What color should I paint the 1/48 Eduard Nieuport 11 cockpit?

I'm new to WWI models and was wondering what colors to paint the cockpit and the related components in the cockpit: i.e. instruments, floor, seats, fuel tank, etc. I'm building the 1/48 Nieuport 11 fron Eduard. (The non-Profipack kit).

Thanks,
Rob

[StephenLawson]

Fabric ...CDL (clear doped Linen.) dirty yellowish white - cream.
wood ... varnished wood Testors 1166. reddish brown
metal fixtures....black or light grey.

[Ross_Moorhouse]

Highly recommend you have a look at these paints... http://www.misterkitusa.com/


http://www.misterkitusa.com/d17815b2...300d140-9.html

MISTER KIT ACRYLIC COLORS FRANCIA W.W. I

Series 5 – WW1 French colours


French colors of WW I have been studied thoroughly by several renowned experts but several problems remain to be positively resolved.



We can identify at least 5 main color schemes: a natural finish, the three-tone camouflage, aluminum overall, the "yellow" scheme and the most famous of all, the 5-tone camouflage.


Let's start with the three-tone camouflage scheme, which was applied, for example, to several Nieuport 11s and 16s.The absence of any surviving original samples forces the enthusiast to base his deductions on contemporary documents, reports and paintings.



What can be reasonably deducted from them is that both brown and green are usually depicted by currently available references as overly dark, while their true shades were most probably those of a medium-yellowish brown and of a light greyish green.



Undersurface fabric areas were usually painted light blue.


In 1916 French producers began adding aluminum powder to their paints. It must be observed that, contrary to common belief, such an addition did not give any metallic sheen to the camouflage paints but simply made them more solid in appearance.


An overall aluminum scheme was sported by one of the best fighters of the war, the Nieuport 17, as well as by some of its direct descendants, such as the NI .21, 24, 24-bis, and 25. It may be useful to remember that WWI aluminum finishes, also adopted by many other nations such as Italy and Russia for some of their aeroplane's, were not as bright and silvery as those of less than 10 years later.


The so called "yellow scheme" consisted of clear doped fabric surfaces and light yellow metal and wood panels and was applied, amongst others, to a large number of Spad 7 fighters.


The famous 5-color scheme was carried by several type of aircraft, most notable by Spad 13's and Nieuport 28's, both also flown by the American Expeditionary Force.

(Many thanks to: Matt Bittner, Bernard Klaeyl and Alan Toelle)

I hope this isn't too late - I've been trying to catch up on things, and have only got to September...

The Nieuport 11 had the forward fuselage covered in plywood which had the outer surfaces covered in linen - you can see the join between the ply and the fabric covering on the rear fuselage on the outside of the Eduard mouldings.

The heel boards and seat were also plywood and the seat was perforated with roughly 50-75mm holes to make it a bit lighter. The heel boards were supported on a tubular structure -there was no "floor" as such, while Eduard has moulded a solid floor. I would suggest that if you don't want to model the entire structure you could simply paint the area between the heel boards and on either side matt raw umber (a dark greyish brown) as the area is pretty much invisible anyway and the dark colour will fool the eye on all but the most detailed inspection.

Even on a camouflaged machine the interior rear fuselage would appear to be a natural fabric as the inside of the fabric was not painted.

The wooden structure was varnished wood, but note that the two vertical struts by the pilots knees were actually steel tubes and were painted a mid grey as was the rest of the iron work. Most early Nieuports came from the factory without an instrument panel as such - the instruments were tacked onto convenient places on the airframe, however it seems that some RNAS machines may have had panels fitted at some stage similar to the one provided in the kit.

Here's a picture of a later model under restoration

http://users.skynet.be/philippesmode...uport23_3.html

Aidrian