Fairey Delta 2 Violet colour help

[scautomoton]

Hello all,

 

I've received the Dora Wings kit and plan to model it as WG774 in the Violet colour. The colour is given as BS381C 796. When I look online I find various charts giving alternatives in Pantone, RAL etc. Is there a good modelling paint comparison site I can use to identify the closest colour available from Tamiya, Mr Gunze etc? Ideally, I want to find an acrylic since thats what I'm used to painting.

[pigsty]

If you want to wait a day or so, I can ask Nick Hooper for you - he scratch-built the prize-winning one that was up at Telford a couple of years ago.

[scautomoton]

Oh there's no rush, I have about 5 others to finish before I start. Just getting the groundwork in as preparation

[Doccur]

This may be of help

 

Ash

[scautomoton]

Thanks, reading through those links it seems Federal Standard 595C 17142 Safety Violet was the actual paint used. A search on Scalemates suggests my best bet is either Akah 68042 Light Violet Semi-Gloss or AK 3094 Violet. The latter is Acrylic so would be my preferred option.

[Paul Lucas]

I have a question for anyone who has the kit.

 

Does the decal sheet contain any DTD number markings? I have tried looking at the sheet as shown in Mike's review, but cannot magnify the image to a sufficient extent to be able to read the stencilling.

 

I am looking specifically at decal No.28, and the stencilling that runs along the bottom of the sheet underneath the white 'WG777' decal, No.18, that does not appear to be numbered.

 

You would be looking for something like this:

 

                                DTD 899

                                      C

 

The number might be different and the letter might be an 'S'.

 

This might be of relevance to the question if these markings are intended to be used on the Mauve scheme.

 

Thank you.

 

[John R]

Looking at it with the strongest magnifying glass I could find 28 is still unreadable. As it goes on the side of the canopy I suspect that it might read 'Pull Here' to indicate the location of the emergency release handle.

As to the others, the location under the wings possibly indicates the location of jacking points, but why is there not a third under the forward fuselage?

John

[scautomoton]

So by using the magic of my phone camera and getting the focus juuuust so, I can see that decal 28 says " something (4 letters?) release", then has an icon below with what I guess is a dot with a directional arrow running around the top half and "to open" around that. The unnumbered decals below 18 are a single repeat of 22 and 2x repeats of 28.

[Paul Lucas]

Thanks for that @John R and @scautomoton, I had hoped that if they were DTD numbers that were intended for use with the Mauve scheme they might go some way towards either verifying or refuting the Dockers Epoxy part of the linked thread.

 

Once this had been done, we could then have moved on to discussing how or why the wife of one of Fairey's directors might have been in possession of a copy of FS 595 in 1956.

[scautomoton]

Maybe she quite rightly identified that the military used typically drab, dull colours and mentioned something interesting. Not specifically FS 595 perhaps, but just "purple". Unless she was secretly having an affair with a paint sales representative.....

[Giorgio N]

The original FS-595 was issued in 1956 so would have been a pretty new standard when WG774 flew. Now IIRC the violet scheme dates from 1958 so a little later, but still I find the use of paints from this standard quite unusual

 

Regarding decal 28, this was discussed in the thread in the rumormonger section and should read "hood release"

[bentwaters81tfw]

https://www.riolettcustomaerosols.co.uk/search/?s=BS381C+796

[71chally]

Previous thread on the subject here,

 

Personally, I always wondered if Fairey used an off the shelf automobile paint from the period.

 

Photos of this colour are so hard to interpret, Humbrol 42 Pastel Violet (perhaps with a dash of dark blue) looks reasonable to my eyes.

[Paul Lucas]

Three points that get us no further forward.

1) The World Air Speed Record set by WG774 was on 10 March 1956.

2) BS 381C No.797 Light Violet was not introduced into BS 381C until April 1970.

3) The earliest reference I currently have with regard to the availability of a two part epoxy finish dates from June 1957 to an interim DTD Specification, DTD 900/4415, and this was manufactured by Cellon.

 

Was FS 17142 actually included in the original issue of FS 595 in 1956?

Edited February 24, 2024 by Paul Lucas
Correcting typo

[pigsty]

Nick Hooper used enamels, alas, not acrylics, but here's what he says:

 

To obtain the finish I wanted, I used gloss enamels, specifically Revell 32131 Fiery Red, Humbrol 22 White and Humbrol 14 French Blue – in an approximate ratio of 8 parts Red, 6 parts White and 1 part Blue.

 

So I suppose if you can find equivalents in an acrylic range you're away.  And I can warrant, that's a very good match.

 

Interesting mention of Docker colours.  Given the rather yuck shade of lilac, mauve, what have you, and the way the Docker Daimlers looked ... was there any connection?

[scautomoton]

1 hour ago, Paul Lucas said:

Was FS 17142 actually included in the original issue of FS 595 in 1956?

So searching on the Web (I know, dangerous) always seems to list 17142 under FS 595, NOT under 595B or 595C. So I assume that means it was included as part of the original release in 1956.

