A question about wing painting.

[ETG]

Dear group,

The question is in the drawing.

Who can tell me more about this? In the near future I would like to build more WW1 airplanes and I need to know this so I can
paint the model accurately.


 
(This is the text in the drawing :
===Although airbrush pistols existed long before airplanes did, airplanes were
mostly painted by hand.
That means that colors did not blend but were separated by a hard line.

My question is: am I correct in thinking this, or did they actually spray paint
WW1 airplanes a lot? Pictures show me that they did not. I see more
evidence of hand painting than of airbrushing.===)

_____________
Erik

[uncletony]

 

[WarrenD]

ROTFLMAO!!!  Good one Bo!

Erik,
      It depends on the particular a/c really, and this is where nothing is going to pay off as well as good research depending on the a/c you are wanting to model. Even in WWII, when I'd venture to say almost all a/c were painted with an airgun at the factory, some had hard edge camo, and some had a soft edge.
You'll find some German types in WWI that had a soft edge, but many did not.

Again, you're going to have to narrow the question down to a particular a/c and a particular unit, time, place, etc. as there is NO one answer fits all (or even fits most IMHO) to your question.

HTH, YMMV, FWIW,

Warren

[kornbeef]

Yes even down to manufacturer theres no hard and fast rule. For example OAW sprayed the three colour camo on their Albie DII and hard edged the later camo on theith license built Fokker DVII's so all I can say is Check your reference material carefully.  Field repairs and repaints etc do make this even more of a minefield as Bo suggests.

[ETG]

Okay....I'll be more specific: Albatros D.V, with green and purple camo on top of the wings.

About the WW2 airplanes :
The Me-109's for instance, had large rubber mats draped over them, then they were spray painted. It was a fast way to paint the
airplanes and get the exact same camo over each and every airplane. Even the 1 to 1 scale planes had a fairly sharp edge between
the colors. On a scale model these edges should be fairly to totally sharp, using low stick tape, flat onto the model, will give therefor
an accurate to scale effect. Even in 1:32 scale, although in this large scale, a very thin fuzzy edge might look better.

_________
Erik

[coyotemagic]

Excellent point, Eric.  That said, as others have suggested, it's best to check your references on specific airframes.  I've seen Albatros upper surface camo patterns so sharp, they look as though they were masked.  On others, you can barely see any color separation at all.  Check references.
Cheers,
Bud

[ALBATROS1234]

the only way to tell for sure is to look at available period photos of the schemes you wish to model. i have seen photos with camo both hard edged and soft edged, it can vary even within the same manufacturer. things werent standardized back then. there was no set way it had to be done.

[ETG]

Thank you all.
Well, that's clear then. More research for me, since there were no standards or strict rules to follow.  It does make life a bit more easy, I can now
use my Artistic License !  ;-)
Therefor, it's next to impossible to go wrong. (Hope I am not tempting fate, here....)
_____________
Erik.

[kornbeef]

One reason I like to either build a well recorded craft or a *generic* build But as you likely know more references means more  *Oh that bits wrong... or oh I can add that...*

On the up side though you can see how an aircraft  changed during its service life. Take WNW's Wonderful D.V. The Eduard von Schleich's craft. theres a quite a score of small or not so small differences between this aircraft and the kitset as supplied by WNW. Some are clearly late modifications but others are shown on pics of the craft when it was quite new.  WNW just hit a middle balance I guess. Some wonderful builds have resulted.

There again maybe I spend to long poring over what scraps of reference I can get my eyes on.

Keith

[Epeeman]

Not wishing to be burnt at the stake as a heretic here, but .................

Me personally, I never overly worry about absolute correct detail, colours/markings, etc just so long as the kit builds into a good representation of the subject matter at hand. 

Therefore Erik, I would not be overly concerned on this.   Perhaps I am being a bit biased here as I am mainly an OOB modeller who brush paints all my models?!   

Regards

Dave

[uncletony]

[Epeeman]

Great one, Bo -

made me laugh!!!