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Feedback needed on our Early Mark Spitfires and BF109E Profiles


WLJayne

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With regard to the location, or mislocation, of fuselage (and therefore codes), this blurb from Wikipedia might be an explanation ( I think it was also in the SAM article):

The first production batches of Spitfires (K9787-K9814) were built with 37.8 inches (96 cm) roundels on the fuselage sides-these were centred 39 inches aft of the rear edge of the cockpit door. 56 inches (140 cm) type A1s were on the upper wings. From K9815 the fuselage roundels were moved back, to be centred 53 in aft of the cockpit door and 6 in above the main longeron, and reduced in diameter to 35 type A1. This position for the fuselage roundel was subsequently standard on all Supermarine and Westland built Spitfires and Seafires.

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@jimmaas wiki quote above makes sense.  In the OP photo of WZ aircraft lined up WZ-C has the roundels centred below the fuselage spine navigation light whereas those either side the leading edge of the roundels is in line (approximately).  

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Ok, another can of worms....stencilling. Can anyone recommend a good source for info on this? What I may end up doing it providing a full suite of stencils that people can use or not use as they prefer. I've read that N3200 has very accurate BoB period stencils as it was taken from the standard factory marking plans, is this true?

 

Would these early MkI spits have had the same markings? It seems like K9795 had minimal stencilling as the photos seem pretty clear, but what about WZ-C, would these slightly later spits have had them? It's impossible to make out from the Wingleader archive photos. Looking at various builds of these Mk.Is it appears to be all over the place, so this is yet another headache!

Edited by WLJayne
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22 minutes ago, WLJayne said:

Ok, another can of worms....stencilling. Can anyone recommend a good source for info on this? What I may end up doing it providing a full suite of stencils that people can use or not use as they prefer. I've read that N3200 has very accurate BoB period stencils as it was taken from the standard factory marking plans, is this true?

 

Would these early MkI spits have had the same markings? It seems like K9795 had minimal stencilling as the photos seem pretty clear, but what about WZ-C, would these slightly later spits have had them? It's impossible to make out from the Wingleader archive photos. Looking at various builds of these Mk.Is it appears to be all over the place, so this is yet another headache!

That would depend on whether or not the aircraft was in as-delivered factory camouflage, particularly on the lower surfaces. If the aircraft undersurfaces had been repainted in the field, as was done prior to the BoB, the maintenance stenciling was often simply painted over.

Edited by Rolls-Royce
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13 minutes ago, Rolls-Royce said:

That would depend on whether or not the aircraft was in as-delivered factory camouflage, particularly on the lower surfaces. If the aircraft undersurfaces had been repainted in the field, as was done prior to the BoB, the maintenance stenciling was often simply painted over.

That was my suspicion, I imagine that factory stencils were scuffed out, patched or painted over very quickly in the field even pre-war. I think this one is going to be a big piece of guesswork - even in the wingleader book there are notes such as "the black and white undersides are assumed based upon the fuselage underside looking white rather than aluminium." If that isn't a well phrased "🤷‍♂️" I don't know what is 😂!

 

I'm going to go with no underside stencils in these early profiles, and only minimal upper ones like walkway lines on the wings as those are pretty clear in photos. 

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I would suggest that on a 19 Sdn aircraft with white/night undersurfaces, the underside of the ailerons remained silver.  The issue of 'ghosted' undersurface roundels and serial areas may be too esoteric to bother with, but the ailerons would be very visible.

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7 hours ago, jimmaas said:

I would suggest that on a 19 Sdn aircraft with white/night undersurfaces, the underside of the ailerons remained silver.  The issue of 'ghosted' undersurface roundels and serial areas may be too esoteric to bother with, but the ailerons would be very visible.

 

I've seen a couple of builds showing this, I'll see what I can turn up in terms of evidence but it is a nice feature I think.

