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World War II: Germany
Aircraft of Germany in WWII.
Hosted by Rowan Baylis
Mastik on panel lines..
flitzer
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Posted: Sunday, April 04, 2004 - 05:51 PM UTC
Hi all,
Late in WW2, some German aircraft had a mastik filler applied to panel lines and joints, presumably to aid streamlining with a higher top speed in mind. (e.g. late Me262's)
I wondered how this might affect pre-shading and weathering?
Any ideas?

Cheers
Peter
brandydoguk
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Posted: Monday, April 05, 2004 - 12:12 AM UTC
Hi Peter. That explains a pic I've seen somewhere of an unpainted ME262 with what I thought were long strips of tape over all the panel lines. They were darker than the primer but I don't know whether the quality of paint used late in the war would mean they weathered diferently than the rest of the airframe. I would assume that the access panels wouldn't be filled so I would use some form of shading on those.
JPTRR
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Posted: Monday, April 05, 2004 - 02:06 AM UTC
Hi All,

As far as I've been able to find out, Messerschmitt did this on virtually all of their creations. I was just discussing this at the Knoxville IPMS show last Saturday. ME-262, Bf(ME)-109s, -110s...all had this applied. As a result, our beloved engraved panel lines make our model MEs highly inaccurate/unrealistic!

I am not sure if Junkers, FW, etc. used this finishing technique.
flitzer
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Posted: Monday, April 05, 2004 - 02:13 AM UTC
Hi all
interesting comments.
I was thinking that with the poor quality of paint late war-ish maybe it would be applied thinner than previously and would let the mastic show through as a darker shade, almost like faded pre-shading but with camo in place...???

I can't comment on Ju's and Fw's although many luft 46 pics/illustrations have the mastic on most makes....???
Hmmmmm....

Cheers
Peter
JPTRR
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Posted: Monday, April 05, 2004 - 02:14 AM UTC
Oh yeah...

Keep in mind attrition. Late-war Luftwaffe steeds didn't seem to get dirty because either there was no gas to fly them, or they were destroyed quickly.

Some photos that I've seen of those that did have a few sorties behind them appear filthy. Some not so. Were the dirty birds just landed and not wiped down, or were they dirty because there was no time to clean them off?

Heavy attrition = clean, lightly weathered birds. When one had dominance and losses were light, multi sorties would lead to grimey, patchwork appearing planes.
Ian2
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Posted: Friday, November 04, 2005 - 04:13 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Hi All,

As far as I've been able to find out, Messerschmitt did this on virtually all of their creations. I was just discussing this at the Knoxville IPMS show last Saturday. ME-262, Bf(ME)-109s, -110s...all had this applied. As a result, our beloved engraved panel lines make our model MEs highly inaccurate/unrealistic!

I am not sure if Junkers, FW, etc. used this finishing technique.


A book I have at home has a profile on the Ar234 which mentions that the aircraft received a thick application of filler on all joints, which was sanded and polished. Whether this meant that join lines would be eradicated, I don't know. Maybe someone who has seen the surviving example in the Smithsonian (?) can advise?
matrixone
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Posted: Friday, November 04, 2005 - 06:10 AM UTC
Peter,

Most Me 262s were given the medium gray putty to smooth out the panel joins because many of the airframe parts were made by sub-contractors who were using employees who were unskilled or forced labor and the parts they produced were of lower quality and sometimes did not fit together very well.
Most models of the Me 262 show panel lines on the fuselage but the full size machines were smooth and only access hatches were visable.

Many late production Me 262s were given a single thin coat of camouflage paint on the uppersurfaces only with the undersurfaces of the fuselage, wings, and stab unpainted. The nose was often painted on top and with RLM 76 on the undersides, the lower engine nacelles were painted either RLM 76 or a light gray primer.
The gray putty lines did show through the camouflage paint on the late production Me 262s, a really good book about the Me 262 late war camouflage is ''Stormbird Colors'' by Brett Green and is available from Eagle Editions, this book has several nice photos of Me 262s with the putty lines barely showing through the camouflage paint.


The Arado 234 was given much attention on smoothing out the panel lines and polishing the paintwork to a glossy surface on prototypes and preproduction a/c only with the production a/c not as well finished and they were slower and did not fly as well as the prototypes.

Bf 109s and 110s did have panel lines but were only visable when standing very close to the machine, the tolerances between the various panels were very close and showed excellent workmanship.

