preshading biplanes

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Absolutely stunned by the planes done over at wwiaircraftmodels.com. I understand the techniques recommended for preshading the lower surfaces - the idea is to get a kind of translucent effect as though seeing the spars in the air from the ground. (I’m doing a Camel.) Not sure about the uppers: the colors are darker, and I’m not sure that this “see through” effect is what we want. Thinking about just using black or paynes grey the way I’d do any plane. I don’t know what I’m doing, but maybe someone out there does. Advise?

Eric

2

Unless one has left the linen on the real birds in unpainted dope, the “see-through” effect is bogus, IMHO… I mean, paint will cover up and light-proof window, why wouldn’t it light-proof linen? I’ve observed a number of WW1 replica aircraft, and few real ones in flight and never noticed any such effect on painted aircraft…

As for pre-shading, that’s your call… Personally, I don’t do it very often (although there are exceptions, like on very light-colored aircraft camo, such as Luftwaffe white-washes) as I feel there’s much more control post-shading with pastels…

3

[dto:] i agree 100% .

Ron

4

This was not my idea. Please check http://www.ww1aircraftmodels.com/page9.html for a page on preshading WWI aicraft accompanied by photos of the real creatures. I do understand your doubts. I helped paint a Piper Cub and I wouldn’t say you could through it, but it didn’t look like a Cessna either. On the other hand, the linen and solvents that covered a warplane would have been kept to a minimum - you needed to cover the frame for aerodynamic reasons, but there was a huge premium put on keeping the aircraft as light as possible - these things had under 200 hp through most of the war - many a lot lower.

The photos on wwiaircraft are much better but these thumbnails I think show what the guy is getting at. Note the underside of the wings:

5

The Pfalz appears to be unpainted doped-linen, as evidenced by the see-through effect that’s blocked by the upper wing insignia… Hard to tell about the Niueport, and the Camel’s appears to be light grey with shadows cast by the rib tapes…

6

I don’t think it right to take photos from someone else’s site. So, I’d look at http://www.ww1aircraftmodels.com/page9.html which includes two photos that show the effect the author discusses very clearly. Or you could go through one of the web’s most interesting WWI aviation archive “Rosebud’s WWI and Early Aircraft Archive” http://www.earlyaeroplanes.com/archive1.htm . It includes dozens of photos like this one of a British Caudron 3:

You may be correct of course - I claim no expertise. This may well be a matter where one size does not fit all. But as previously noted, with the engines at the time any designer would have wanted to keep weight to an absolute minimum and as the skin’s purpose was aerodynamic instead of support (like it was in WWII) a less is more approach makes sense. And there are a whole lot of photos to back up WWIaircraft’s claim. I’d keep an open mind on this one.

Eric

7

Well, the actual weight of the paint that’s applied over the fabric dope isn’t all that much on a single-engine/single-seat fighter like the Camel… Once dry, the solvent weighthas gone, and you’re left with just the pigment and hardened binder, which is probably less than a third of the actual weight-per-gallon of liquid… Figure that a Camel (which is the aircraft I’m focusing on, since that’s what you wanna build) gets painted with two gallons (wet) of paint, at a reasonable guesstimate of 7 lbs per gallon and once dry, this goes down to about 4.5 lbs of paint, or just over half a gallon of fuel’s weight…

Fortunately, I suffer from no similar ethical isues, lol… However, if Wikipedia and the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB complains, I’ll take them down. Meanwhile…

!(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/HansvonHammer/Aircraft Profiles/Nieuport17.jpg?t=1302320255)

!(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/HansvonHammer/Aircraft Profiles/Camel2.jpg?t=1302318597)

!(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/HansvonHammer/Aircraft Profiles/Sopwith_F-1_Camel_USAF.jpg?t=1302318916)

The N17 clearly shows it’s opacity in the top photo, the metalic paint being quite solid. The light area is most likely a reflection of sunlight off the aluminum, and the “see-through” effect is much more likely the rib tapes that’re sewn on the fabric and stapled to the wing’s ribs, as was done with most “Rag-Wings” of the era…

Over to the Camel… The light grey camouflage paint on the wing’s undersides appear to be quite opaque, even in the period photograph… The bottom two photos of the USAF’s Camels, while obviously not an original, factory paint-job, it’s pretty close to authentic… The camouflage wasn’t applied over raw linen, it was applied over the clear dope (which you probably know about, having worked on a Piper Cub) that shunk the linen tight over the airframe and made it quite rigid and airtight, and very light. The forward fuselage is plywood and aluminum sheeting, from just aft of the cockpit to the cowl, and the upper decking of the fuselage is also plywood…

Another thing to consider, since you brought up horsepower, is that the “Standard” Camel had a 130 HP Clerget 9Brotary engine (or some with the 140 HP Clerget 9Bf), with the engine being 150 HP Bently for R.N.A.S. Camels… It also, early on, flew with the 110 HP Le Rhône 9J rotary, but this engine proved to be underpowered, although it was a copy of the same engine, Oberursel Ur.II, that powered the Fokker Dr 1… (Side-note, it was said that more than one German pilot, including Voss and Von Richtoffen, had the French engines installed on their aircraft, taken from crashed Nieuports.)

