Author Topic: Pfalz Silbergrau (Read 7986 times)

Des · « **Reply #15 on:** November 02, 2015, 01:41:47 PM »

Looks very good to my eyes Rick.

Des.

lcarroll · « **Reply #16 on:** November 02, 2015, 11:32:17 PM »

It does look good Rick; is this the mix with Valejo Silver added to the Misterkit Silbergrau you mentioned earlier?
Cheers,
Lance

RAGIII · « **Reply #17 on:** November 03, 2015, 09:44:06 AM »

Quote from: lcarroll on November 02, 2015, 11:32:17 PM

It does look good Rick; is this the mix with Valejo Silver added to the Misterkit Silbergrau you mentioned earlier?
Cheers,
Lance

Thanks Lance and Des! Actually Lance, I went with a Testors Engine Silver and Hellblau mix

My reason for the change was that in order to do the Jasta 4 wound ribbon I will be doing a LOT of masking! I just felt a paint that might have a little more "Grip" was in order.
RAGIII

Captain Slower · « **Reply #18 on:** November 03, 2015, 11:48:32 PM »

There is a Pfalz D.VIII fuselage portion in the Berlin W&T Museum. A few years ago, I had posted in the WWI Aviation Forum and received as response from Hugo Triesch that the interior was a 'squirrel grey' or medium bluish grey. (RAL 7000). I shared this with Lance after his Windsock article came out.

We did not touch upon the exterior in our comments, just accepted as silbergrau. So, I would be interesting to see if any forum members live near Berlin.

Dal Gavan · « **Reply #19 on:** November 04, 2015, 10:43:34 AM »

That's looking good, Rick. I should grab another Pfalz before they sell out- I'd like to do one in the metallic scheme as well as the one I did in grey.

Cheers.

Dal.

mike in calif · « **Reply #20 on:** November 09, 2015, 12:04:55 PM »

Good info on the paint mixes! Would this color be in line with the early French Silver doped finishes? Prolly close, but duller with the addition of a percentage of grey? I have a couple of Pfalz's (Pfalzii?) and would def. do the metal and wooden portions differently. Does any think spray direction would affect tonal values with respect to the grain in silver?
Lovely builds shown!

davecww1 · « **Reply #21 on:** November 15, 2015, 07:47:40 AM »

I too used to think the gray mixed with silver was correct for the Pfalz, to give the proper silbergrau color. But after reading Lance Krieg's article in the latest Windsock article, the tests on the paint samples they studied under a microscope showed only aluminum pigment, no white or gray was found. So based on this new evidence I would have to say there should be no gray mixed in, I'm going to use Model Master flat aluminum for my next Pfalz.
Also regarding Mike's question on the French aluminum doped aircraft, no gray went into that, it was a standard aluminum dope. I use Floquil's old silver as it gives a great semigloss finish and can be masked over with no worries unlike most of the metalizer paints.
Dave

mike in calif · « **Reply #22 on:** November 16, 2015, 12:37:19 AM »

Dave, ET AL, any thoughts on alcad as an alum. finish? Just a base coat if you will, none of the fancy jet aluminium finishes. I know the French finish was doped with alum powder added, and so not to hijack the thread, was the Pfalz a similar finish? Am I reading this correctly?

WarrenD · « **Reply #23 on:** November 17, 2015, 10:52:34 AM »

Mike,
Over the last few years I've contemplated this in regards to my forever stalled Nieuport batch build. Like Dave, I'm a Noop fan, and I've considered several ways to accomplish this. I've seen folks use Alclad without spraying it over the gloss black primer with interesting results.

Something some of you might try that I was going to do, and post the results here is this: get a piece of styrene, or plastic spoons, and spray one with Tamiya white primer, one with Mr. Surfacer (gray), and any other undercoat you wish to experiment with. I bet you dollars to donuts that you'll get a different effect depending on the color, etc. of the undercoat which will prove useful in recreating a variety of silver dope finishes.

These are just my thoughts, and it sure looks like I won't be trying it anytime soon (unless we do that French group build and then MAYBE my life will permit me some modeling time), so I'd like it if one of y'all would try it.

Warren

vincentm · « **Reply #24 on:** November 17, 2015, 11:20:10 AM »

Although well documented answers have already been given, I will add my 2 cents. I've also read in Windsock books that this 'Silbergrau' was a mix of clear dope and aluminum particles, which was found to prevent wooden airframes from putrefying and also improved cooling by lowering the temperature inside the aircraft. Knowing this, it appears on time pictures that this color was most probably rather flat as the Silbergrau painted D-III's don't look shiny at all. As for me, the method I used was painting the aircraft with a classic silver spray and overcoating with flat varnish. I was rather happy with the result.

RAG, your D-III fuselage paint looks rather good in my opinion.

About the cockpit color, I read that early D-III's were painted Idflieg grey-green, but later aircraft had rather mid-grey cockpits.

stefanbuss · « **Reply #25 on:** November 17, 2015, 06:26:41 PM »

Quote

About the cockpit color, I read that early D-III's were painted Idflieg grey-green, but later aircraft had rather mid-grey cockpits.

Any information about when this change came? Sounds a bit like the WW2 debate, about a change from RLM02 to RLM66 inside german cockpits...

Stefan

mike in calif · « **Reply #26 on:** November 18, 2015, 01:41:14 PM »

Warren,
Thanks for the idea regarding Alclad. I usually spray right over bare plastic. I have a few flavors of silver, so may try a bit of mix-n-match with base tones. I'm sure the ply sections on a Pfalz would handle the dope differently than the cloth bits, so there is another variation in the mix.

davecww1 · « **Reply #27 on:** November 19, 2015, 10:47:46 AM »

Hi Mike,
I have not used Alclad much, other than the Chrome silver for a 1/25 scale musclecar air cleaner, but I think it might look good, you can spray it overall with aluminum, then mask off the metal parts and use a semi-gloss coat on the fabric areas. would be good to experiment I think. One thing that does not look realistic to me (and I have seen at several contests) is when someone paints a Nieuport cowl with the chrome metallizer, or a bright aluminum that they polish to look like a bumper on a 1969 Impala.

RAGIII · « **Reply #28 on:** November 19, 2015, 01:56:45 PM »

Thanks for all of the replies. Since the consensus seems to be plain old silver/aluminum I am glad I went towards the silver with my mix. When the time comes to do my Roden Pfalz DIII I will use some of my Floquil Old Silver straight from the bottle

RAGIII

mike in calif · « **Reply #29 on:** November 21, 2015, 02:28:48 AM »

Old Silver is a great spray medium as it has "grain" and one can vary the tonal values by choosing the direction of spray. So spraying the wing chord-wise, and the ailerons span-wise will make the silver have two tones. I'll be interested to see the look you get.