Wet Blending of 3 Colors on Fokker Dr.1's

[Welsh Dave]

>Excuse me, you are saying that if there was not enough olive paint to paint the upper surfaces, blue paint would be used instead?

No, I am saying that Fokker probably mixed more blue than was strictly needed; the figures are rounded up to allow for accidental losses or rejected parts. That is normal in any painting process - better to have a little too much than to run short. The paint would probably go off and compromise quality if they kept mixing it back into new batches. I know; I paint theatre scenery and encounter the same problems. They could only give so much away, and they couldn't chuck it down the drain or burn it. What's left? Put it on the top and sides of the occasional aircraft while it was still workable, of course!

There are two British capture reports mentioning blue on the upper and side surfaces of Dr.Is. This is guys on the spot, paid to describe enemy aircraft and telling it as they see it. One report of blue may be a mistake. Two reports of blue probably add up to a fact - unless you want to call those officers fools or liars.

I said Fokker might have been using up excess blue, not substituting it for insufficient olive. The olive would be blended into it as usual, and it would stay green longer where it was mixed with blue. Hence the blue/green and, on a weathered wreck, blue/green/brown description.


Any blue on the top and sides would be toned down by the olive and, perhaps, grey blended into it. It might even have been a darker blue, based on the blue varnish used in the underside paint. The reports don't mention any shade of blue, do they?

>a) where do you get the grey from the bill of materials?

I don't. Once more, I say there is now a sample of grey-streaked fabric in the IWM. It appears to be an exhibit that was "unattributed" (sic) for a long time, and has now been put in the fabric collection where it belongs. It has a page number that links it with Dr.I 144/17.

The grey is very dark and neutral, almost black at its darkest. On the sample, which is smaller than the olive-streaked piece, it is applied over clear-doped fabric. The varnish medium is yellowish, as you would expect, but beyond that no colour is discernible in the grey dye. As I said, the lighting in the IWM reading room is poor for checking colours, but I'd have noticed if the grey had any definite green or brown in it. It would work well as a darkener for the coloured dye.

The bill of materials does not specify any colour for the dye(s) - grey, olive green, olive brown, viridian or sky blue pink. None. Period. Why? I don't know. I wasn't there, and nor was anyone else on this forum.

>Quote:
and Jasta Boelcke responded to the specified change from reddish brown to lilac by applying light blue to the tops of their Albatrosse.

>That's interesting, we would like to hear more about that. How was the light blue applied? overpainting the reddish brown leaving a green and blue bands cammo? that might work... for an airplane that flies over the sea. Regardless, I think that was just a field expedient at the unit level, and only a stopgap to prevent friendly fire incidents.


Again, it's in a capture report, on Alb.D.III 796/17 of Jasta Boelcke. The tops of the wings are described as being painted in patches of green and light blue. The aircraft was captured soon after the change of specification from reddish brown to lilac. As you say, it appears to have been a temporary field modification. I've seen published photos that show an unusually light patch, lighter than the sage green in the three-colour scheme, on D.IIIs of that unit.

Voss's D.III had a light patch, visible in some photos, with a hard edge on one lower wing. Albatros factory patch divisions were typically soft, usually stippled like an example in the IWM. The difference in application suggests a field mod.

Finding references will take me some time, as I have other things to do, so please wait a while for them.


>b) You are making it sound as (some) Dr.Is were camouflaged in grey and olive. Again, a plausible camo scheme, but I think you are working on a wrong premise.

The grey is there on the sample in the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, London, for anyone to see. It's not a matter of "making it sound". Perhaps the person (Lt. Barfoot-Saunt?) who chose to forward it for examination was struck by its unusual appearance; photos of 144/17 show few areas of such contrast on the airframe, though in good crisp photographs the darkest streaks are almost as dark as the crosses. For what it's worth, I think the grey blended with, and darkened, the olive over most of the surface. It may well have been deliberately concentrated on the forward fuselage expressly in anticipation of castor oil soiling.

The three paints in the cans most likely had different amounts of dye in them, whether one was grey or not. Diluting paint progressively with thinners is asking for trouble; you'd get a runny, poorly adhering mess at the pale end and prominent ridged brush marks at the dark. Again, I refer to experience of theatre set painting. Dilution works with modern specialised high-intensity acrylics such as Rosco, but not with oil or emulsion paints. In fact, the finish on the Dr.I samples is smooth to the touch.