The Fokkers came from the factory in an over-all streaked Olive Drab paint on the upper surfaces, with light blue undersides, that was applied over the clear dope, and no pilots I’m aware of ever stripped their aircraft of the paint before repainting them in the “Circus” colors. The paint, by itself, wouldn’t shrink and tighten the fabric covering, you know… It would just harden, and after a few minutes in the prop-blast, be shaken and chipped and looking like what it was, a painted bedsheet flapping in the wind… The only late-war (1917-18) aircraft that I’m thinking of that would possibly have that kind application of dope over fabric without paint is the aircraft that were covered with the pre-printed “lozenge” camouflage pattern…

At any rate, I do agree with you that were indeed some cases where the opposite is true, that early-war biplanes indeed were translucent in places, and also that one size indeed, does not fit all… However, many times in the model aircraft world, this is often the case; i.e., one guy does something with a pure artistic license intent, some others see it and love the way it looks, then enough people jump on the bandwagon after asking “How’d you do that?”, that it now becomes cannonical…

That said, I only meant offer my opinion and explaination about a “see-through effect” on a Sopwith Camel (based on what you said you were building, and the photos you provided, and that you mentioned the fact that you weren’t sure that the effect is what you wanted to do.) and that i didn’t think that it was a necessary operation, outside of just “wanting to do it” because someone liked the way it looked. I should have kept my answer to the subject, which was which color to use to replicate the effect, not whether or not it existed on the prototype… For that, I apologize… As for “keeping an open mind”, well… Heh… My ex-wives have all made metion of the fact that they believed that “He’s so narrow-minded that his scratch-pads are only an inch wide.”…

[;)]

I have no intention of trying to tell you or anyone else what to do… Guess it’s just one of those subjects that, like the girl Topsy (obscure literary reference here, folks!), “Just sorta growed”…

8

Hi lads.

Interesting topic, I rebuild/recover classic aircraft for a living and am enjoying this thread.

The “see through” effect is defenately the clear taugtning dope that was aplied to usually irish linnen or grade A -cotton to give it the structural strength.

As stated above , not all airplanes had the wing/tail fabric riblaced arround the structure ,but nailed or stapled on.This would lead to the plane shedding the fabric when the VNE (velocity never exede) was reached. IIRC the Newport 28 fell victom to this.

In those days an aircraft was not realy expexted to last for many years and the silver colloured dope would have been ommited.We put clear dope with alluminium powder/paste in it to act as a machanical barrier against UV light that breaks down the tensile strenth of the fabrc fibres.(and as a sanding base to get a good surface for final painting…of little use on war planes! LOL)

The hassle with nitrate celulose dope and allu powder is that is it extremely flamable and does not self extinguish. (Hindenberg being a good example of this)

So, if you could eliminate a “dangerous” step in the prossess that has very little benefit for what you want to achieve during wartime, I recon they would take it.BTW the wieght of the allu paste on a J-3 is less than 3 lbs in total.

The statement that the colloured paint was brushed over the clear dope is the correct one I think.Further more I recon they might even have used pigment to tint or collour the clear dope as paint.The taugthning effect of dope is achieved by the very fine “film” that the dope makes on the fabric that shrinks as it dries, the more dope you put on, the taugter it gets yet it “relatively” light.

For a J-3 cub the total weight of linnen and dope was arround 70-75 Lbs (compared to modern materials of about 45-50 lbs)This was a small amount of weight when compared to the rest of the airframe.

Theuns

9

Thanks fer chimin’ in, Theuns… Needed an expert on this subject… I wasn’t sure of the actual weights involved, just that they weren’t enough to really matter…

Yeah, just ask Eddie Rickenbacker… He was one of very few pilots that survived the N-28 shedding it’s top wing fabric… He hit a one-in-a-million flight controls/throttle combination that brought him out of the spin that happened after losing the top wing, and allowed him to get back into more or less level flight. The loss of lift from top wing also meant that he had to fly and land at full throttle… Any reduction in power and the N-28 would threaten him with going out of control again, too low to recover… He also lucked out in the fact that the N 28 had ailerons on the lower wing, rather than the upper, like the earlier Niueport aircraft…

Yeah, not many folks understand that aluminum is a flammable metal… When I was riding around inside M109 SP Howitzers for a livng, that always bugged me a bit, since the hull and turret were made from aluminum, and the resultant fire from an RPG igniting a powder charge woulda made short work of it, lol…

10

We tend to sometimes forget that some of the planes at outbreak of WW1 were VERY experimental in nature.

