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Spitfire underwing stencils - Sky repaint


Solar Panel Phil

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Squadrons possibly, remembering that sprayguns were issued at the rate of one to an airfield, not per Squadron, so hand-painting might have been necessary. There were also teams travelling around the country; the C.O., of Coastal Command's Bircham Newton airfield complained that another field had had a team from Henlow arrive, and do the spraying for them, so could he have the same courtesy, please? M.U.s should have had all of the necessary equipment, including stencilling facilities.

Edgar

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Were there any official standards for stencils? From what I've seen there were variations even at the factory with W/T stencils appearing in slightly different places. I would have thought also that only the essential stencils would have been replaced once operational?

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Drawings specified the height of the letters, and thickness of any lines, plus the colour, but not the style, presumably leaving it up to the factory/unit as to whether they employed a stencil or a signwriter. The W/T stencil was an inspector's stamp, to show that the component had been tested electrically for earthing, so a lot would depend on the individual's placement; a replacement component should have been tested, beforehand, so the stamp would still have been in place, together with the "DTD" stamp, which indicated the type of paint used, information that would avoid a messy mistake, in the event of a repaint. Walkway lines were designed to stop erks treading over the weaker areas above the radiator(s,) so were also important (erks weren't supposed to wear boots, for the same reason.)

Edgar

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