>I stand on my theory that is oxidation of the aniline dye (wich turns reddish brown) wich causes the color shift from green to brown.


I agree, absolutely, exept that I suspect UV light also played a part. Where the paint is denser, the hue shift is less pronounced. I recognised the aniline dye as the topside colouring agent as soon as I saw the bills of materials, but the threads involving them had closed by then.

[Welsh Dave]

>I stand on my theory that is oxidation of the aniline dye (wich turns reddish brown) wich causes the color shift from green to brown.

Sorry, I misinterpreted the thrust of this argument. If you are talking about liquid aniline, which does indeed oxidise to a reddish brown, that is not applicable here.

Aniline dyes are complex compounds made by reacting aniline with other chemicals, and they come as powders in a wide range of colours. You may well be wearing clothes dyed with an aniline derivative.

It has been pointed out that some early examples were unstable in terms of colour fastness, but none would retain the characteristics of pure, liquid aniline; that highly toxic substance was converted irretrievably in the dye making process.

[Romani]

Originally Posted by Welsh Dave

I said Fokker might have been using up excess blue, not substituting it for insufficient olive. The olive would be blended into it as usual, and it would stay green longer where it was mixed with blue. Hence the blue/green and, on a weathered wreck, blue/green/brown description.

(snip)

Any blue on the top and sides would be toned down by the olive and, perhaps, grey blended into it. It might even have been a darker blue, based on the blue varnish used in the underside paint. The reports don't mention any shade of blue, do they?

Regarding the excess blue, so if I follow you, some was mixed with the olive to make a greener green?

Are you arguing for a multicolor uppersurface camouflage of blue, green and brown and/or grey?

Or simple that after long weathering some areas of olive mixed with blue would stay greener while others would turn brown?

And regarding the shade of blue, hasn't been stated in this thread that the blue dry pigment is actually quite dark and needs to be mixed with zinc oxide to produce light blue?

To sum it up:

I find plausible a overall green finish (either because the olive is olive green in itself, or has been mixed with blue), an overall brown finish, I accept there are dark streaks ("erdgrau") from the mix of olive being painted over blue, I can accept excess blue being used on some cases on the fuselage sides, but blue zones on the top of the wings seem unlikely, IMHO.

There are two British capture reports mentioning blue on the upper and side surfaces of Dr.Is. This is guys on the spot, paid to describe enemy aircraft and telling it as they see it. One report of blue may be a mistake. Two reports of blue probably add up to a fact - unless you want to call those officers fools or liars.

Far from it, in fact those reports will continue haunting us until we find a suitable explanation.

You mentioned 2, wasn't one a fake by Rodney Gerrard? I really don't have the time now to go back to the previous threads and find out. If we have 2 reports describing green and blue, you are onto something. If there's only one, we still have an unexplained exception.

Again, it's in a capture report, on Alb.D.III 796/17 of Jasta Boelcke. The tops of the wings are described as being painted in patches of green and light blue. The aircraft was captured soon after the change of specification from reddish brown to lilac. As you say, it appears to have been a temporary field modification. I've seen published photos that show an unusually light patch, lighter than the sage green in the three-colour scheme, on D.IIIs of that unit.

Thanks for that, it's another addition to the possible cammo schemes for Albatros. Modellers will be thankful for this... or curse you

Finding references will take me some time, as I have other things to do, so please wait a while for them.

Oh, please don't bother, there's not a hurry. I take your word for it.

The three paints in the cans most likely had different amounts of dye in them, whether one was grey or not. Diluting paint progressively with thinners is asking for trouble; you'd get a runny, poorly adhering mess at the pale end and prominent ridged brush marks at the dark.

I refer you to DSA post on this, I was giving a summary of what I read and surely I got it all mixed up *open mouth, insert foot*


Regarding the aniline dye and its oxidation, I already knew it was not so simple, and the dye is not the same as the pure stuff. I was just wondering if it was a dye ready to be used from the can in whatever color it was (correct) and if exposure to UV light could be the cause of the color shift from green to brown.

It was a wild guess and I was hoping somebody with knowledge of chemicals would confirm it. From what all I know the dye could change color to pink!

If no such chemical change is possible and the dyes were color stable, we are back to accept that the existing samples ended being brown because they began brown.