Powered flight was only 12 years old! Planes flew so slowly that things like controll surface flutter were now even known about till some poor pilot went a bit fast and the elevator or ailerons departed the airframe.

I recall reading that late in the war there was an averedge of 1 new design every 6 weeks, the success of the designs were not always good. The Fokker DVIII (IIRC) had a nasty habit of shedding the entire wing as the glues of the day were just not good enough for that design. Some very famous german test pilot was killed like this.

These days just something like testing a new jet’s “unasual attitude recovery system” can take a year or longer to complete and that is a fraction of a plane’s flight envelope testing.

These “old timers” had real guts!

Theuns

11

Funny you mention that… That flight was roughly what was used as the basis for “The Death of Bruno Stachel” in The Blue Max (although Stachel survived in the book)…

12

The first fifty years of aviation is an incredible story - remarkably like the development of the warship between 1860-1910 when you went from ships like the Kearsarge to Iron Duke. In that time a ship was literally obsolete when it was launched. Early aircraft could be built more quickly so the process was accelerated. I’d argue you should start the history of manned flight in 1907 when the Wright’s showed off the Flyer to a stunned European audience. Ten years later you have the Fokker D7. Another decade Lindbergh lands in Paris. In 1937 Brit and Germany are working on the Spitfires & 109 and the US is flying the B-17. 1947 Jaeger breaks the sound barrier and the B-47 is in prototype. 1957 you have Mach 2 fighters and B-52s. As in ship design the kind of “Moore’s Law” was at work that markedly slowed after the first generation with changes switching more from the weapons carrier to the weapons they carried, their ability to hit the target and their ability to communicate. Jimmy Doolittle catches much of this delight of being part of this world of extraordinary change in his very good memoir.

The Vietnam vets I talked with for one of my projects were quick to point out that aluminum burns. The mech guys loved their APCs but had no love for APGs and large mines so often rode on top or walked when in harm’s way. I talked with a Sheridan commander who hated the one that replaced his M-48 - he sent a picture of a melted tank to make the point: good pic and I used it in my book. (I don’t have a scanner here so I can’t upload it. But I’ve just found out you can download the book illegally on several sites and it has it’s own facebook page that I’ve never heard of. I’m getting old.)

Eric

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That’s why I was always fascinated by Dad’s aviation career… Starting in 1941 in a biplane (PT-17) with open cockpits, and ended in 1971 in a Mach 2+ jet (F-4 Phantom II)… His Form 5 reads like an Air Force Order of Battle…

14

Just a bit of clarification here. The first 15-20 Fokker E.V suffered from improper wing construction as moisture was present in the internal areas that degraded the glue used. After several front line deaths caused by wing failure the whole series was grounded and an inspection of these components was made by Idflieg (inspectorate board of flying services). When it was discovered that the problem lay in the factory construction (webs and gussets were mislocated) and the method of storage, changes were ordered and the new wing tested and passed inspections the type was redesignated Fokker D.VIII. None of these aircraft were ever recorded to have lost their wings in either war or post war years, The USA purchased two Fok. D.VIII and tested them at McCook field with good results 1919-1921.

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The site is owned and operated by Des Delatorre.

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I stand corrected, Thanx Stephen

Theuns

17

Des has one of the nicest small sites I’ve ever seen and remarkably useful to biplane wannabees. He encouraged questions so I sent him a couple and was answered with unusual knowledge and not a whit of condescension. (He even told me that in the olden days he too built a 32 scale Academy Camel, a very humble example of the breed.) I can’t stand as a judge of good/great modeling, but to my eyes Des really has the touch. His photo builds make a very strong case for the biplane being one of the premier genres for display modeling - they have a kind of grace that evokes ships of sail.

Eric

18

I have seen a lot of airplanes in my life, and I have never seen any pre-shading. It remindes me of when I was a kid and everyone coloured their tree trunks brown. My dad said I should look around and see what colour they are. I saw nothing but grays. So now I look at pre-shading and have to admit that it is a neat affect. I then have to look at the real things, even biplanes, and I don’t see it. I hope judges don’t look for pre-shading because I would really not want to go back to painting my tree trunks brown, unless, of course, I an colouring one of those species that are brown, but I am going to look first.