The Ship Model Forum

Greetings all! I have loved this forum for years to get model ideas and information. I just signed up because I cannot figure the colors of Corsair Armada Floating Drydock ARD2 Class kit. I am looking to model ARD 9 since it is the only photo on navsource which I can guess the colors. I pulled the below image from navsource and it looks to be black bottom but I can't tell if the upper part is haze or ocean grey. Also, I cannot find the color of the deck or inside the Drydock. Any help anyone could give would be greatly appreciated.

Sam

Sorry forgot to add the photo link.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/67/09670919.jpg

Sam88 First welcome to the forums, but to help you out with you paint issues, ARD-9 was totally haze gray, it did have a boot stripe that was black, its interior was painted white or pale grey as well, depending on the time frame you are building, these are your safest colors to use.

Personally I prefer to use LIFECOLOR Acrylic model paint, when I am painting WW 2 era vessels, These are the colors and codes that might be of use to you with your project.

LIFECOLOR: UA-625 USN HAZE GREY 5-H, UA-627 USN PALE GREY 5-P, UA-630 NEUTRAL HAZE GREY

LIFECOLOR has these in sets, US NAVY WW II SET 1 & SET 2 These paints have a satin finish to them and coverage is really good with either brush or airbrush. Hope this helps and look forward to your build.

_________________
Jim Varnell
ABH2 USN/RET.
89-00
Eastern NC Modelworks

Up coming projects:
1/700 scale rebuild of diorama project 960 square feet.
(Table 1 underway)Feb.2017
1/350 USS ALASKA CB-1(started Aug. 2017) 70% completed

Thanks for the reply and help! I was looking to do the ARD in 1944 with a Gato class submarine in the dry dock. I was not sure if the photo was ms 22 but the top color looked too dark to be ww2 haze gray 5H. I know some auxiliaries and yard craft are were painted dark grey so it placed doubt in my mind. I was thinking black and dark grey for the horizontals. Deck blue for edge of the dry dock decks and I had no idea about the interior but pale grey will do. What made you think it was haze grey?

I just got the lifecolor set but I tend to use polyscale/modelmaster acrylic paints.

Hey Sam88

I have a son who is a Marine, and he is a Combat videographer or what is more commonly known as COMCAM, he works at a place in Washington DC and has access to all kinds of vintage pictures, I from time to time have him look something up for me and he actually looked up the ARD-2 Class Repair Dock and found actual pictures of several of them, including the one you posted from Navsource.
Believe it or not but that picture is actually in color, (the master print) it clearly showed the ship in haze grey with what is called the "North Atlantic Eastern Approach" boot stripe, which was black at the time, the reason for the darker appearance was from the transit to the northern Atlantic, it was heavily weathered and with what looked to be a lot of oil or grease stains over the entire outer hull. I have limited access to naval historical pictures through my son and his work. (Good to have people in those places) I just wish I could have gotten scans of them but he could not do it due to the classification of the pictures, he was actually surprised that the pictures couldn't be scanned for public use.

I too have the same kit that I will be adding to diorama at some point in time and that is why I had him pull what he could on the class of ships.

_________________
Jim Varnell
ABH2 USN/RET.
89-00
Eastern NC Modelworks

Up coming projects:
1/700 scale rebuild of diorama project 960 square feet.
(Table 1 underway)Feb.2017
1/350 USS ALASKA CB-1(started Aug. 2017) 70% completed