Hi all
Just had a complete disaster with Xtracrylix Sky on my Sea Fury. B##locks I thought, I'll strip it and revert to my good old WEM colourcoat. Donned the rubber gloves, got out a bottle of Meths (managed not to take a swig!) and set about it.
Now after much wiping, swearing, toothbrushing,more swearing,you get the picture, I have a nearly pristine grey aircraft.
The incredible thing is that the original coat of Halfords grey acrylic primer is still intact looking like it did after it was first applied (and rubbed down)
Great Stuff!
Only downside - back of the house smells like a petrochemical plant.
Cheers
Steve

Good old over cleaner !

Hi Steven

Sorry to hear you had a mess up - and surprised the acrylic primer survived intact when the Xtracrylix was stripped away. What went wrong with the Xtracrylix in the first place?

All the best

Rowan

Hi Rowan
I was making a "sky" mix. I think the Xtracrylix is far too green. Whilst mixing I sort of forgot both paints already had a flow aid added and put some more in. Result was paint that wouldn't stay where I put it!!. No matter what I tried it ran! At least it didn't clog up the airbrush which is a problem I do have with Xtracrylix.
Certainly operator error,not a problem with the paint.
Cheers
Steve
I too was suprised that the primer remained intact. Meths is a pretty harsh solvent!. It even stayed in the panel lines which I was at with a toothbrush to get the Xtracrylix out.

Hi Steve

According to my refs, there were quite a number of varions of "Sky" over time and from one manufacturer to another, but the Xtracrylix interpretation actually matched my old RAF Museum colour chips (which seem to fall into the usual spectrum of accepted hues pretty well) almost exactly when I reviewed Xtracrylix when they were launched. I haven't bought any Xtracrylics lately - I wonder if the paint mix has been altered since then?

All the best

Rowan

Hi again
I should probably qualify my comment. The Xtracrylix "Sky" looks too green,to me, on a model. It's actually quite close to the White Ensign colour I'm going to spray. I will lighten that quite a bit too.
I suspect both Xtracrylix and White Ensign are close to the colour chips you describe. I have a couple colour transparencies of Sky taken in the fifties and even allowing for the vagaries of colour film at the time (in another pic my favourite pink bunny looks distinctly red!) the colour APPEARS lighter on the full sized aircraft. I think the images are from about 1959 so obviously no Sea Furies!
Cheers
Steve

Sky was made from white pigment with 4% Yellow Oxide (Yellow Ochre) and a trace of Prussian Blue. Which white pigment ot use was not specified. Using a different white pigment, Titanium, Zinc, etc., will alter the colour as well as any small discrepancies in the amount of Yellow Oxide or Prussian Blue.

To remove paint, acrylic or enamel, soak in Aztek Concentrated Airbrush Cleaner. It is safe for clear parts as well. After 24 hours the paint will flake and peel off. Filter the bits out and the fluid can be reused.

For the air brush clogging problem Agama' s Retarder might help. http://www.jadarhobby.pl/agama-zapomalovac-retarder-25ml-p-16553.html

Hi Antoni

Thanks for the clarification. As soon as you say a "trace" - endless possibilities open up, don't they. Michael Bowyer noted considerable variations in his eye-witness WW2 accounts - and the accepted Sky does seem to have changed with time - as he wrote "In later years the officially designated Sky Type S ("S" denotes smooth) was a much lighter tone than that of 1940." - and that's ignoring the exciting pale blues - almost as dark as the later Azure Blue and and vivid eau de nil mixes that he noted during the Battle of Britain. I still want to use WEM's BoB colours in a build and shock everyone!

All the best

Rowan

All DTD 308 cellulose surface finishes used for camouflage had the Type S suffix, Type S distinguishing them from normal matt paints. For some reason the Type S suffix became solely applied in publications and documents to Sky. When researchers first began looking at these documents and orders (about the 1960s) they mistook this to mean that Type S must be a type of Sky. This led Messers Bunkum and Claptrap to invent such nonsense as Sky Type S being a later, lighter version of Sky.

The new colour (in 1940) became known popularly by many descriptive names – ‘Duck Egg Green’, ‘Duck Egg Blue’, ‘Pale Green’, ‘Pale Blue’ – all were used at some time. Duck Egg Blue became the most common used in official documents and the popular press. This led to the two gentlemen’s belief that Duck Egg Blue was a different but related colour to Sky.

There is no Teutonic thoroughness in MAP orders and specifications, more typically British amateurism. Colloquial terms are used freely and rarely are store references or such like given. Only when something totally new is introduced like Ocean Grey to they bother to tell anyone what it is and where to get it. Again, the temptation was too strong for the two gentleman and they envisioned an anarchic state where such loose terms caused confusion in the ranks and the use any paint whose colour fit the description. The reality was that common sense prevailed. If told to paint the serial numbers black there were enough people about who knew that Night was the paint used for that purpose.