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Well I think I'm pretty happy with this, I've incorporated a number of changes suggested in this thread and thank you so much for the invaluable input! It's not a perfect profile; I've used a B scheme template that I made (based on the patterns book) and some of the paint borders are ever so slightly off compared to WZ-C's photographed paint job but it's bob on for other B scheme tail numbers, and there are still physical details that are going to have to compromises out of the box, but I think I'm happy to put it in a carton as a painted and markings guide and let modellers enjoy it. There's still plenty of time for final tweaks if need be, but on to the next!

 

EDIT: just noticed the absence of fuselage roundels on the top and bottom views, better add those in! Glad I'm not in a rush with these!! 

 

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Edited by WLJayne
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Looks good to me and really, since there are so many slightly differing interpretations of markings and paint schemes, there is never going to be a definitive answer and really it is down to the modeller if they want to do their own research.

 

The aftermarket firm Shelf Oddity have a very good approach on the instructions for their decal sheets - explaining which parts of a scheme are educated guesses because of the lack of definitive photographic proof.

(By the way, their approach to paint guides is I think the best around with a good paragraph or two on each scheme to explain the history and references used - all their sheets are online, worth having a look)

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25 minutes ago, Tim R-T-C said:

Looks good to me and really, since there are so many slightly differing interpretations of markings and paint schemes, there is never going to be a definitive answer and really it is down to the modeller if they want to do their own research.

 

The aftermarket firm Shelf Oddity have a very good approach on the instructions for their decal sheets - explaining which parts of a scheme are educated guesses because of the lack of definitive photographic proof.

(By the way, their approach to paint guides is I think the best around with a good paragraph or two on each scheme to explain the history and references used - all their sheets are online, worth having a look)

 

I had thought about doing something like that seeing as I now have so much material that I could distil down to something manageable for modellers who don't have much in the way of libraries. Though I was thinking that rather than fill up the instructions with text (and not all customers will speak English) I could put a QR code on them which would take people to a webpage with some info that the browser could translate as necessary. It does seem a shame not to point out some of the finer details - for example I can see already that loads of people get the engine cowling wrong by using the panel line as the paint border when on the photos all the early spits had the border below that. Just simple things that will help people get it right if they want to.

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12 minutes ago, WLJayne said:

 

I had thought about doing something like that seeing as I now have so much material that I could distil down to something manageable for modellers who don't have much in the way of libraries. Though I was thinking that rather than fill up the instructions with text (and not all customers will speak English) I could put a QR code on them which would take people to a webpage with some info that the browser could translate as necessary. It does seem a shame not to point out some of the finer details - for example I can see already that loads of people get the engine cowling wrong by using the panel line as the paint border when on the photos all the early spits had the border below that. Just simple things that will help people get it right if they want to.

 

I think that would be a good idea, gives space to discuss the research and design choices and gives potential buyers something to look at too. Far more interesting than just getting a scheme with a "Biggin Hill, 1939" label on and no further information, which even some of the better 144th kits still do.

 

Since a lot of people sadly still view 144th scale as a 'toy' scale given experience with the old Revell boxings, having viewable paint guides to show the amount of detail considered will hopefully go a way to dispel this.

 

If you provide them as downloadable/printable pdfs, you could also scale the plane images so they print out at 1/144 to make it easier to replicate the paint schemes too.

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2 minutes ago, Tim R-T-C said:

 

I think that would be a good idea, gives space to discuss the research and design choices and gives potential buyers something to look at too. Far more interesting than just getting a scheme with a "Biggin Hill, 1939" label on and no further information, which even some of the better 144th kits still do.

 

Since a lot of people sadly still view 144th scale as a 'toy' scale given experience with the old Revell boxings, having viewable paint guides to show the amount of detail considered will hopefully go a way to dispel this.

 

If you provide them as downloadable/printable pdfs, you could also scale the plane images so they print out at 1/144 to make it easier to replicate the paint schemes too.

