French 5 Color chips from Methune Handbook

flypaper · 5 December 2008, 11:04 AM

It seems that a lot has been said about the 5 color French Camo scheme but, very little has been posted as to what the colors look like. I'd like to take this opportunity to address that.

First of all I have no real credentials other than being an avid collector with a burning desire to find out what the colors were and what all the mystery was, well it was not an easy task and has taken me over 53 years from my first 1/48 Spad until to day to feel comfortable to speak about what I've found. During those years I have spent over 45 of them zeroing in on the Camo colors of the French air services from WWI-WWII. Its been an interesting journey.

Now the best information collection of these 5 colors from the work done by Mr. Alan Toelle in his Project Butterfly which was published in Cross and Cockade in 3 parts. There are others who have added more information and I for one heart fully thank them all for there time and hard work.

Mr Toello based his color findings on the sampling of as many fabric samples as he was allowed to take. He put them through rigorous test and published what he found in C&C. At the same time he also listed the colors he found to be used by the French in this Camo as read outs from a book called the Methuen Handbook of Color. Unfortunately this book was and is extremely hard to find, to the best of my knowledge the last printing was in 1985 when I was luck enough to part with $35.00 and get a copy. That same year I happened to be reading the latest copy of WWI Aero (issue 104) April 1985 when I came across a letter in the "markings" section of the magazine that came from Mr. Toello explaining that an error had been made in the original Methuen call outs for the colors published in Project Butterfly and it had taken him this long to realize it because he had only recently gotten his own copy of the Methuen Handbook. In that letter he cleared up several question concerning the finish of Spad VIIs and other point but the important part was he set the record straight on the call outs and listed them as they should have been.

With out the book it didn't matter the call outs just looked like a broken string of letters.

Luck was on my side and ten years after the letter in WWI Aero I had completed a series of color chips using the call outs of the 5 colors from Mr Toelle corrected list.

Since it would have been impossible to use the exact formula of paint to compile my chips I it was more expedient to use model paints....lets face it over the past 20 years we have gone from 2/3 manufactures to a tidal wave of paint from all over the world made just for plastic modelers.

Unfortunitly I have had very poor results with adding the proper amount of aluminum to the paints as was done in the real a/c. I dont think this skews the result any which way because they do match the Methuen call outs that Mr Toelle published. in otherwords this is the color and what it should look like after it has bee mixed with the aluminum minus the reflective quality of the aluminum.

Then again you can take them or leave them.....They match the call outs and as far as I know no one else has even approached these colors using the Methuen Handbook as there guide, much less posted the chips.

There are several dozen chips. I have 11 for the dark green alone that fall into the methuen spread found by Mr Toello. his reasoning was that there were more dark green samples to test and check and because of the loose quaility controls there are variations. At the other end there are only 3 for the beige again because of the limited samples.

Now it must be remembered that Mr Toelle gave his Methuen call outs in ranges some covering pages in the book 0ne Methuen color has 48 different shades! So I tried to match various model paints that would fall into those call out spreads. You see that there was a vast shift in some colors, ahain because of the avaiability of samples

I did not scan black...because black is black....word of warning the black on a full size a/c has NO aluminum powder added to it.

But I did scan a 5th set of chips, one that is referred to as "Yellow" which was the underside color of the 5 color scheme....this "Yellow" also goes by the name Ecru.

As A lasy point let me say that your monitor may not be calibrated the same as mine but if you look you will see that I printed the name of the model paint I made the chip from....

Well I hope I've been of some help

Buck Bored aka Flypaper

flypaper · 5 December 2008, 04:32 PM

Here are layouts of two of the more popular 5 color French camo schemes. By the way the wing roundels were not matte but had a sheen that equaled that of the rest of the aircraft.

Flypaper

flypaper · 5 December 2008, 08:02 PM

if anyone is interested I have chips for the dark green that were forumulated by Windsock magazine.

flypaper · 9 December 2008, 12:50 PM

If you notice on these chips there are several that have the same FS595 number but are clearly different...... Take the Greens as an example there are 3 of them that claim to be FS 34258s and yet none look alike......welcome friend to the world of "its close enough" modeling.