[Hans]

It appears to be an exhibit that was "unattributed" (sic) for a long time, and has now been put in the fabric collection where it belongs. It has a page number that links it with Dr.I 144/17.

Do I understand this right? The consideration of grey streaked Dr I's is based on a lost magazine find and only linkage to a Dr I is the page number?

Hmmm...working myself for a museum I could tell you stories about magazines and page numbers ...but I won't...

I think there should be more facts than this before I will start to paint my Dr I models in green and grey....

H.

[Welsh Dave]

>Regarding the excess blue, so if I follow you, some was mixed with the olive to make a greener green?

I wish I knew; the description "blue and green mixture" is infuriatingly vague.
We know there were three shades of paint on the top and sides of the average triplane. One was definitely a light olive, another a darker olive, and the third very dark, either an even darker olive or the blackish grey seen on the "new" IWM sample.

Now, if underside blue, extended with extra varnish, replaced the light olive shade, it would not look much, if at all, different in photographs. The two other shades would be streaked in with it as usual, turning most of the blue either greenish or darker. I think it would still be good camouflage. Of course, the blue might have been the intermediate shade, streaked into the light olive. We don't know what shade of blue Barfoot-Saunt meant. Remember the "Cavalier" article with D.VII fuselages painted dark green and blue-grey blended.

>Are you arguing for a multicolor uppersurface camouflage of blue, green and brown and/or grey?

No, that's certainly too complicated. I'd say blue, olive green and whatever you decide the darkest paint was.

>Or simple that after long weathering some areas of olive mixed with blue would stay greener while others would turn brown?

Yes, I think that's more likely.

>And regarding the shade of blue, hasn't been stated in this thread that the blue dry pigment is actually quite dark and needs to be mixed with zinc oxide to produce light blue?

The blue used for the dense underside colour was a bought-in tinted varnish, which was mixed with zinc oxide to make a light blue. This turned turquoise with age.

I've seen the tinted dope in the middle of the "sandwich" on a sample from 425/17. It looks pale, almost silvery, though Alan Toelle said it was clear dope with a powder pigment (he suggested Prussian blue) suspended in it. The Ultramarine blue in the materials list may have been used for tinting the underside dope. Both Prussian and Ultramarine are quite dark, so I don't know what's happening there. Finely ground blue pigment might produce a pale dope if it was thinly distributed over a whitish fabric coated with clear dope.
Pass on that!

>You mentioned 2, wasn't one a fake by Rodney Gerrard?

Not unless he somehow infiltrated an official RAF archive dating from 1918 and planted it! There are boxes filled with goodies - capture reports, some with photos and tech reports on aircraft, engines, radio, etc, etc. The Albatros two-greens-and-brown scheme is mentioned in a report on a two-seater; we knew about it at Hendon in 1973.

The fake triplane report related to F.I 103/17.

>Modellers will be thankful for this... or curse you

Ohh, the latter, I'm sure. It has already been mentioned in at least one Datafile, IIRC. I certainly remember writing about it.

>I was just wondering if it was a dye ready to be used from the can in whatever color it was (correct) and if exposure to UV light could be the cause of the color shift from green to brown.

It probably came ready for use, in a can or a packet. Fokker wouldn't buy a dye that would be colour-fast for years when his aircraft's life expectancy was a few weeks. He'd go for something that would do the job for that long, and get it at the best available price.

Most people who mentioned it at the time called it green. An artist who had almost certainly seen 144/17 on display portrayed a very similar Dr.I in dark olive green. So, by the way, did other artists between the wars. The RAF Museum's art store has some of their paintings.

UV exposure or oxidation, or both, fuelled a continuing chemical reaction that eventually turned the dye khaki brown. Dark streaks, possibly produced by adding very dark grey dye, retain some of the green tone to this day; my graphics program detected it in a photograph this morning!

That, of course, assumes that the photo is an accurate rendering of the sample's colours, but it is exactly as I remember them.
They are very close to Paul Leaman's Methuen readings from the early 70s, too.

[ManfredT]

Welsh Dave,

thank you for your reply and your detailed explanation. I hope you can have a look again at the samples of fabric as soon as possible .

I am further hoping that Dan San Abbott took the chance to comment the Dave Watts image also, and what he has seen (or not) in the IWM.

