Author Topic: Spad XIII painting help needed  (Read 1809 times)

Online Softscience

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Spad XIII painting help needed
« on: February 09, 2018, 01:47:19 PM »
Hi folks,

A few questions regarding painting of a Spad xiii in CDL.

1) Are the wing ribs just tapes or are we dealing with something else here?

2) if the answer to the above is yes, then what's a suggested method to simulate rib shading on such closely spaced structures (it's. 1)48 Spad I'm building)

3) Was the rear half of the fuselage fabric or plywood panels?

4) on CDL spads, were the metal bits up front just painted a tan color to match the CDL?


Any help would be vastly appreciated.

Offline hiddeous1973

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Re: Spad XIII painting help needed
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2018, 06:04:56 AM »
not an expert, but I will give it a go...

1: as far I know all ribs everywhere had a version of tape or extra fabric. But for the riblets I am not shure and the exact way Nieuport went is not my expertise

2:really hard to do the riblets (smaller ribs on front between the wing ribs) but the rib tapes are mostly done with masking with very small masking tape and then spraying a very fine shading

3: fabric

4: take a look at the instuctions of the WnW Salmson kits, they have very detailed instructions on how the French painted the metal and fabric with almost similar but not exactly matching colours. You can easily adapt that concept to 1/48

Offline RAGIII

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Re: Spad XIII painting help needed
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2018, 10:08:12 PM »
My advice is to keep it very subtle. Like you said the ribs are very close together and there are a lot of them. If it gets too bold a pin stripe look will be the result. JMHO. As for the overall CDL SPADS, yes a close match for the metal and wood portions. Some look more beige and others yellowish when looking at artwork. There are photos of Guynemers SPAD VII on line that might be a help.
RAGIII
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Offline huberlu

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Re: Spad XIII painting help needed
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2018, 09:04:06 AM »
Hi folks,

A few questions regarding painting of a Spad xiii in CDL.

1) Are the wing ribs just tapes or are we dealing with something else here?

2) if the answer to the above is yes, then what's a suggested method to simulate rib shading on such closely spaced structures (it's. 1)48 Spad I'm building)

3) Was the rear half of the fuselage fabric or plywood panels?

4) on CDL spads, were the metal bits up front just painted a tan color to match the CDL?


Any help would be vastly appreciated.

Hello!

Perhaps you could find informations here, there are pictures of the wing and fuselage structure being restored ( and 170 other pictures ) :

http://memorial.flight.free.fr/respadphoto.html

Regards

Offline joelrawson

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Re: Spad XIII painting help needed
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2018, 01:21:53 AM »
Most of the research available to me, including Smith IV  in Smithsonian, shows the French painted the undersides of the SPAD XIII either a pale yellow (ecru) or gray. Rib taping would be painted over and contrast between painted fabric would be almost indistinguishable. Therefore, modeling techniques we use for unpainted surfaces such as British aircraft are not necessary.

Offline joelrawson

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Re: Spad XIII painting help needed
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2018, 01:27:28 AM »
As for CDL SPADS, the fabric overall was painted. Check the Musee de l'aire in Paris website. They preserved Guynemer's SPAD VII in its original fabric and photos show it was painted.