 

Either way, I'm happy to go with the AK colour, perhaps with a drop of white added. I'm happy for it to be close enough (how many other violet jets have there ever been?) Certainly, I suspect that you could compare 100 images of WG774 in that colour none of them would match each other due to the quality of film used at the time, and age of the photos when digitally scanned.

[Planebuilder62]

Hi @scautomoton

 

And don’t forget how bright the sun was on the day the picture was taken 😊

[Michou]

The information which I posted back in 2019 (Mauve, Dockers 2-part Epoxy Hi-Gloss, FS595a 17142) came from the late Dick Ward.  It is curious that a British paint company should use an American standard but, perhaps, it was Dick who made the match to the details he received from Fairey.

Mike

[Troy Smith]

4 hours ago, scautomoton said:

So searching on the Web (I know, dangerous) always seems to list 17142 under FS 595, NOT under 595B or 595C. So I assume that means it was included as part of the original release in 1956.

@Casey  maybe able to clarify?

28 minutes ago, Michou said:

It is curious that a British paint company should use an American standard but, perhaps, it was Dick who made the match to the details he received from Fairey.

Possibly the best available match in available standard? FS595 gets used a lot simply as it reasonably available.  There are actual colour atlases but who knows what Dick Ward had access too, or this was just the best match from available sources, or was the match reported to Dick Ward.

[Casey]

30 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

5 hours ago, scautomoton said:

 

@Casey  maybe able to clarify?

I have original 595 and some further ones up to and including AMS which effectively replaced FS. They have some colors removed as well as replaced or added over time, some were moved to military only AMS deck which I also have. Once I am back on the US soil I have on my TODO list a "make FS over the ages" compilation which I plan to post. If you think of any special FS colors I should focus on, let me know.

[Paul Lucas]

FS 595a dates from 1968 and does include 17142, so it sounds as though Mr Ward was giving an FS 595a match to a colour that was actually something else entirely. 

 

I don't see a problem with it being manufactured by Dockers or with it being a two part epoxy, it could quite easily have been a proprietary finish.

 

Now, to light the blue touch paper before retiring to a safe distance, I wonder if there was a link between the Mauve colour applied to the FD.2 and the wartime colour PRU Mauve?

 

Imagine the scene, Mr Director is sitting in the living room after dinner one evening looking through a booklet of colour standards and pondering what colour the FD.2 should be painted for it's record attempt when Mrs Director asks him what he is doing.

 

Having explained the situation, Mr Director shows Mrs Director the booklet and asks for her opinion. After perusing the rather drab range of colours contained within the booklet, she finds one that she finds aesthetically pleasing and exclaims "Oooh, this one's nice!" 

 

The next day Mr Director has his secretary contact Docker Bros. with a view to obtaining a quantity of the old wartime PRU Mauve colour in the latest type of high gloss paint, because a happy wife leads to a peaceful life. . .

[Casey]

33 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

1 hour ago, Michou said:

 

Possibly the best available match in available standard?

Readily available, quite standardized, in hands of most military people working on colors.

 

Second option would be Munsell which is actually a grandfather of modern color standards. Munsell to LAB and LAB to Munsell equations are known and I do it quite routinely, plus Munsell is having all possible existing colors.

[scautomoton]

12 minutes ago, Paul Lucas said:

FS 595a dates from 1968 and does include 17142, so it sounds as though Mr Ward was giving an FS 595a match to a colour that was actually something else entirely. 

 

....................

 

The next day Mr Director has his secretary contact Docker Bros. with a view to obtaining a quantity of the old wartime PRU Mauve colour in the latest type of high gloss paint, because a happy wife leads to a peaceful life. . .

I mean, to be fair, this is entirely plausible. It's a well known fact that Sir William Lyons (of Jaguar Cars fame) took every new design home for final approval by his wife before giving it the nod for production.

[Casey]

30 minutes ago, scautomoton said:

final approval by his wife

I wonder if she was tetrachromatic (https://www.healthline.com/health/tetrachromacy#causes) and it was actually a very good business strategy.

 

[Nobby Clarke]

9 hours ago, Paul Lucas said:

Three points that get us no further forward.

1) The World Air Speed Record set by WG774 was on 10 March 1956.

2) BS 381C No.796 Light Violet was not introduced into BS 381C until April 1970.

3) The earliest reference I currently have with regard to the availability of a two part epoxy finish dates from June 1957 to an interim DTD Specification, DTD 900/4415, and this was manufactured by Cellon.

 

Was FS 17142 actually included in the original issue of FS 595 in 1956?

 

Regarding item 2) above, I believe Mr. Lucas is referring to BS381C No. 797 Light Violet which was introduced in Amendment 2 (10 Apr 1970) of the 1964 edition of BS381C. No.796 Dark Violet was first seen in the 1948 edition of BS381C.

Another color that was mentioned in the "Mauve Fairy Delta 2" thread is BS381C No.542 Ruby, but this was not introduced until the 1980 edition.

FS17142 was included in the initial revision of the FS-595 standard from 1956. It is referred to as the "Safety Color" Magenta in Table XI.