The samples of fabric I compare with are of the same translucent appearance, but in some parts they are more olive green.

acer

[Taz]

Dave, Acer- Once my pet peeve of 588/17 having been overpainted with bottom light blue was killed, I think the possibility of blue added to the upper streaking certainly was a possibility. Also the possibility it was brighter green than earlier Dr.Is. Consider also that 588/17 was one of the last 11 Dr.Is produced (598/17 was the last, 599/17 would have been V.7G, WN 1919 converted, which never happened) with the wings having a ZAK inspection date of 22 March 1918. This is getting close to Fokker D.VII production, so 588/17's paint job could have been influenced by D.VII practices. Note early D.VIIs did not have returned light blue paint like the Dr.Is. 588/17's tailplane definitely had returned light blue paint, but it is harder to tell on the fuselage.

Taz
Terry Phillips

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Dave Welsh:
My memory tells me they were about 4 to 5 inches square. When I responded to an earlier post some time back, I was doubting my memory (35 years ago) and said that from Paul Leaman sketches, they would appear to be about 12 inches square. Some one said the were 2" x 2", I know they were bigger than that. If they were that size, the (Dave Watts) photograph of the sample, you would be able to count the warp and filling yarns in the photo. There were about 20 yarns /centimeter.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[Taz]

Just as an aside, I have the original faked FI 103/17 report and a large piece of fake fabric "from" Bolle's 413/17. Guess I should scan and post those sometime if there is interest.

Taz
Terry Phillips

[Welsh Dave]

>Do I understand this right? The consideration of grey streaked Dr I's is based on a lost magazine find and only linkage to a Dr I is the page number?

I would call that a complete misunderstanding. As I have already said several times, this is a real see it, hold it, feel it, smell it, savour it piece of Fokker triplane 144/17, once flown by Leutnant Eberhard Stapenhorst of Jagdstaffel 11.

When the samples were preserved, c. 1919, they were put into a multi-volume book. I don't know if it was ever properly bound, but samples were allotted page numbers and appeared with the relevant notes made by the technicians who had examined them. They currently appear as loose pages in cardboard files within large cardboard cases, each with an index of samples by page number. The newest files have transparent plastic windows, which let the samples be seen, but appear to be doing them no good.

I have been there twice, and on each occasion I found the files completely out of order, some missing. For all I know, the partial and disorganised nature of this "book" has been the norm for years, or even decades. I hear from a friend on the staff at Duxford that the museum in Lambeth is not even sure whether to accession the collection as a book or as a set of exhibits. They either don't know what you mean when you ask about it, or they take a long time to find it.

Incidentally, I worked at the RAF Museum for nearly 12 years, so I do understand such problems. It is, or used to be, better at Hendon, but national museums tend to be staffed more by career librarians and archivists than by enthusiasts of the exhibits. I've seen no evidence of aircraft fans working at Lambeth; they are at the Duxford branch, where aircraft are maintained and restored.

On my second visit to Lambeth some of the files were back, apparently having been "conserved", and others were missing.

Two that had returned, after apparently receiving new file jackets, were the fuselage fabric sample from Fok.D.VII 368/18 with its viridian streaks (similar to the green on my Welsh flag) under a white overpaint, and one of the samples listed in the index as belonging to Dr. I 144/17. This is a small sample (about 3" square, IIRC, Dan), of a very dark neutral grey streaked over clear-doped fabric. Beyond a note of it having come from the upper mainplane, there is no technical commentary. At its darkest, this stuff is almost black.

The other two, well known, samples are the streaky green/brown, about 5" square, and a smaller piece of blue underside material. The upper fabric is described by the 1918 technician simply as having a "green wash", while the underside is said to bear clear dope, blue (lightly) pigmented dope, and a top coat of pigmented (not clear) varnish. That would be the light blue paint that has aged to turquoise. It is almost matt with a few glossy patches.

Looking at sharp, crisp photographs of triplanes, including 144/17, I see some very dark streaks, though not generally concentrated in one place. They fade into the other areas of colour very quickly. I think the pure black/grey sample is an exception; the true purpose of the grey was to create dark streaks in the coloured paints. Once merged with those, it no longer looks grey, but simply darkens them. To all intents and purposes, Fokker streaky camouflage applied watercolour techniques to translucent oil-based paint. Alternatively, you could say they painted with glazes.