 

Yes I think that given how much emphasis we're putting on what is essentially storytelling/history and collecting, it's important to give a good amount of context for the airframes we're making. We'll definitely put the instruction manuals online in the shop for anyone too look at, and we'll probably offer some bonus downloads like to-scale paint diagrams with no markings so that people can see the paint patterns very clearly. It's not that much extra work, but it really helps to cement these as a well supported product for both the serious modeller and the more relaxed builder. In an ideal world we would have been able to release a plastic tool with the very small differences between the Mk.I and the Mk.Ia however it's just too cost prohibitive for now and we think most will be happy enough - but we can always make "correct" aftermarket parts later either with a partner or through our own store. Much to do before that becomes possible though.

 

@Mark Postlethwaite has been really helpful in keeping my nose to the research grindstone, he wasn't wrong when he said that serious artists spend weeks immersing themselves in history and research before starting a piece and I can see what he means now. It's very necessary.

 

In the next few days I'm going to working on:

 

K9795

N3196 XT-L

P9546 QV-H

R6595 DW-O

 

We chose P9546 QV-H as it's the Spit that appears on Mark's painting which is going on our box. I'm having a devil of a time finding references for it though so if anyone can help with that it would be very much appreciated!

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Another work in progress profile: R6595 DW-O as flown by F/Lt Ellis on the 26th June, 1940. This was the lead aircraft in the section from the famous 610 Squadron photographs - possibly the most iconic photos from the Battle of Britain.

 

Key points from my research that I've tried to represent:

 

- The underside change to "Sky" was recent, many sources believe that the 610 Sqn aircraft were painted with "No.1 Sky Blue" which is more of a duck egg colour.

 

- The squadron codes are not straight, likely because the standards had not yet been set for spitfires with different squadrons trying to fit codes onto the slim tail of the Spit.

 

- One photo from the starboard side seems very faintly to indicate that the bottom of the starboard squadron code letters were overpainted by the underside - which makes sense of the underside repaint was more recent than the code letters.

 

- Serials appear to have been overpainted.

 

- 49" A.1 roundel where a yellow band has been added to the previous 35" type A roundel.

 

- The fin flash of R6595 was smaller than the others, and the colours were in the reverse order - I'm working on this at the moment. This really helps to distinguish between DW-O and DW-Q in some photos!

 

- No stencils on the underside due to the recent repaint, and none visible on the fuselage either.

 

There was a lot of interpretation and guesswork with this one, if anyone has better references that show how I could improve it, I'd be very keen to hear your thoughts! I've included some of the reference photos I used in this album: https://imgur.com/a/7dIH238

 

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Edited by WLJayne
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3 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Just one question - "many sources believe that the 610 Sqn aircraft were painted with "No.1 Sky Blue".  Can you confirm that these are independent sources and not merely copying one original suggestion?

 

I can't confirmed it with cast iron confidence, however I have one book (the On Target BoB Special) that states this, though the Wingleader book simply mentions Sky without going into details. I've been looking around on this forum too and one of the reasons I gave weight to the OT book's claim is that the photo was taken on June 26th, and the order to move to Sky undersides was sent out on the 6th. This aircraft was delivered earlier in the year with factory painted night and white, so it would have been overpainted by whatever passed for "sky" at this point in time, and it seems reasonable that there may not have been a ready availability of the standard later Sky shade which seems to have become standard in the autumn of 1940 as the factory finished sky Spits made their way to the front lines. Furthermore I found a reference here quoting the FlyPast Battle of Britain special:

 

"Research, conducted in the late 1990s by Paul Lucas and others, on surviving artefacts, shows that in addition to the official Sky colour 'Eau-de-Nil' (No.16), and Sky Blue (No.1) were found on many artefacts. There was also significant evidence of a Sky Grey, sometimes overpainted with one of the Sky colours."

