Royce said:

Agreed. From 50 feet away, one can't see most panel lines on a painted aircraft unless they are movable, removable, have fluids seeping out from them, or demarcate areas of color and bare metal (such as the exhaust blast panels on the F-4 Phantom II).

I’ve just had a look at photos of real aircraft on the internet and I can see what you mean.  However, they do show plenty of removable panels and they are clearly outlined dark.  And any rivets are pretty easy to see.

 

Another question, not really being that familiar with aircraft modelling.  For aircraft like the Hurricane in 1:48 when you put the final clear coat on is it best to used matt or satin?

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

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I used Tamiya NATO Black because it’s not as black as Night.  I did a water colour wash in a mixed water colour dark grey across both white and black Mainplane.  

 

49854350243_d7e5e066ab_c.jpg

 

It’ll do for me though I should have made the cordite stains greyer/blacker...

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14 hours ago, nheather said:

Thanks, and what do you use for panel lines - do you go darker or lighter?  And what would you use as panel lines on the white?

 

Many thanks,

 

Nigel

My recommendation: Don't do any emphasising of panel lines.

It is unecessary and to my mind not representative of real aircraft.

Look at pictures and the panel lines hardly show, so putting them on models is 'artistic licence' and therefore totally up to you what you do.

I strongly recommend not emphasising them in your modelling, as they are something we strive in real life strive to eliminate.

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Out of interest is there any outward difference between the Hurricane I and Hurricane II ?

 

I’ve done some brief research and found that the II had a more powerful Merlin engine but no outward differences?

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

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Bigger engine, bigger nose, other props & spinners, deeper radiator, other carburettor intake... There is plenty of material here.

 

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9 minutes ago, nheather said:

Out of interest is there any outward difference between the Hurricane I and Hurricane II ?

 

I’ve done some brief research and found that the II had a more powerful Merlin engine but no outward differences?

 

yes.  Hurricane information is awash with tosh. I know it's a bit of a hobby horse for me, but it's quite surprising how much is vague, woolly or just wrong....

 

The Mk II is longer, but as the extension is at the back of the engine bay,  it changes the fillets where the wing blends into the nose.. 

also changes the position of the carb intake, and needs a deeper radiator. 

Plus most Mk.II's have different armament set up. 

 

see here for photos and drawings.   

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, alt-92 said:

Bigger engine, bigger nose, other props & spinners.

LONGER engine, so longer nose, and some late Mk.I's have the longer 'bullet' Rotol as well, and it was retrofitted.

P2617 at Hendon has a bullet Rotol presumably from Training Command days.

 

 

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4 hours ago, nheather said:

I’ve just had a look at photos of real aircraft on the internet and I can see what you mean.  However, they do show plenty of removable panels and they are clearly outlined dark.  And any rivets are pretty easy to see.

 

Another question, not really being that familiar with aircraft modelling.  For aircraft like the Hurricane in 1:48 when you put the final clear coat on is it best to used matt or satin?

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

From 42 years working on and around aircraft as first a USAF aircraft mechanic then as an airline employee, my experience has been that rivets on a painted surface are not that easy to see from 50 feet, especially if the surface is flush-riveted. Mostly what you can detect is the oil canning/deformation that forms a slight dimple around each rivet over time.  They can also retain grime from leaks at neighboring access panels. Now, bare metal - especially when it's polished - along with non-flush rivets, are a different story.

 

I personally mostly use matt finishes, unless I know the aircraft was finished in a gloss or semigloss paint like the late "Hill Scheme" on USAF F-4s.

 

Edited by Rolls-Royce
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5 hours ago, nheather said:

I’ve just had a look at photos of real aircraft on the internet and I can see what you mean.  However, they do show plenty of removable panels and they are clearly outlined dark.  And any rivets are pretty easy to see.

 

Another question, not really being that familiar with aircraft modelling.  For aircraft like the Hurricane in 1:48 when you put the final clear coat on is it best to used matt or satin?

