Streaky camouflage on Fokker aircraft

[Don Fry]

I am aboutt to start covering a quarter scale Fokker DR1. I fancy doing it in the factory standard "streaky" brushed painted finish. From the windsock datafile a scale brush would be 2 cm wide. The problem I see is that you can't paint it when covered as the brush will strike the underlying structure and leave solid paint where it does so. I have a few ideas on how to over come this, and will try a few experiments on pre finishing the covering prior to application. But does anyone know how to achieve this finish. Also where do I get, or a mix recipe, for the turquoise colour of the wing underside. I throw myself on the knowledge of the community.

[jrman]

Try "Warbird Colours" or "KlassKote" from Phil at Fightertaces.**LINK**

[John Olsen 1]

Actually I think the factory standard was the lozenge camouflage and the streaky paint was done afterwards by a man in a hurry in a draughty tent hanger with poor quality wartime paint using a cheap brush, probably intended for cleaning engine parts. I suspect that the colours depended as much on what the guy could scrounge up and mix together as on any official standard. Certainly the poor quality of the work shows up even in the black and white photos of the day.

Surely the full size brush would also tend to leave more paint when it passed over the structure? But then in a DR1 there is little structure that touches the fabic behind the leading edge, apart from the ribs. The one I have part completed pretty well duplicates that. Mine is a bit smaller than yours, about sixth scale.

I hope you are not doing yours red, the world already has too many red Dr1s!

John

[Tony K]

Donald, have you seen this build on RCG? The streaky finishing starts on page 29.

Worth reading the whole thread for a marvelous example of scale model building.

John, consensus of opinion is that no DR1's were ever covered with the lozenge fabric. The streaky effect was the factory finish for the triplane which may have been overpainted in the field with Jasta or personal schemes.

[Don Fry]

Thanks. The streaky finish predates the use of lozenge finish. It was done in the factory, as you say by a man in a hurry, on the canvas before installation on the aircraft, by dipping the brush in the paint, and then brushed on til the brush ran out of paint. There was no brushing out, over painting, or messing about to improve what it looked like.

I take on board that there is little structure under the wing, but the stripes do not go fore and aft, but at a, I guess, fifteen degree angle, so if done as suggested would give me a solid bar effect on each rib position which would not look right. The fus is also streaked. There is a lot of structure under the covering here.

What I think I need is a method of colouring the fabric prior to covering, but I have no experience of how to do this.

Its too hot here, driven from the field yesterday when it hit 32 centigrade, and only half eleven in the morning. Thank god the workshop has stone walls two thirds of a meter thick! Went in there and sulked.

[Don Fry]

Thank you jrman, but if I read the colours right are they not WW2 colours?

Tony, as you say, wonderful workmanship, but can you see what I mean about colour blinding up in the rib lines.

[Tony K]

Posted by Donald Fry on 11/07/2013 12:56:17:

Tony, as you say, wonderful workmanship, but can you see what I mean about colour blinding up in the rib lines.

Donald, I understand your issue but is it really a problem? The full size aircraft were painted by hand after covering so the underlying structure and the rib tapes would have probably "caught" more paint from the brush.

This picture illustrating the process may be of interest.

For more on this topic I quote respected researcher Dan San Abbott (unfortunately now deceased),

"The dark olive dope was thinned to a wash and applied with 80 to 100mm wide brushes in one continuous stroke. It was applied in one coat over the clear doped linen fabric. The dark streaks are where the brush had a full load, and each succeeding brush stoke the covering of the thinned dope got lighter.
After the camouflage finish was applied, using matt black dope, the crosses were painted on the clear doped linen fabric on the upper wing top surface, the lower wing under surface, both sides of the fuselage and the rudder. After the crosses had dried, the cross fields were painted with flat white oil based paint on the top wing , fuselage and rudder crosses. The lower wing crosses were left as is, clear doped.
One coat coat of sky blue dope was applied to the under suface of the wings , axle wing, fuselage, and tailplane. The sky blue dope overlapped to the bottom side of the fuselage 20mm and to the top surface of the tailplane, forming a border 20mm wide.
After all the painting had dried, the fabric surfaces were given one waterproofing coat of copal varnish which had a yellowish cast, this causes a yellow shift, changing the sky blue to a turquoise.
This is all supported with Fabric Samples from Ltn. Stapenhorst's Fok. DR.I 144/17 held in the Imperial War Museum. These are substantiated facts, not my opinion".