 

Additionally:

 

"Michael JF Bowyer said many years ago 'During May home-based fighters began to wear new under surface colours. Silver was certainly applied to some aircraft, evident on Spitfires in June. Predominant were pale shades of Blue, but some Hurricanes I saw at Debden and Duxford had deep blue undersurfaces. These variations were presumably due to the fact that dope was mixed at the stations. Usually the Sky tint , which was meant to be blue, was more accurately a pale shade of green caused by about a 4% addition of yellow to the mix. At the time it was commonly referred to as duck egg green, but it later revceived the official and less accurate designation of Duck Egg Blue. later the shade was re-named Sky.'"

 

However there are a boat load of thread on this issue here and on FSM and elsewhere all quoting different sources - no one really seems to know for sure and I was indeed warned about "the sky problem" when we started haha! So as long as it's plausible, and it's interesting and a little bit different, I'm fairly comfortable in suggesting it as an option. but of course, modellers can use whatever shade of sky they prefer 😁!

Edited by WLJayne
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Thanks.  It does seem to be a number of sources all going back to Paul Lucas's research.  I must admit hoping that you'd found something new.  The problem is that the two colours quoted come from British Standards BS381 1931 and were not regular Air Ministry issue, so it isn't clear how an RAF station would have available such, nor even that they were available in suitable paints for aircraft.  Taking Michael Bowyer's point about mixing, it is certainly possible that something could have been concocted that looked rather like Sky Blue No.1.  Which I agree would be adequate for your purposes.

 

However, I would suggest that factory painted Spitfires will have appeared in the correct colours long before Autumn 1941: did you mean 1940?  Something often omitted from these discussion (which are indeed many and varied!) is that Sky was already available in wide use on Blenheims of Bomber Command.

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1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

Thanks.  It does seem to be a number of sources all going back to Paul Lucas's research.  I must admit hoping that you'd found something new.  The problem is that the two colours quoted come from British Standards BS381 1931 and were not regular Air Ministry issue, so it isn't clear how an RAF station would have available such, nor even that they were available in suitable paints for aircraft.  Taking Michael Bowyer's point about mixing, it is certainly possible that something could have been concocted that looked rather like Sky Blue No.1.  Which I agree would be adequate for your purposes.

 

However, I would suggest that factory painted Spitfires will have appeared in the correct colours long before Autumn 1941: did you mean 1940?  Something often omitted from these discussion (which are indeed many and varied!) is that Sky was already available in wide use on Blenheims of Bomber Command.

 

I did mean 1940, sorry! The Blenheim sky may have been similar, I saw something about it in the book earlier. I'll paraphrase into some key points:

 

- Prior to the war, Sidney Cotton flew covert photo recon flight over Germany, these aircraft were painted "a very pale green colour"

 

- Bomber command heard about these low-profile PDU Blenheims at Heston and sent a Blenheim from 139 Sqn to be modified similarly, which was dark green and dark earth with "light sea green" undersurfaces, all paints were reportedly very glossy.

 

- Bomber command was most impressed with this Blenheim and began applying "blue-grey" shades to many of its Blenheims flying over France in 1939. These appear to be a motley collection of colours possibly including factory applied Sky or Eau De Nil shades. 

 

- The Air Ministry also heard about this and inspected the Blenheim at Heston, the underside colour being described in the RAE report as "Duck Egg Green termed 'Camotint.'" It was claimed that this Duck Egg Green rendered the aircraft almost invisible above 10,000 ft.

 

- The glossiness was a concern, and the it was requested that the RAE supply suitable paint that was colour matched but smoother and less glossy.

 

- Bomber command ordered a large quantity of this paint, which manufacturers couldn't meet due to demand. Therefore an interim solution to the shortage of "Type S" paint was to supply pre-war spec DTD 63A which had the glossy finish.

 

- The air ministry wrote to Bristol in April 1940 stating "It is agreed that you should call on the schedule for Mod 864 on the Blenheim IV for Laquer to DTD 63 with reduced gloss.....As regards colour, the pale blue green which has been called Camotint is now defined as Standard Sky and this description should be given in your schedule."

