Author Topic: Pfalz silvergrau  (Read 1760 times)

Offline stefanbuss

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Pfalz silvergrau
« on: May 31, 2016, 07:25:20 PM »
Friends,

in one of the recent issues of Windsock international, there was a discussion about the latest knowledge on that silvergrau paint that was used so prominently by Pfalz Flugzeugwerke.
Can someone provide me with a scan of that discussion, please (or with some kind of "management summary", maybe)?

Stefan

Offline Russell

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Re: Pfalz silvergrau
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2016, 08:34:01 PM »
Stefan,

Below is a previous post I made concerning this from October of last year which is just me passing on a rough summary of the excellent article:

From the article - the only genuine sample tested of the wing covering contained aluminium particles in clear dope (spray applied). On the aircraft the sample was from this presumably would have given a finish to the wings similar to the RAF post war silver scheme?

The article suggested (as I read it) that wooden fuselages may have had an oil based finish with aluminium in – I’m guessing that this could have resulted in a different tone.

The article also quoted a British report on a captured aircraft – it described the appearance as silver rather than grey.

After reading the article, my own view – for what little it’s worth - is if I was modelling the actual aircraft the sample was from I’d lean far more towards silver rather than grey, especially on the wings. It’s difficult to argue with the hard evidence of the dope/paint analysis. With weathering & a nod to ‘scale effect’ in mind I wouldn’t be looking for a bright silver finish but a definite silver’ish finish none the less.   

Of course there’s the question of how typical the sample aircraft was (as the author says) but in the absence of any other hard information I’d be thinking it was typical of a factory finish for the DIIIa.

Silver or grey it’s a beautiful fighter


The thread is:

http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=6416.msg117116#msg117116

Basically (I'm working from memory here) the article said there were no records of the special 'Silver-Grey' paint being produced by the German company (I can't recall the name) which some pundits had claimed to have produced it. The author was able contact the company & they searched their records for him.

Of course there's always the possibility the records of the special 'Silver-Grey' paint were missing but it would be difficult to ignore the fact that the only known genuine sample of paint showed it to be nothing more than 'silver' (i.e. aluminium particles in a neutral carrier).

As I noted in the original post - just quite how you represent that silver paint finish at 1/32nd scale allowing perhaps for some weathering is another (enjoyable) matter.  ;)     

Regards
Russell

Offline stefanbuss

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Re: Pfalz silvergrau
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2016, 02:26:43 PM »
Russell,

thankyou thankyou thankyou. That was exactly the information I was looking for - i had completely forgotten that once there was already a discussion (with exactly the same subject description) on that topic...

Stefan