Fokker olive brown streaky and aniline: A new hypothesis

[Romani]

Gentlemen,

Forgive me for my audacity in daring to suggest a new idea on this hotly debated public, but I've never seen this angle examined, and at the risk of making a complete fool of myself, I would like to submit for your perusal the following hypothesis.

Originally Posted by Dan_San_Abbott

Gentlemen:
I have the original Fok.DR.I wing drawings, In the bill of materials, the colors called out are:
1. Signierschwartz, black crosses.
2. Oberzuglack. top clear coat.
3. Anilinfarbepulver, Anilin dye powder. Olive-brown upper and side surfaces.
4. Weisedeckfarbe, white cross field lacguer.
5. Blaulackfarbe, under side sky blue.
THERE ARE NO OTHER COLORS OF PAINTS, LACQUERS OR COLORED DOPES.. The Fok.DR.I is painted olive brown on the top and side surfaces and sky blue on the under surfaces.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

And Eric Goedkoop said:

If I recall our numerous earlier go-rounds correctly, the color of this anilinfarbepulver is not specified on any existing document. Pigment is called for, not any specific pigment or pigments.

First of all, aniline is a base for the preparation of dyes. Mixed with the appropiate pigment, you can get several colors. If brown and green were used to paint DrIs, those pigments ought to have been specified separately in the factory specs. Since nothing was specified, we must assume that anilinfarbepulver was a default color, in our case olive brown.

Second, we have to take into account that the Germans switched from reddish brown and green camouflages to mauve and green. Whatever the reason, wether being more effective as a cammo or more cost effective from the factory viewpoint, it doesn't make sense in the case of the Dr I to go back to brown and green. It's a step back, and adds more man hours to finish an airplane in two colors than in one. That doesn't make sense at all in view of the wartime pressures and the "frugality" of Anthony Fokker.

Third, the photographic evidence used for some to claim they can see different color streaks. It could be dismissed attributing it to the vagaries of black and white photography of the time, but that's not conclusive enough.
I will counter with an argument wich I think has not been put forward:

You forget that the Fokker streaky finish was a hand job. Being a manual job It's impossible that it produces uniform results, instructions or not, let alone considering it was carried out by badly fed workers working long hours.

Think of it, the heavy dark colored streaks wich suggest a different color are the result of the worker dipping the brush too much in the can and leaving a solid streak of color. That these streaks appear side by side to streaks that seem like a lighter color is just the result of the worker trying to follow the instructions and , he has been ordered to paint the fabric in streaks, not solid olive. Or if you want to see it this way, too much paint in one brush stroke, means too little in the next ones, the worker has a limited amount of paint and has to stretch it out, so either by excess or defect the application is uneven. That leads to the contrast of darker and lighter areas on some examples, that coupled with photographic reproduction leads some to think multiple colors were used.

Those are arguments that support the idea that DrIs were painted in a single color. But what was it? Aniline is the base, but it can't be applied directly, it has to be mixed with a pigment to produce a powder that can then be mixed with something else to be applied as paint, if understood correctly the process.

Here comes the interesting part. The first dye ever obtained with aniline was mauve in 1856. Suddenly, the German fixation with such color in the painted green and mauve cammoflauge and the printed lozenge fabric makes sense. It's not only a color that blends more effectively with the landscape and the sky (recent experiments by the US Navy concluded that the best cammo for aircraft would be a pale pink, but the idea was not pursued because it would look goofy, cost, and irrelevant in the age of radar) , but is a color that can be easily obtained. Germany was at the head of dyestuff technologies at that time. In fact, that was the cargo the German merchant submarines carried to the then neutral US in 1916 to trade for vital raw materials. Makes sense they would choose a color easy to obtain.

What has this to do with Fokker streay color, whatever it may be?

Aniline is oily and, although colourless, it slowly oxidizes and resinifies in air, giving the sample a red-brown tint.

The surviving fabric samples of MvR DrI are a maroon color. It was overpainted in red over the streaky olive brown... what if the maroon color was the result of the oxidization of the underlying aniline based pigment? (remember the red in some of MvR airplanes was quite translucent, so if the base darkens, the red top coat would become darker as well, that's my reasoning)

This is conjeture, but to confirm the hypothesis of olive brown, this a question that needs to be posed to chemist. How can you obtain a brown dye, or better, pigment, with aniline? I hope the answer is that such is one of the easiest, cheapest colors that can be obtained if not the one that fits best those criteria.

Of course, there may be easier to obtain colors, such as mauve, but of all possible combinations, we are interested only in those that could be used as cammo, a shade of green or brown.

There's one last question. Why olive brown? that is, a greenish brown? Why not plain brown? Seems that from oxidation of the aniline, the color would be a reddish brown, so we would be back to the starting point. If reddish brown as in early German camo was easy to obtain, why the change to mauve? (unless it's more effective as a cammo, in combination with green)

Doesn't this oxidation and darkening process remind you of PC10? I don't recall the specifics of application of the streaky cammo and varnish, but I wonder:
What if the anilinfarbepulver was brown and the varnish produced a similar "green shift", after all, it altered the undersurface blue to a turquoise shade.

Perhaps the pigment was olive brown in origin, but I think it's worth examining that angle.

[EricGoedkoop]

Originally Posted by Romani

You forget that the Fokker streaky finish was a hand job.