Matrixone
flitzer
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Posted: Sunday, November 06, 2005 - 07:45 PM UTC
Thanks Les...
Thinking about it, mastik would be a solution for bad panel fit. The decline in quality of the German industrial machine production was across the board.

Cheers
Peter
:-)
Ian2
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Posted: Sunday, November 06, 2005 - 08:13 PM UTC
This could be the answer to my trouble with scribing panel lines! I also noticed in one of my books the almost complete absence of rivets on various aircraft - looks like all those old Airfix and Revell machines are due a sanding as well. (Q - will this be necessary on my Revell Liberator - it's covered in the ruddy things!)
flitzer
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Posted: Monday, November 07, 2005 - 02:08 AM UTC
Hi Ian...
I'm not sure the allies used mastik.
I think it is only relevant to certain Luftwaffe aircraft.

I'm sure someone more sage than I will qualify it one way or'tuther

Cheers
Peter
:-)
JPTRR
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Posted: Monday, November 07, 2005 - 03:59 AM UTC

Quoted Text

...almost complete absence of rivets on various aircraft...(Q - will this be necessary on my Revell Liberator - it's covered in the ruddy things!)


Hi Ian,

Not so fast! B-24 was festooned with round rivets, at least the fuselage was built of them. B-17, B-24, DC-3/C-47, Wildcat, Hellcat's fuselage, SBD, TBF, all of these were built of raised rivets. To remove the rivets or the represenative panel lines would be like simulating fabric wings on a Spitfire or P-51! :-)

About US use of filler, the P-51's wings were given a thick gloss laquere at the factory. Don't know if they used filler; the result was that P-51's wings should be devoid of ANY panel lines sans gun bays and control surfaces. That is, unless you want to show a bird that's been bent a bit. Otherwise, P-51 wings should be smooth.

I photographed NASM's AR-234. Here's their shot of it. Looks pretty smooth, but then the pix is about 1/144, so not much to see anyway. http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/images/arado_234.jpg

My photos of it: Udvar-Hazy Ar-234

Here's some good pix at angles low enough to see light reflecting off the sides--best way to view rivets and panel gaps. http://www.thomasgenth.de/survivors/Arado_234/arado_234.html

BTW, I am about to post "Surviving German aircraft of WW2 (or sometimes better their relicts ....)" http://www.thomasgenth.de/survivors/survivors.html An interesting site of color pix.
JPTRR
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Posted: Monday, November 07, 2005 - 04:13 AM UTC
...oh, and BTW, I've seen HE-162 with Maskit'd panels, too.
Ian2
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Posted: Thursday, November 17, 2005 - 01:47 AM UTC

Quoted Text


Quoted Text

...almost complete absence of rivets on various aircraft...(Q - will this be necessary on my Revell Liberator - it's covered in the ruddy things!)


Hi Ian,

Not so fast! B-24 was festooned with round rivets, at least the fuselage was built of them. B-17, B-24, DC-3/C-47, Wildcat, Hellcat's fuselage, SBD, TBF, all of these were built of raised rivets. To remove the rivets or the represenative panel lines would be like simulating fabric wings on a Spitfire or P-51! :-)

About US use of filler, the P-51's wings were given a thick gloss laquere at the factory. Don't know if they used filler; the result was that P-51's wings should be devoid of ANY panel lines sans gun bays and control surfaces. That is, unless you want to show a bird that's been bent a bit. Otherwise, P-51 wings should be smooth.

I photographed NASM's AR-234. Here's their shot of it. Looks pretty smooth, but then the pix is about 1/144, so not much to see anyway. http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/images/arado_234.jpg

My photos of it: Udvar-Hazy Ar-234

Here's some good pix at angles low enough to see light reflecting off the sides--best way to view rivets and panel gaps. http://www.thomasgenth.de/survivors/Arado_234/arado_234.html

BTW, I am about to post "Surviving German aircraft of WW2 (or sometimes better their relicts ....)" http://www.thomasgenth.de/survivors/survivors.html An interesting site of color pix.


Oh gawd - that leaves me with a hill to climb. The B24 looks to be a good kit, outline wise but removing that fuselage seam isn't going to be easy! I can only assume that when it came out, the people who built them weren't overly bothered about such things, provided the flaps, undercarriage and turrets all worked - a feaure of my kit.

I'll take a look at the site you mentioned - I've been on it be fore and was impressed at what's still extant.

Regards.
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