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PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:30 pm 
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SovereignHobbies
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Our latest work is available to download now:

https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/pages/royal-navy-colours-of-world-war-two-pattern-507s-g10-and-g45

The revised Colourcoats are not available to purchase just yet. We have decided on a "hard reset" due to the number of changes ongoing with respect to Royal Navy WW2 colours, and we will be rolling out a new coding/numbering system. This way, customers will know for sure whether they're getting new-research colours or not.

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http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 2:31 pm 
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Being in the business, I have an awareness of some nuances of colour perception that perhaps others are not party to.

Given the prolific numbers of photographs of Royal Navy capital ships in black and white photographs which appear to be in a medium grey, it is understandable why so many were willing to believe the existence of a lighter "507B".

Please forgive the somewhat-less-than-corporate look of the following. I have left these uncropped and very amateurish looking to hopefully demonstrate a point and to convince anyone who perhaps doesn't quite believe that a medium grey by whatever name was not in widespread use.

The shape of cones in the human eye is not uniform. A consistent feature of the human eye is that looking at a small colour swatch in the centre of our vision will always appear darker than observing it at a wider range of viewing angles. This is not the same as scale-fade or anything like that. Just that a 5cm x 5cm swatch of colour will look darker than a whole object painted in that same shade which reflects that frequency of light onto the different shaped cones further from the centre of our eyes.

With a relatively dark shade like Home Fleet Grey, this is exaggerated when displayed against a completely unnatural background such as a white card.

This very issue has inspired some empassioned debate amongst our little group of research contributors!

The following is one of 6 test cards I made around October last year, made by cutting up painted post-card sized samples into 6 pieces. I kept one at home. Four went to those individuals assisting me, and the last one is kept at our Colourcoats factory. Our 13%RF Home Fleet Grey is now ready to go on sale :thumbs_up_1:

Image

I used some left over paint in the lid-spraying airbrush to (very!) roughly paint a modest sized piece of MDF board. I then (very!) roughly sprayed a black faux "boot topping" on the bottom to give us some reference that we are all used to seeing on the old photographs. Just to prove I'm not cheating - here is the swatch used to match the production model paint against the 30-second concourse paint job on the MDF board:

Image

Now, look at this. Down sun, up sun and across sun.

Image

Image

Image

If you're not convinced now that Home Fleet Grey was the paint used extensively on British warships in the Home Fleet from 1936 to 1941 prior to disruptive pattern camouflage becoming de rigour, then I don't think we can be friends any more :big_grin:

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Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2018 6:17 am 
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And one more from me, using crops of the above outdoor photos turned to greyscale. Yes, we lose the subtleties of panchromatic B&W film but you get the idea:
Image


Down sun
Image

Up sun
Image

If nothing else, I think this proves that far from cameras never lying as per the popular saying, cameras are in fact pathological liars!

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Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
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Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2018 6:46 am 
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Two shots taken directly after each other from different museums. Only a small difference in contrast?

Attachment:
Contrast.jpg


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2018 7:36 am 
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That says it all!

Note Hood's typically wet quarter deck too :big_grin:

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 1:17 am 
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SovereignHobbies wrote:
And one more from me, using crops of the above outdoor photos turned to greyscale. Yes, we lose the subtleties of panchromatic B&W film but you get the idea:
Image


Down sun
Image

Up sun
Image

If nothing else, I think this proves that far from cameras never lying as per the popular saying, cameras are in fact pathological liars!


I would be careful using Ark Royal photos as an example. It had a two tone paint scheme at one stage of its life.

That beggars the question what was the two tone? was 507C applied or was it the 50/50 mix of the two greys. Normally from references ships in the Mediterranean would have been painted in the light Admiralty grey or 507C. By the looks of photos the ship was painted a few times throughout its career.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 3:32 am 
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But it's clearly in overall HFG in the selected photo :thumbs_up_1:

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Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 5:39 am 
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SovereignHobbies wrote:
But it's clearly in overall HFG in the selected photo :thumbs_up_1:


So in regards to HFG are you referring to the dark grey 507A. Also is that the same as the latest tweak you made to the paint since acquiring the rights from WEM. I do have the latest tweaked version of 507A by the way but not sure if I have enough for the 1/350 Ark Royal. That being said the model actually looks very nice with the blue tint with the WEM 507B. Could creative licence be called for scaling effect or would that be unrealistic?


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 6:08 am 
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For clarity I have never changed RN01 or RN02 since buying Colourcoats. They have been Snyder & Short based throughout.

I had intended to release a 13% version of Home Fleet Grey as RN28, but instead have decided to cut the entire RN paint range adrift and start again with new numbering for exactly this reason - namely people aren't clear what they have or are getting in terms of improvements / corrections.

Instead, the new 13% RF HFG went on sale in the UK domestic market yesterday as NARN20. NARN21 will be a 10% RF version and will also be marketted as G10.

