SEARCH FINESCALE.COM

Enter keywords or a search phrase below:

Color of P-47D bubble top cockpit

14052 views
45 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: Hayward, CA
Posted by MikeV on Sunday, August 22, 2004 4:27 PM
I shot these cockpit pieces last night with MM Acryl Dark Green just to see how they would look.
Since I don't have good reference photos I thought I would ask your opinion of this. Too dark? Too light? Maybe add some blue?


Mike

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. " Charles Spurgeon
  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: Hayward, CA
Posted by MikeV on Sunday, August 22, 2004 8:30 PM
Alright let's try this.
Rick sent me a reference photo and I tried mixing 10 drops of MM Dark Green with 10 drops of MM French Blue and came up with this which is pretty close I guess. The color doesn't come through as well on the camera as with the human eye but the color is a blue green really.
I tried shooting it at iso 100, 200 and 400 along with shooting it outdoors but I just can't get this camera to capture the color as well as I would like.


What do you think Rick? Wink [;)]

Mike

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. " Charles Spurgeon
  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, August 22, 2004 8:41 PM
Mike:
I have that great coffee table book "Cockpits," with all the WW II...well, obviously, cockpits. Some are restorations, and some are unrestored, all are well lit large photos on good paper. You'd be amazed at how many of the various American fighters either unrestored or restored by reputable restoration outfits/museums have exactly the shade of green you have showed here. It's weird. We all think of yellowish-green or blue-ish-green zinc chromate type colors for aircraft interiors when, if you're in one with original paint, a great many of them are quite brown or OD looking, especially outside any direct light, and especially when photographed with modern film. Mustang cockpits have this trait. The P-59 was another. And the P-38 is yet another, though it has a lot of black in it. I first noticed this one day while playing around in a C-46 and C-47 awaiting their fate in a fire pit. Both were wearing the same paint they had on when they went to war, and though this was the late 80s, and it had faded, I pried off the placards in both planes as souvenirs, since they were to be destroyed, and the paint was pristine underneath. No fading at all. And still had that brown/OD cast to it. And the aluminum that skinned the wings gave great contrast because it was identical to MM Chromate Green. You don't start to see universally green U.S. cockpits until Korea, and right after that they started turning gray.
So this whole excercise, fun as it is to argue minutia (and admit it modelers, this is one reason we do this, for what is modeling but sorting out tiny details with our fingers, whether gluing little parts or typing an argument), is an excercise in futility, as John Dillinger said.
  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: NSW, Australia
Posted by pingtang on Sunday, August 22, 2004 8:52 PM
Time for me to throw my two-bobs worth into this debate,

When I did my Tamiya "razorback" I used Tamiya XF-53 olive green for the interior. Most P-47's had an interior colour similar to the shade you've shown. However, the P-47's built in the Curtiss factory had a standard green zinc-chromate interior. And since you probably don't know where your P-47 was built, I'd stick with the darker green.

One thing I know is that the interiors weren't painted zinc-chromate yellow. This colour was to reflective and black was added to give the more familiar green colour.

hope this helps.
-Daniel
  • Member since
    February 2003
  • From: A Spartan in the Wolverine State
Posted by rjkplasticmod on Sunday, August 22, 2004 9:08 PM
Mike, looks close enough to me Thumbs Up [tup]. Like I said in an earlier post, it's an elusive color. The color pics I referenced are the only ones I have seen that are stated to be of an unrestored Jug. Now get to work on the rest of the bird Smile [:)]. Can't wait to see the finished model.

Regards, Rick
RICK At My Age, I've Seen It All, Done It All, But I Don't Remember It All...
  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Posted by maddafinga on Sunday, August 22, 2004 9:09 PM
You know, there are lots of people, I'm not one of them thankfully, who'd be simply bored to tears by a discussion of the exact color of certain cockpits. My girlfriend would have rolled her eyes and walked off long ago. This is one of the reasons I love this forum. We're kind of a rare group here.

That second color looks very good to me Mike. The first was okay, I think the second was better.
Madda Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle. -- Leonardo Da Vinci Tact is for those who lack the wit for sarcasm.--maddafinga
  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: Hayward, CA
Posted by MikeV on Sunday, August 22, 2004 9:29 PM
Thanks everyone for this stimulating topic.
I have learned a lot from you guys on this subject and am thankful for your input.