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

For your Hurricane I’d suggest a very slightly satin finish.  Most RAF aircraft were painted with paints and dopes that gave a smooth not-quite-matt finish.  Even fabric covered components and structures, for example control surfaces and Hurricane rear fuselage skinning, would exhibit this slight sheen (there is a photo somewhere of brand new Mosquito night fighters in Smooth Night that shows this with the fin flashes being reflected on the fabric covered tailplane skins).  Some units were not unknown to give their aeroplanes a bit of a polish in order to eke a few more knots out of them.

 

Some, notably bombers and night fighters, were painted with RDM2A Special Night which was a very matt, sooty finish with supposed anti-searchlight properties.  It turned out to be difficult to apply, to have poor adhesion, be very susceptible to damage and deterioration, be very draggy, reducing speed, ceiling, payload and range, and it was easier to pick up in searchlight beams than Night in its smooth “Type S” formulation.

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7 minutes ago, stever219 said:

For your Hurricane I’d suggest a very slightly satin finish.  Most RAF aircraft were painted with paints and dopes that gave a smooth not-quite-matt finish.  Even fabric covered components and structures, for example control surfaces and Hurricane rear fuselage skinning, would exhibit this slight sheen (there is a photo somewhere of brand new Mosquito night fighters in Smooth Night that shows this with the fin flashes being reflected on the fabric covered tailplane skins).  Some units were not unknown to give their aeroplanes a bit of a polish in order to eke a few more knots out of them.

 

Some, notably bombers and night fighters, were painted with RDM2A Special Night which was a very matt, sooty finish with supposed anti-searchlight properties.  It turned out to be difficult to apply, to have poor adhesion, be very susceptible to damage and deterioration, be very draggy, reducing speed, ceiling, payload and range, and it was easier to pick up in searchlight beams than Night in its smooth “Type S” formulation.

Thanks.  If the full size only had a slight sheen would that not scale down to matt in 1:48.

 

The reason I ask is when I have visited museums (like Hendon) the aircraft that I always imagined to be matt were quite shiny.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

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Aircraft paints are and were smooth, with the notable exception of Special Night, which was chosen for its darkness.  This turned out to be wrong anyway, as at night the sky is rarely as black as black paint so a grey-painted aircraft offered less of a silhouette.  Something both the RAF and Luftwaffe realised, but the USAAF were convinced into buying Jet black glossy paint because it was said to be invisible in searchlights.  For similar if less unconvincing reasons, RAF bombers changed to a smooth Night, although this was partly because the very grainy Special Night actually reflected more light back down to the ground.  I believe that the late war Smooth Night was actually smoother than the prewar Night, presumably because of the finer grain size of a Type S paint, but I don't recall seeing whether they actually went back to prewar Night first which was then superseded, or exactly what happened when.

 

Model matt paints are grainy, but the modeller has a problem in that aircraft finishes are either never as matt as the paints, or never as glossy as the paints.  Doing a satin/semi-matt finish can leave you wondering whether it was meant to be matt or gloss.  I try to restrict high gloss finishes to show aircraft, ones for special occasions.  Even then they tend to look

toy-like.

 

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4 hours ago, nheather said:

Thanks.  If the full size only had a slight sheen would that not scale down to matt in 1:48.

 

The reason I ask is when I have visited museums (like Hendon) the aircraft that I always imagined to be matt were quite shiny.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

Not necessarily; a dead matt finish on a model can tend to make a model look flat and lifeless but a hint of sheen helps to show off the contours a little.

 

You can’t always trust a restored aeroplane as a reference, particularly if it’s been extensively rebuilt  or renovated and some modern paints may be a nearest available equivalent to the original finish in terms of colour and sheen.  A good photo of the original is always a good starting point but, as you’ll know if you’ve been around on the forum for a while, even colour photos can be a bit of a minefield.

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