Best regards,

Jamie

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 5:09 pm 
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Fantastic research! This really clears up what had become a very muddy subject for me.

Presumably from what you just said there, you will be renumbering your current products RN03 and RN07, and losing them completely from the original product line? Since they are already using the updated research...


On a related note, have you ever encountered any references as to what the non-slip grey paint was (referred to in AFO 3935), for decks? I know from photos (of KGV) that it was darker than 507A/B / G10, so perhaps G5 (= MS1?) would be a reasonable candidate? Or is this more likely to be at the dockyard's discretion?

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 30, 2018 2:44 am 
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Martocticvs wrote:
Fantastic research! This really clears up what had become a very muddy subject for me.

Presumably from what you just said there, you will be renumbering your current products RN03 and RN07, and losing them completely from the original product line? Since they are already using the updated research...


On a related note, have you ever encountered any references as to what the non-slip grey paint was (referred to in AFO 3935), for decks? I know from photos (of KGV) that it was darker than 507A/B / G10, so perhaps G5 (= MS1?) would be a reasonable candidate? Or is this more likely to be at the dockyard's discretion?


Thanks!

RN03 and RN07 will be renumbered, yes. The data we now have suggests RN03 may want to be just a touch bluer, so the renumbering would be the time to make that last little tweak but if you have existing RN03. RN07 works well for B5. I plan to offer a more greenish caste version too for B15 - just for modellers' choice. What we have learned just recently is that the green content is a bit variable as the actual green to be used is not specified. Different greens make subtle differences to the hue, but not the tone. It's easy for me to do, so I'll offer both.

As for non-slip deck paints - in a word, no. I haven't. That said, I think it a fairly reasonable assumption that the hue would be in the blue-green quadrant of the CIELAB Cartesian coordinate system, and that the Light Reflectance Value is likely somewhere in the order of 7~8% roughly. That would make it sea coloured in hue, and visibly darker than HFG but I'd expect MS1 or G5 still to be a tone darker still. For my own personal modelling purposes, I intend to keep using Snyder & Short 507A / the Colourcoats RN01 formulation for steel decks early war. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it seems to be guesstimate which passes the "laugh test" of being about the right tone and of being the sort of hue one would choose to be inconspicuous on a ship.

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Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151


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PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2018 1:36 am 
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We've collated a little more of the background material we used in our Royal Navy WW2 revelations for people to see. In general the reception of our work has been overwhelmingly positive, but every now and then I see something that makes me think someone is reluctant to believe me yet lacks the motivation to look up the references listed.

So, we've recreated a few key documents pertinent to the introduction of the inter-war Pattern 507 greys, as well as some documentation discussing which paints were in use in the first 2 years of the war.

Admiralty Fleet Order 1658 / 1927 introduces a dark grey for the Home Fleet, and a light grey for foreign stations and assigns the Admiralty Pattern numbers 507B and 507C respectively.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0730/0927/files/AFO_1658_-_1927.jpg?8058593617178735373

Admiralty Fleet Order 2680/36 introduces a change of shade in 1936 to 507B, giving the colour that would remain in use until after the war ended.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0730/0927/files/AFO2680-36.pdf?8058593617178735373

This extract memo referencing (Confidential Book) C.B.3016 details how various classes of Royal Navy ships are painted according to station and tells us that matt surface paints are used (meaning 507B with its glossy finish thanks to 10 pints of dark grey enamel is not being used as the surface coats, if at all) by December 1939:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0730/0927/files/CB3106_Extract_Memo_dec39.pdf?8058593617178735373

Admiralty Fleet Order 211/39 dated 19th January 1939 introduces the long-absent Pattern 507A to the authorised list of paints. It clearly states that 507A and 507B are both "Dark grey paint, Home Fleet shade" and that their formulation is the same except 507A lacks the 10 pints of Pattern 11 Dark Grey enamel:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0730/0927/files/AFO_211-39.pdf?3526008614875121614

This Temporary Memorandum from August 1940 orders the cessation of green and brown camouflage efforts and reiterates that ships in the Home Fleet are to be painted Home Fleet Grey. It also addresses deck staining and painting of turret tops etc to match the decks using non-slip paints. Note the non-slip paints are NOT described as 507A:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0730/0927/files/HTFM_288_20Aug1940.pdf?8058593617178735373

In summary, these are but a few of the documents communicated to the entire fleet or reported up through the chain of command discussing paint use in the terminology of the day which directly contradict the 1990s narrative that 507A and 507B were distinct dark and medium tone greys (and then sometimes used together on the same two tone camouflage scheme).

If there's a demand, I will reproduce the correspondence reintroducing 507A in 1939 and ordering the cessation of enamel use in 1940 (although the relevant texts from these are already included within our Royal Navy Colours of World War Two - The Pattern 507s, G10 and G45 paper).

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151


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