I hope this is of some use.

[jrman]

It's worth talking to Phil at Fighteraces as other colours and mixing advice is available. He's a very helpful and knowledgeable fellow.

[Don Fry]

Tony, I am most grateful for the advice and the time you took. I was working under the assumption that the fabric was prepainted prior to covering, daft when you think. I am of an age where dope and nylon was the standard finish on models and should have remembered that it would be impossible to put predoped nylon on a wing, and linen would be no different. When I looked closely at some of the photographs in my Winsock datafile, rather that the colour plates, I could see that the rib positions were visible because of paint strike off the brush. The artist didn't do this and all I was doing was drooling on the colour jobs.

I will speak to Fighteraces re colours.

[David Davis]

I used to be a decorator. You can buy oil-based glaze sometimes known as scumble glaze from any good decorator's merchant. This is a transluscent medium based on linseed oil which is mixed with artists' oil-based colour, white oil-based eggshell or undercoat paint, and thinned with white spirit to the consistency of milk.

I painted this very roughly on the surface of my Flair Baronette adding a few streaks of pure colour to simulate the darker bits of the streaking, then I "dragged" the mixture off the surface of the Linen Solartex using a cheap 1/2" brush. The advantage of using oil-based glaze is that if you are disatissfied with the appearence you may simply wipe everything off with a rag soaked in white spirit.

Picture of my Baronette finished in the colours of Hans Weiss attached.

[David Davis]

PS. The glaze needs to be protected from the fuel with a couple of coats of varnish.

[Don Fry]

Many thanks David, your system will go on my try list. It looks good, is cheap, and is reversible, a good list when working on a almost finished model which has already cost a lot of effort. I think I will knock up a 2 foot wing section, cover it and experiment

[Plummet]

On sunday I took these photos. They are not of a genuine WW1 Triplane, but of a replica. I have more images. Please PM me if they would be of use to you.

Plummet

[Don Fry]

[Don Fry]

I am a procrastinator, and have sworn to the Gods Gravity and Orientation that no new projects are started until all old projects, rebuilds, restorations are flying and trimmed, or scrapped. I have finally done the wings of the Dr1. Many thanks to all who had an input into getting my head round this, as it came out good in the end. Paint from Fighteraces, black added to the colour supplied, as right colour but too light, and then a bit of courage, a good 25 mm artists brush, and carefully painted it very badly.

[The real Ron Truth]

Donald I'm in exactly the same boat as you with a Dr1 ready for painting.

I plan to use bog standard B&Q emulsion paints thinned down with water for the streaking and solid colours for the underside. You can take paint samples to bq to have the paint made up to match scale colours.

I think the trick is not to try and do this too neatly and to emulate what happened on the full-size. The paint will catch on any part of the structure where there is an edge but this is exactly like the full-size.

One trick you can do is to do what the guys who make plastic kits do and add pre shading over the ribs before applying the paint. I also intend to dirty mine up afterwards so it looks like it's been to work!!!

Im going for the yellow and black tail design 503/17.

[Don Fry]

Boogaloo, for what it is worth I made a quick 2 foot wing section and covered it to practice on. I uses a guide to help get the offset angle of the streaks about right, and with the panels mounted as the photo painted as original, from trailing edge to leading edge. Take care not to use much brush pressure, and no need to mask anything, they didn't on the original. One point is the paint needs to be darker that you would think, it goes on thin, so need dark to cover. If using emulsion on fabric, you might want to experiment with using winter screen wash for car windscreens (at least in part), instead of water as a thinner. The antifreeze and detergents make the paint wet onto the covering better. A good paintbrush helped a lot. I bought a soft 20mm synthetic artists brush, which is fairly shallow so it does not hold much paint

[The real Ron Truth]

Donald,

Thanks, good ideas. The beauty of ww1 is that its not meant to look like its a show pony. It can be rough and ready just like the real thing. If you have the time, its well worth adding rib strips to look like the real stitching covers . the paint collects on these and gives the wing real shape and depth.