There you have it and there you go.






If you're serious about this, I suggest you look long and hard at every photograph you can find.

Look again.

Connect the dots.

[Barker]

By Jove, he's got it.

Piss on the fire and call the dog, we're all Out Of Here.

[Intrepid]

Originally Posted by Romani

Gentlemen,


Second, we have to take into account that the Germans switched from reddish brown and green camouflages to mauve and green. Whatever the reason,

The reason being the Idflieg order dated April 12 1917 , "Red or Red/Brown paint on the top surfaces of wings has led to fights between our own aircraft. Therefore Dark Green and Lilac should be used only."

wether being more effective as a cammo or more cost effective from the factory viewpoint, it doesn't make sense in the case of the Dr I to go back to brown and green.

Yet we have been led to believe that's exactly what happened on the Fokker E.V wing .

It's a step back, and adds more man hours to finish an airplane in two colors than in one.

When the loaded paint brush is discharged of one colour it takes no longer to recharge it in the second colour and continue painting.

Marlon Schultz

[Tripehound]

I've listened to all the theories and explainations and looked at a lot of pictures and am STILL of the opinion that the Dr.I was overall light blue, with the olive streaks applied by a 3" wide brush, by hand, then coated with varnish or shellac to seal it all as an attempt at waterproofing.

It has been suggested to me in times past that the original linen fabric was dyed light blue before being applied to the airframe. I haven't seen anything that would lead me to believe that this was so, but who knows?

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Romani:
I am sorry it has taken so long to answer you post, I just got home from a stay in the hospital for severe internal bleeding. I was given three transfusions and my hemoglobin is still on the low side.
The german word farbe=color. Anilinfarbepulver is Anilin color (dye) powder. Aniline are synthetic dyes derived from coal tar.
It is mixed with the vehicle, clear lacquer and then thinned to required viscosity. In the Perzina factory, the painter/doper painting the upper surface has several buckets of olive-brown lacquer from which he selects the viscosity he requires for where he is lacquering, thick, medium or thin. All the buckets are the same color, Olive-Brown.OLIVE-BROWN. THe extant fabric samples held in the Imperial War Museum are all the same color, OLIVE-BROWN. The color is made by combining chromium yellow with carbon black. The amount of black powder determines the final color. It is not green and it is not brown and is not derived from those colors. The light to dark is obtained through the addition of lacquer thinners to the desired viscosity to obtain the streaked effect.
The olive-brown is lacquered directly on to the clear doped fabric. One coat on the fuselage, tailplane and wings. To water-proof the fabric surfaces one coat of varnish (Uberzuglack) is brush over all fabric surfaces.
The cowlings and axle wing were painted with full strength Olive-Brown.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[EricGoedkoop]

Originally Posted by Dan_San_Abbott

In the Perzina factory, the painter/doper painting the upper surface has several buckets of olive-brown lacquer from which he selects the viscosity he requires for where he is lacquering, thick, medium or thin. All the buckets are the same color, Olive-Brown.OLIVE-BROWN.

Dan-San, I do wish you wouldn't make statements like this. You may believe that those buckets contain various concentrations of olive-brown pigment in lacquer, but there's no proof of it and nothing has yet been presented to eliminate the possibility of multiple colors. Until very recently, you vigorously defended the idea that the streaking was accomplished by dipping a brush in (one strength of) colored lacquer and dragging it out until dry before recharging it, the "lighter" areas resulting from a nearly dry brush. You've rather abruptly changed your mind and now claim "thin-medium-thick" with equal conviction.

None of the three theories can be proven or rejected based on what's known at this time - if that were possible then we wouldn't still be talking about it. It's not at all helpful to state your ideas as though they are "fact" when we all know that's not so.

I might mention that your (and Langdon's) work on the multi-colored E.V/D.VIII wing finish was, of course, the springboard for our re-examination here of the earlier streaked finish. I for one was completely unaware of the earlier suggestions of a multi-colored streaked finish cited by Marlon as reference for his Dr.I model. If you can't have an open mind about the issue, I can only hope that you'll at least acknowledge the limits of what can be considered "fact" and stop making dogmatic proclamations that cannot be substantiated.



Sorry to hear of your health troubles and hope you're on the mend,

Eric

[JohnFitz]

Hi guys, Dan-San, hope you are and will be okay. Does anyone know what kind of varnish was used over the paint? Did it have a yellow or orange tint? I have both types and since I will be building a DR1 model thought I would ask now. Thanks for your consideration.

[crankcase]

i join the others in wishing dan-san a speedy recovery. i always enjoy his authoritative contributions to the forum.

i just got back from los angeles where i had a chance to visit chino airport displaying the DrI and Brisfit (replicas) and Hanriot flown by Nungesser. Also bought "The Ghosts of the Great War" with breathtakingly vivid color photos (WWI replicas in flight) by Makanna.

crankcase

I believe the DR1 was painted pale blue all over in factory finish and then overpainted in light brown varnish as a sealing coat with possibly a second coat applied. This gives you the drab olive colour when coated on top the pale blue base, so there is no special brown or olive colour applied as such, its just the reaction of the two colors, blue + Varnish. The streakyness is obviously the overlapping of brush strokes. The Voss triplane is a perfect example where the pale blue still comes through including on the fuselage.