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Ark%20Royal2.jpg [ 109.46 KiB | Viewed 6197 times ]
If a model is to be painted as sunk, then what is necessary is a 507A base coat with severely distressed 507C above the knuckles but worn away amidships. Most ship modellers don't seem to be too interested in painting effects, but armour modellers are good at it and aircraft modellers often have a go. Three methods to achieve distressed 507C like this are:
1) Hairspray chipping
2) Salt chipping
3) Applying the 507C with a sponge
The demarcation simply isn't there when the knuckle isn't there to create it. It's clearly absent amidships. Where my large green arrow is it's plain that it's a single (dark) tone from boot topping to flight deck level. To mask a line around the hull at knuckle level and paint it dark below and light above will not result in what's evident in the photographs.
What's lacking here is a photograph clearly showing Ark Royal in two-tone but with the paint in reasonable condition. Was it ever deliberately in two-tone paint?
Given the lack of 507C below the knuckles fore and aft, and the poor condition of what remains, it's clear that the paint was applied in a rush without the full washdown procedure and drying times. We need to ask which is more likely:
1) that the sea has been thorough in removing what 507C it could rub against and it has paint stripped most of the hull or
2) that there originally was a deliberate hard demarcation at lower hangar deck level yet not a trace of it remains amidships
There is evidence to support single tone schemes, and there is evidence of a severely battered Aker Royal sinking with overall 507A and some flaky 507C high up fore and aft. What we don't have is evidence of a finish with two paints in anything close to a reasonable condition.
There are two paints on the ship there, I agree, but I am arguing that there is no evidence of a two tone scheme. The sorry remnants of 507C clinging to the bow and stern above the Ark's knuckles prove nothing other than that they're all that's left of some 507C applied in a rush.
We need evidence of a demarcation of where that 507C ended and there isn't any - it's been feathered away by the sea wherever there wasn't the knuckle to protect it.