Mike

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. " Charles Spurgeon
  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, August 22, 2004 9:41 PM
That's great, Mike, but as Madda said -- and this is a modeler talking who actually has a girlfriend, mind you -- it is all, in the end, trivia. I find it boring to talk about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Now, the color of the seat that held the butt of a mid-20th Century Second Lt. -- that's something worth discussing over two whole days!
But, reluctantly seriously, I hope we are all more enlightened than confused. Personally, I'll probably continue to gather photos, divide them by the square of personal pilot recollections in old magazines, subtract what the kit instructions say, and divide by the original factory specs, finally arriving at a color somewhere in the middle of all that.
Influenced greatly by what color the LHS has in stock.
Tom
  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: Hayward, CA
Posted by MikeV on Monday, August 23, 2004 11:04 PM
Well I adjusted the color a bit more and came up with this shade that I am going with.
I was finally able to manipulate the photo with software to get the colors to look the way my eye sees them. I just had to add a little blue and green to the photo to make it look right. Big Smile [:D]


I mixed 12 drops of MM French Blue enamel with 10 drops of MM Dark Green enamel, added 11 drops of mineral spirits and came up with the color of the cockpit pieces above. I would call this a dark turquoise really as that is what it looks like in the refernce photos Rick so kindly sent me. Thanks again my friend. Wink [;)]
The test piece of plastic on the right is the same color except that it has a coat of Pactra clear flat acrylic on it to flatten the color since the French Blue is a gloss color and resulted in a somewhat glossy finish.
I think this will work.

Mike

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. " Charles Spurgeon
  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Posted by maddafinga on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 8:15 AM
Looks like a good start to me Mike. Are you building it oob or adding some resin or photo etch parts as well?
Madda Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle. -- Leonardo Da Vinci Tact is for those who lack the wit for sarcasm.--maddafinga
  • Member since
    February 2003
  • From: A Spartan in the Wolverine State
Posted by rjkplasticmod on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 12:51 PM
Mike, actually looks like a closer match than my formula. I'll try yours next time I get the urge to do a Jug.

Regards, Rick
RICK At My Age, I've Seen It All, Done It All, But I Don't Remember It All...
  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: Hayward, CA
Posted by MikeV on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 7:29 PM
Thanks guys.

Josh,

I am building it OOB as it is the Tamiya kit and it is pretty darn good the way it sits. I may add a little something here and there but no resin or PE parts.

Rick,

I am glad you liked the color. It looks closer than your formula? Wow, I must have gotten lucky as the French Blue was the only blue I had. Big Smile [:D]
Actually, I have always had a pretty good eye for seeing the colors in something that I want to reproduce. I guess that was something I learned pretty well when I did T-shirt airbrushing. Wink [;)]

Mike

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. " Charles Spurgeon
  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: Hayward, CA
Posted by MikeV on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 10:08 PM
I just ordered the book, "P-47 Thunderbolt in Detail & Scale" a while ago online so that I can have the photo references while I paint the cockpit, etc. Wink [;)]

Mike

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. " Charles Spurgeon
  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Posted by maddafinga on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 11:28 PM
I've thumbed through that one at the lhs. I think you've made a good choice. There are some really excellent pics in there.
Madda Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle. -- Leonardo Da Vinci Tact is for those who lack the wit for sarcasm.--maddafinga
  • Member since
    February 2003
  • From: A Spartan in the Wolverine State
Posted by rjkplasticmod on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 9:27 AM
Mike, thats the reference book I scanned the pics from. It's really an excellent reference. If you are going to model the P-47D, I think this is the one essential reference for the Library. Course I have about a dozen others, but I am a P-47D fan Smile [:)].

Regards, Rick
RICK At My Age, I've Seen It All, Done It All, But I Don't Remember It All...
  • Member since
    April 2017
Posted by swedishandreas on Saturday, April 1, 2017 12:45 PM

So, I am really really late for this discussion. And I guess this particular P-47 in this discussion now is collecting dust in a cabinet somwhere but perhaps this can help future builders. :-)

Yep! There are so many variables.

These planes where often standing out in the sun and thus the colors would change with time.
Different days with diferent people in the factory mixing the colors would also change the color.
Did someone get hurt in the cockpit at any time? Was it a neat ground crew taiking care of the plane and/or did they ever have the time to clean the thing up?

I am about to build the Hasegawa P-47d "Angie" (1:48) and in my research i found this great research regarding this individual plane: http://www.512thfightersquadron.com/l3-o.htm

When one read this it becomes wery clear that theese were war machines and as time wore on the could and would change extencively.

For me it helps to make up a storry in my head. Even with "42-26860 L3-O" in the above link I don't have all the facts. But I can do some guesses and then make up a storry that makes sence for me (and hopefully others looking at the plane). For me, the storrytelling (even it i don't do dioramas) is part of the fun.

I read somewhere that the battlefields in the skyes over europe was likend to someone lifting up a achtray and turning it up side down.

PS
Mike! How did it turn out? Pics? :-)

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY!

Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.

SEARCH FORUMS
FREE NEWSLETTER
By signing up you may also receive reader surveys and occasional special offers. We do not sell, rent or trade our email lists. View our Privacy Policy.