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RAF aluminium undersides.


johnd

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Hello all,

I was wondering how shiny the aluminium undersides on an early war RAF aircraft would be. What paint do people use? Humbrol 56?

Ta,

John.

I would not use Humbrol 56, it is very dark and matt and would look totaly wrong in this instance...I say this because I have just wasted a fiver on a spray can of the stuff and covered a perfecty good humbrol silver 11 finish!!

for a WW2 silver undersurface I would go with Humbroll 11 or humbrol metal cote aluminium and buff the finnish with cotton wool. you can use different varnishes or Klear to alter a shiny finnish. I wold keep a WW2 subject somewhere between gloss and matt (ie. satin) hope this helps!

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I would not use Humbrol 56, it is very dark and matt and would look totaly wrong in this instance...I say this because I have just wasted a fiver on a spray can of the stuff and covered a perfecty good humbrol silver 11 finish!!

for a WW2 silver undersurface I would go with Humbroll 11 or humbrol metal cote aluminium and buff the finnish with cotton wool. you can use different varnishes or Klear to alter a shiny finnish. I wold keep a WW2 subject somewhere between gloss and matt (ie. satin) hope this helps!

Humbrol 11 for sure, but I wouldn't use buffed Metalcote to represent an aluminium doped underside. Buffed Metalcote does a very nice (if fragile) polished natural metal effect, but that's not at all the same look.

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Humbrol 11 for sure, but I wouldn't use buffed Metalcote to represent an aluminium doped underside. Buffed Metalcote does a very nice (if fragile) polished natural metal effect, but that's not at all the same look.

correction then :) do not use metal cote for doped areas (what was i thinking!) oh and as for citadel silver I recomend this also, great stuff (mix it well!!!)

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Not shiny at all. Prewar it would have been polished as brightly as possible, and that may have lasted into the early months, but there was more important things to do during the war - let alone all the dust that would have been flung up onto it when operating. Hopefully they would have been kept clean and smooth, at least near the leading edge, but no higher standard beyond that.

To be fair, by then they wouldn't have Aluminium undersides anyway by then, except Coastal Command aircraft. Which wouldn't have been kept to the same standard as peacetime fighters.

As a more modern comparison, I can assure you that Hunters and Javelins were not kept shiny but showed as a metallic grey - even on Open Days.

I use Humbrol 11 for bright shiny metal (e.g. oleos), and a range of other duller "silver"s for unpolished natural metal. I don't particularly care for any of them, to go as far as recommending, although I did get good results from Revell silver recently until it started clogging up. I'm going to try another tin.

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