DTD Specification 83A quotes duck egg blue but this is not an indication that it existed as a separate shade to Sky. The same document also references ‘black’ and ‘silver’, both popular names for the official colours Night and Aluminium. However, Sky was something unfamiliar and evidently there was some confusion in the use of the different names for it. With there also being two different colours both called Sky Blue and a Sky Grey available it’s no wonder. In the Admiralty Supplement to DTD 83A the following paragraph appears:

‘Appendix para 4 (ii). In order to clarify the position of the colour of undersides with this order and the camouflage drawings which will shortly be issued, it should be noted that duck egg blue and Sky Type S are one and the same colour.’

The issue of AMO A.926/40 on 12 December 1940 ordered RAF Day Fighters to, ‘… carry an 18 inch band of duck egg blue (Sky Type S) right around the fuselage, immediately forward of the tailplane, and have the airscrew spinner painted duck egg blue (Sky Type S).”

No 3 MU Milton, the main supply depot for aircraft finishes seems to have been subject to a high demand for Sky paint. On 18 December 3 MU sent a signal to RAE Farnborough (where paints and camouflage colours were developed) “Your item 33B ref not known Sky. Demand M7338 follows. State whether for metal or fabric. Also which shade of Sky Blue Grey etc. Issuing ref 33B 191 and 262”.

So six months after Sky was supposedly introduced into widespread use 3 MU did not have a stores reference number for it and the question as to which shade of Sky Blue or Grey implied they did not know that Sky was a colour in its own right. The final sentence reveals what they were issuing in its place. 33B/191 was the stores ref for a 5 gallon tin of Dark Earth to DTD 308 cellulose but makes no sense in the context of the message. However, 33B/291 was the stores ref for Sky Blue to DTD 314, a synthetic paint suitable for application on wood or metal. So allowing for a typographic error made by a signaller, it appears that Sky Blue was being issued to squadrons to mark up their aircraft with tail bands and coloured spinners. 33B/262 was the stores ref for a 5 gallon tin of light grey primer which was intended to be used under light colours on the under sides of aircraft. Check out some of the Hurricanes in On Target Profiles 12.

Thanks Antoni for an excellent explanation. It's hardly surprising that the paint manufacturers get confused. The two I mentioned (WEM and Xtracrylix) have obviously done their research and produced a colour that is recognisably Sky. I have an old tin of Humbrol duck egg green which seems to be a different colour. Other manufacturers have their own versions. I seem to remember one (Vallejo?) that was more like RLM 65!
The fun we have
Cheers
Steve

There are a few Humbrol paints that aren’t really what they claim to be. Ocean Grey comes to mind which lacks the blue hue it should have. More like a sea grey I think. Is it H30 they used to recommend in Airfix kits for RAF Dark Green. Then there are some manufactures who deliberately make the colours lighter for ‘scale effect.’

Agama have Sky Type S and Duck Egg Blue in their range. I don’t have them but from the colour charts Duck Egg Blue seems to be the darker colour. Seduced by the Sky Type S being a later, lighter version perhaps. Then there’s the pre-war Polish Navy Green, used on Lublins and such like which is very similar to Sky.

I think both WEM and Xtracolor claim their paints are made to the original specifications. I recall a letter in one of the modelling magazines some year ago from a guy who mentioned that he made the paint for WEM and IIRC several other manufactures. I think Xtracolor was one of them. It would take me about two weeks to find it now I should think but he did confirm that they were made to original specifications. So if both their versions of Sky are similar it’s to be expected.

AS an amusing aside. In 1947 the RCN decided that a more effective camouflage in their primary operating area, the North Atlantic, would be a dark grey/light grey scheme. They intended their aircraft to be painted a gloss Extra Dark Sea Grey on the upper surfaces and a gloss pale neutral grey on the under surfaces. So what did the call this light grey in documents? Sky. Despite claims to the contrary it is virtually certain that no RCN aircraft produced or repainted in Canada received the grey-green British Sky but it was a different matter for Sea Furies, none of which were produced in Canada. Finish and markings specifications had to be sent to the Hawker factory in England. Well, you can guess what happened. The RCN was getting aircraft painted in a colour scheme it did not want, but saw no immediate need to repaint brand new, perfectly good aeroplanes so Sea Furies delivered in RN colours were flown in squadron service until such time as they were due for overhaul/respray in Canada. Fed up with the existing situation, the RCN sent a technical delegation, colour chips in hand, to Hawker in 1951. All subsequent deliveries were made in RCN two-tone grey colours. Finally in 1955 the RCN revised the colour specifications to ‘Dark Grey’ and ‘Light Grey’ which at least reflected the actual colours it desired.