Spitfire wheel well color?

If you go on Tamiya.com, you can download the insturctions to their Spitfire kits.  

I don't know that there's a standard...I've seen examples of them being the same as the belly, and have also seen various shades of green.

Most commonly, I've seen them in the same green as the pit.

I usually do mine in the same color as the lower surface. But my understanding is that on pre war and early war RAF righters they were Aluminium.

+1

Looked at a bunch of pictures, unfortunately all restos...

The long skinny part a) doesn't seem to have sides, but rather is open fore and aft and b) the top is the underside of the wing, which looks green usually. All the struts and links are silver, hoses are hose color.

The wheel well itself has what appears to be a thin sheet metal boot around it. That part on the restos starts out green, but many if not all have their belly color sprayed in there.

Wish I could crawl under an original!

I found the Tamiya PDF instructions online which call for "Undersurface color".  Meaning the medium sea gray..... I've also seen the aluminum color or gray in other photos.  I don't think cockpit green is correct for the wells. In any case I will paint it the same as the undersurface (medium sea gray). The one in the Imperial War Museum has gray or aluminum but not green. 

Thanks again for the opinions. I would recommend this Revell kit for the money you can't beat it.

I do think green is correct for the long straight part where the strut stores. It's hard to imagine getting up in there with all of the links and tubing and painting it another color. But that's just my 2 bits.

It's all silver lacquer down there, except on post war spits. 

If it is aluminium alloy the perservative of choice back then was zinc chromate. For US aircraft surfaces were painted with either yellow or green zinc chromate primer. There is a RAF interior green which I believe is a RAF formulation of Zinc chromate. The aircraft were painted a standard color at the factory and was painted over when it arrived at its squadron. The aluminium alloys used for aircraft back then can corrode like crazy.  

The British silver was a paint. The early war planes like the Anson even had the underside of the wing painted the color. Nate is right it was the structural finish color except for the cockpits.

Where he says "post war", I've read "late war-post war" for structural green. British aircraft primer was gray, these were finish colors.

I do think the modeler has some license to paint the "wheel well" portion of the set up, which is just the part where the tire goes, underbody color. That'd probably be common in a re-paint, the folks who actually know this stuff like Nathan does, seem to say.

Right on GM, most of the time the round portion of the wheel bay was just sky or medium sea grey  

Either they're aluminum or use RAF Interior Green (Testors Model Master #4850 for acryic paint, #2062 for enamel paint). You can't go wrong with either depending on the subject.

Pre war RAF fighters had Aluminium undersurfaces, including the wheel wells on new fangled retacting gear types such as the Hurricane and Spitfire. Shortly before the outbreak of hostilities, Black and White were added to the lower surfaces for ID purposes, but the wheel wells remained in Aluminium. In mid 1940 various lower surface colors were tried in place of the Black and White on RAF fighters, Light Blue, Sky, and Eau de Nil amongst others before Sky became the standard color by late summer of 1940 during the Battle of Britain. It would seem a natural continuation of practice to paint the wheel wells in the matching color to the surrounding lower surfaces.

Yep, but...

Our little RJ Mitchell machine had both a wheel well, which the gear door cover only semi concealed, and a leg tunnel. The leg tunnel did not have sides. The bearing for the leg was part of the main fuselage structure. Engine bearers. All in a compact unit. One of the few aircraft to have outward folding gear, along with her little friend the 109. The actual wheel well was a sheet metal can, then a narrow slot, then basically a hole in the wing for the leg to get up into. Up in there it was no longer a wheel well, more like other early war aircraft such as the F4F where the opening kind of was open up into the cockpit. The underside of the upper wing skin was painted, originally silver. Later green. I would wager never underside color in the leg tunnel itself except as overspray.

Stik, you are correct in your spelling btw of aluminium. Not just a translation deal, the actual paint name.

I love reading this stuff.

The question regarding Aluminium... what is the difference in shade compared to aluminum? I've never heard of aluminium. Is it more shiny or a tad duller?

BlackSheepTwoOneFour

The question regarding Aluminium... what is the difference in shade compared to aluminum? I've never heard of aluminium. Is it more shiny or a tad duller?

 

Aluminium is just the English spelling for the color as opposed to the US version. Like Gray vs Grey- same thing different name. As far as the color itself goes, I presume it will be a typical aluminum lacquer- aluminum pigments in a paste mixed with a lacquer carrier.

Aluminium is British for aluminum without the Zed.  What's your "take away" on that. Said with tongue planted firmly in cheek and a bit cheeky.  Cheers.  Every time I visited the UK I enjoyed being "knocked up" in the morning, and on occasion borrowing a "rubber" to erase a mistake. It's all in what you have under the bonnet or in the boot.