 

- Colour matching between factories was spotty, Bristol built Blenheims had the correct paint match however Rootes built Blenheims were finished in a different colour described as "rich duck egg green" which may have been BSS 381 (1930) No. 16 Eau De Nil.

 

So that appears to be the genesis of Sky at least. How that relates to the colour of the 610 Spitfires is unclear - but I'm left with the distinct impression that after the 6th June Air Ministry order and until late 1940 when stores were more available, "Sky" was a pale greenish blue just do what you can. I just wish we had more direct evidence for 610 Sqn, but I'm happy enough to go wish the Lucas research when taken in context of the earlier history of Sky. What do you think?

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We don't know what colour it was, and because of the dates there has to be some "wobble room".  Paul did do some more research, and discovered that the paint-distributing Maintenance Unit was asking for clarification of just what was meant by Sky as late as November.  Unfortunately they garbled the reference to the colour they were providing...

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16 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

We don't know what colour it was, and because of the dates there has to be some "wobble room".  Paul did do some more research, and discovered that the paint-distributing Maintenance Unit was asking for clarification of just what was meant by Sky as late as November.  Unfortunately they garbled the reference to the colour they were providing...

 

I think this is why it's a good idea to have something like a QR code on the instructions that takes people who a webpage that goes over some of this and explains why we made the creative choices that we made, but gives people a choice in how they want to represent it. But for those doing a weekend build who don't really mind, they can use whichever paint they think is closest. Ultimately what I'm really enjoying about actually producing these models is how much history is tied into it and it's making me see why the BoB is almost a hobby within the hobby, and our products can reflect that.

 

EDIT: Oh I see that a compendium of Paul's articles will be on sale at Telford!! Wonderful! I'll most definitely pick up a copy. I've been in touch with Gary and if possible I'll get the chance to have a chat with Paul too. I think we'll be in good hands!

Edited by WLJayne
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18 hours ago, Mark Proulx said:

I think Fundekals did 610 Sqn Spitfires with extensive notes supplied with their instructions.

 

Mark Proulx

 

Do you mean these ones? Here's a photo for comparison to their profile (the smaller fin flash of the Spitfire cropped out belongs to DW-O.) The aircraft I'm representing (in the bonus 610 Sqn decal set at least) is P9502 DW-Q, flown by F/O Warner. Their profile is R6891 - a later DW-Q. Their P9495 DW-K looks pretty good, interestingly showing No.1 Sky Blue as well. I would very much like to know which "documentation" they uncovered that gave evidence of this colour being applied to aircraft based at RAF Gravesend at this time, but I have no reason to doubt that it wasn't the case - it's at least very plausible.

 

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Also, I fiddled with the contrast on that photo and as you can see, at least on DW-J and DW-H, the squadron codes were overpainted by the new underside colour. It appears to be the same on aircraft in the background but the resolution isn't high enough to be absolutely sure. However, given that the Air Ministry order of the 27th April decreed that squadron codes were to be applied as seen, and the new undersides were introduced later in June, it seems reasonable that all the squadron codes that were applied earlier were partially overpainted in June resulting in what we see here:

 

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Edited by WLJayne
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi all! Starting to think about box art and profiles for our 109s and I thought I'd start with the Trops. I've been trying to find colourful Trop schemes for the Emil, and came across this one, I think it fits the bill. I'll keep looking but I'll try to find out more about this one. Let me know what you think 😀

 

Bf-109E7Trop-2.JG27-(B6+)-Sicily-1941.jp

Edited by WLJayne
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Just to be aware (you probably are) that the 'sand' colour used during the North Africa campaign varied with it being lighter on the 'Emils' but appearing darker on the later 'Friedrich's'. This pic I believe shows the 'Emil' in RLM79 and 80 top side and 78 below but an RLM expert will need to clarify which RLM79 it was as according to Sovereign Hobbies there were two variants, standard and hell (light).

 

Regards

Colin.

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