The Little World

And it would appear that I must needs have many loves.

I have two pots of paint in the Little Workshop stocks at present – both green – that I use to paint USAAF aircraft of the WW2 period’s insides. One is a custom mix zinc chromate and the other a Testor’s cockpit green. Neither is accurate, I daresay, but they let me differentiate the different areas of the ships. They are getting down in their bottles and soon it will be time to change over to solvent-based lacquer to do the job.

I would prefer to use Mr Color or Tamiya lacquer if possible. So I have gone on a hunt for suitable replacements – and the hunt promises to be painful.

You see, there are so many experts, variants, and detractors that whatever I get will be wrong…somehow. I just need to get it wrong right.

The heading shot above may well be the actual cockpit colour I need…but look how different it is from another well-documented expert presentation:

And the same occurs when the zinc chromate is represented:

Nowhere near what the model paint makers think that it should be. Nowhere near what I see in period photographs of workers in US aircraft plants riveting up the inside of wings or fuselages. Even making allpwnaces for 1940 Kodachrome film representation and modern reproduction, there is a very wide gap in the hue.

What to do? Short of journeying to the Smithsonian’s storage shed with a screwdriver and unfastening something to bring home ( And don’t think I wouldn’t…) I am left to the experts. I might go to our local Bull Creek RAAF air museum and look at the preserved Catalina there but that has been restored as well as preserved and all the paint looks suspiciously new. Which means it is just a colour opinion affected by availability of funds and the price of Dulux in the local hardware store.

I am determined to avoid the shitfights of the modelling forums for this one, and I would like to find a constant source of a supply that doesn’t require an entirely new range of paints and thinners to be bought. It may come down to near enough and I then I am going to defy anyone to tell me it is not good enough.

BTW: the RAF and Commonwealth cockpits are easier:

And they often used the same paint for the underarms and less savoury bits of the aircraft so that is a help. When it comes to the inside of engine cowlings I always throw in a good deal of grey, brown, and oil anyway. I’ve seen what they look like.