You go out and buy MM-Model Master 34258 and then you look at the Floquil Warsaw pac Grey Green and the Fs # printed on the bottle is also 34258...? And then you throw in Polly Scales Warsaw pac Grey Green which also has FS34258 printed on.......Again "its close enough mentality" both in the industry and in the hobby itself. And really which is 34258?

I just want to clarify that although different paints have the same name or FS number but do not visually match are the result of the various companies slip shod research. What I can attest to is, no matter what the names or FS Number, each COLOR on the chip has been checked by me against the Methuen Handbook of Color 1985 printing and all of these colors fall with in the various color Methuen ranges that Mr Toelle wrote about in his 1985 letter in the #104 issue of Aero WWI magazine.

So if your going to do a model of this scheme the FS# really don't apply whats in the bottle is what counts . And here from the 1984 FS595A is what 34258 supposed to look like.

Again the colors are correct as I can get them, all all four sets of chips have been checked against the Methuen.

Blew Socks
Flypaper

Frederic Mason · 20 December 2008, 11:39 AM

FLYPAPER: I am very much enjoying this thread on french camouflage colors, as it's been a favorite for a long time. Could you post any other 4-view color thumbnails you have of the other french SPAD manufacturers besides Kellner and Bleriot which you posted above?? These make excellent references for ID-ing photos and writing captions to photos. Trying to ID a scheme from a BxW drawing of mesh screens is not conducive to fun. Your colors really help. Very gratefully; FM

flypaper · 20 December 2008, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frederic Mason

FLYPAPER: I am very much enjoying this thread on french camouflage colors, as it's been a favorite for a long time. Could you post any other 4-view color thumbnails you have of the other french SPAD manufacturers besides Kellner and Bleriot which you posted above?? These make excellent references for ID-ing photos and writing captions to photos. Trying to ID a scheme from a BxW drawing of mesh screens is not conducive to fun. Your colors really help. Very gratefully; FM

Hello Frederic Mason, yes I have others infact I have the ones from the original Project Butterfly, I have to pull them out and see if they will fit on the scanner, (they are bound in a hardcover volume), I'll see what I can do.

I'm glad to hear the thread has caught your eye, French camo from WWI through WWII has been a passion of mine for many many years.

Flypaper

flypaper · 20 December 2008, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frederic Mason

FLYPAPER: I am very much enjoying this thread on french camouflage colors, as it's been a favorite for a long time. Could you post any other 4-view color thumbnails you have of the other french SPAD manufacturers besides Kellner and Bleriot which you posted above?? These make excellent references for ID-ing photos and writing captions to photos. Trying to ID a scheme from a BxW drawing of mesh screens is not conducive to fun. Your colors really help. Very gratefully; FM

Hello, Fredric Mason I pulled out the volume that contains the Butterfly Article and tried to scan them, but, in order to get it close to lay flat on the scanner bed it would require me to put more pressure on the spine of the book then I would like, sorry.

I'll keep an eye out for another way

Flypaper

gilles · 22 December 2008, 04:39 PM

Hello Flypaper

I notice that there is no chips for Underside Grey.
Is there no available Methuen specs for it?

Cheers,
Gilles

flypaper · 22 December 2008, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gilles

Hello Flypaper

I notice that there is no chips for Underside Grey.
Is there no available Methuen specs for it?

Cheers,
Gilles

Hello Gilles

According to Mr Toelle there were not enough samples to make a match. If you check the other threads that also dicuss the 5 color scheme you will find a long post by Mr Toelle with some interesting information about the blue/gray underside.

Cheers
Flypaper

Mode One · 30 December 2008, 04:34 AM

Fly paper, Yes, thank you very much for this wonderful database of information! Are you saying these colors (rather range of colors) apply to the Neiuport 28, also?

I wonder whether in the "Fog of War", following some defined regulation on the mixing of pigments to attain a specific color, wasn't given up for peace time! It would make sense to me, that for expedience sake, there were only general guidlines as to how to mix, hence the differences.