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Haze Paint?


Julien

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Not being much of a WWII Modeller I have a set for an F-5A Recon Lightning and the colours are listed as Haze Dark Blue, and haze Light Blue.

 

Any idea what this is, and when I might be able to get it frim.

 

Thx

 

Julien

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This is not easily answered, and you might be best consulting a decent source.  Dana bell may be able to give a better answer.  However, Haze paint was originally required a black undercoat, over which was sprayed a light (white?) overcoat giving a final effect of a dark blue on top and lightening gradually down the sides.  This suffered badly in use from abrasion, and was eventually discarded when it was found to glow at altitude, making aircraft painted in it more visible not less.  I understand that it was replaced by two more permanent colours called Dark Haze Blue (or possibly haze Dark Blue) and the light companion.  By then however most recce Lightnings had adopted RAF PRU Blue.  I don't know of any paint manufacture producing Haze paints, nor offhand just what these colours were.

 

A quick check in Archer's work refers to Lockheed recommending "enamel sky base blue and flight blue" but neither of these are standard names.  If he says anything more it is not in the index not the appendix quoting all standard colours.

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on this drawing the white undercoat was black shaded areas, however black undercoat was the unshaded areas.
note, the black undercoat on leading and trailing edge at under surfaces.

on these undercoat, the haze paint was applied according a defined reflectance

 

spe_lo10.jpg

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@Corsairfoxfouruncle and @JPuente54,

 

Nice of you both to think I might have the answer; just to be mentioned with @Dana Bell is an honor for me! I have a well-worn copy of his Air Force Colors, Vol. 2,  ETO and MTO 1942-45 and he discusses haze paint  and synthetic haze paint on pages 27-31. If Dana doesn't mind, I will paraphrase what he had written on the subject. I don't have any FS595 equivalents, nor did Dana mention any in that volume. I seem to recall somebody doing the two colors, but I don't recall the manufacturer or if the paint is still available. A long time ago, I did a conversion of the old Frog P-38J into an F-5B for the old Replica in Scale magazine, but I  finished it in PRU blue overall  after reading the Ducimus Camouflage and Markings on the P-38. (Does that tell you how long ago that was?) With that being said, here is some text paraphrased from Dana's reference book:

 

In 1940, A Mr. Samuel Cabot, a Boston paint manufacturer developed  a paint he brought to the attention of the USAAC, which was a white paint consisting of a colloidal suspension of zinc oxide in oil that caused a reflection of blue and violet  paint. It was thought that spraying this paint over a dark blue or black base coat would allow only these colors to be reflected, allowing an aircraft so painted to match the sky background. A subject P-38 was painted black overall, and a light coat of haze paint was sprayed on top of the wings, stabilizer, booms, and fuselage, leaving a very dark bluish color. A heavy coat of haze paint was sprayed on the undersides of the wings and stabilizer to produce a light blue that was almost white. The sides of the booms, fuselage, and fins was sprayed with a slightly thinner coat, giving a medium blue color. There were many problems associated with this paint: inability to control the thickness when sprayed, a 12-hour drying time, and then 48 hours labor to remove the resulting accumulated dust. As a result, F-5's were painted OD/neutral grey, which was judged to be almost as good, except under hazy conditions.

 

Evidently the USAAF wanted to re-examine the use of haze paint, as even though it was difficult and time-consuming to apply, and was only marginally better than the OD/neutral grey scheme, every advantage an unarmed recce airplane could have was desirable. A Sherwin-Williams engineer and a USAAF lieutenant  developed a paint  which involved  a new deep sky paint they called'sky base blue' followed by a  coat of synthetic haze enamel called 'flight white' tinted  into a color called 'flight blue.' An F-5A was sprayed sky base blue with coats of flight blue in shadow areas and lighter coats on the sides. The shading was very subtle and gave the appearance of the aircraft being in one overall color.

 

It is believed that this system of painting was discontinued  in mid-1944, with subsequent aircraft being painted using RAF paints. with PRU and azure blue being the most common.

 

None of this helps you in regards to mixing haze and/or synthetic haze paint. I suggest Dana might have more information  and possibly FS595 equivalents. I would also suggest getting Vol. 2 as I just paraphrased, and Dana had more to say on the subject. I took the easy way out by painting my F-5 PRU blue, but it sure was pretty! @Dana Bell If I have overstepped  my bounds here, let me know and I will gladly delete this post. Looking forward to your next publications,  BTW- may you get to all of them before your well-earned retirement!

Mike

Edited by 72modeler
added text, corrected spelling
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@Corsairfoxfouruncle, thank you, as i wrote, my computer didn't want to do it for @72modeler, but, now it does, go figure. Mike, I know that you have mentioned the "Haze paint" a couple of times. but, @Dana Bell is the one who knows the subject best. Now if @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies, Xtracolour, and Tru Paint could develop these paints correctly(and other companies)........

Joe

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Hi Julien

 

This was an interesting article about the background of Haze paint I read ages ago:

 

http://34th.photorecon.org/html/aircraft/haze.html

 

Probably not much help for modelling but gives an interesting guide on how it evolved. Looks like once again this was sourced  from Dana Bell.

 

Cheers

 

Michael

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@Julien,

 

I just re-read my copy of Air Force Colors, volume 2, and at the back there were two FS595 references for synthetic haze paint- don't know how much help they will be, but they are posted below.

Mike

 

sky base blue- darker than 15123

flight blue- close match to 35190

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Since there were two different types of "Haze Paint", the original oil based paint and the later synthetic formulation, it would be good to first understand which one was used on the subject you want to build. The oil based paint in particular seem to have resulted in a very patchy appearance and IMHO the best approach from a modelling point of view would be to follow a process similar to the one used on the real aircraft: start with an overall colour and add the others through increasingly heavier coats of a well thinned paint.

One alternative is to do as the original were painted: paint everything black or dark blue and then spray well thinned light blue paint following the indication of reflectivity on the various areas: 45% for the undersurfaces, 14% for the sides, 20% for the vertical surfaces of fin and rudder and 8% for the uppersurfaces.

The second alternative would be to do the opposite: paint everything in a lighter blue, 45% reflectivity, and then add the darker blue in very thin coats so to build up the darker areas as required. All this without being too concerned about a neat application, as the finish weathered very quickly (one of the reasons why it was abandoned) and the various areas of different reflectivity blended into each other.

Starting from a lighter colour may make more sense and may be easier, on the other hand starting from a black base would not be much of a problem for those modellers who already use black-basing as a painting technique.

 

For an aircraft painted in synthetic haze thigns are kind of easier, you would need two paints similar to the FS indicated above and use them.

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  • 2 months later...
On 9/8/2020 at 5:37 AM, Michael louey said:

Hi Julien

 

This was an interesting article about the background of Haze paint I read ages ago:

 

http://34th.photorecon.org/html/aircraft/haze.html

 

Probably not much help for modelling but gives an interesting guide on how it evolved. Looks like once again this was sourced  from Dana Bell.

 

Cheers

 

Michael

Not much help for modelling?  I've just finished an F-4A and found it extremely useful in deciding how to proceed. 

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