HMS Hood colour as lost (again)

[SovereignHobbies]

I have built Hood once already, but in the old understanding of colours


I have the 1/200 kit and Pontos set put aside. It's getting time to make models that is difficult.

The new Home Fleet Grey (exact same as on the wood board in above photographs) is the dark grey on my current destroyer build along with our new, slightly darkened, Mediterranean Grey.

[tardis1916]

Here I come to beat the dead horse, again.

Sorry

I came across Testors 2169 "507A Dark Grey RN" and 2170 "507C Light Grey RN"

Would the 507A be good for my 1/200 Hood or should it be lightened?

[SovereignHobbies]

Here I come to beat the dead horse, again.

Sorry

I came across Testors 2169 "507A Dark Grey RN" and 2170 "507C Light Grey RN"

Would the 507A be good for my 1/200 Hood or should it be lightened?

I take it you're in the USA? I'm in the UK but if you would care to send me a 1 inch square chip of them I'll measure them and give you an objective comparison to what we believe are the true nominal colour values.

[tardis1916]

Yes, I hail from the "land of cheeseburgers and heartburn" to quote Dominic Santini played by the late Ernest Borgnine in an episode of Airwolf back in 1984.

I appreciate your help with this, I'll get my airbrush ready and make some chips on some scrap plastic I have. I'll send two of each, one set on white primer and the other on grey primer as that can sometimes change the final color. I have plenty of each primer. I'll PM you for the address to send them to.

Thanks,

Stephen

[FW_Allen]

Wow, I really need to remember to log in a bit more often. It�s been a little while hasn�t it?

For the record, we (Hood Association) stand by Jamie and the team�s work. I�ve seen the Kew and Pompey docs myself and they�ve gone well beyond that. Indeed, it�s quite clear from their extremely in-depth research that they�ve come up with something definitive that we can all safely rely upon. They really went above and beyond.

So, the old �medium grey� thing is simply wrong.

The person who originally researched our paint colours 30+ years ago recorded it as AP507B. Later, when the S&S�s paint chips came out, we put two and two together and, well, lots of people painted their Hoods a bit light as a result! It�s not the end of the world of course, but I do feel a badly about it. I wish it was just a conspiracy to get people to buy and build more Hood models, but no, it was an honest mistake...we�re only human after all.

So, we�ve tried to update our painting instructions accordingly.

Of course, to be perfectly honest, these days I�m less concerned about exact shades of colour...my rivet counting days are behind me. I�m simply happy to see people build models of Hood...even if they�re ones of dubious accuracy such as Heller and Lindberg, or, an over-priced disappointment such as the Trumpeter 1/200 �step-back�Hood (so-called because they used dates plans and �undid� various things they had previously gotten right...). That�s just me though, others will have a different take on the matter. That�s not to say that we still won�t try to present accurate info on our website though (obviously we want our materials to be accurate).

Well, actually there IS one thing that I still get riled up about: why on earth do so many modelers continue to mount their �as sunk� Hoods� forward Carley Floats in pairs just behind the conning tower? That is sooooo 1940! Oh yeah, also don�t get me started on the 1941 aerial spreader!

[FW_Allen]

I�ve seen the Testors paints. You can obviously avoid their 507B as it�s med grey ( I know you didn�t ask about that one, but others out there might see it and wonder about it). Their 507A and 507C are �in the ballpark.� They aren�t Colourcoats accurate mind you, but should be good enough for folks who don�t want to mix and prefer to use acrylics. Caveat: This is based purely on �eyeballing� it , so YMMV! Obviously, I too would be interested in seeing how both compare to the new Colourcoats formulae. We do like to present alternatives in our painting instructions after all.


Okay, time for me to disappear again for a couple of years, LOL.

[EJFoeth]

Oh yeah, also don�t get me started on the 1941 aerial spreader!

Au contraire, do get yourself started on that spreader, because I still don't know what it looks like (exactly)

[tardis1916]

Well, I for one are grateful for all the help. I did my enamel paint chip samples for Jamie but I'm going to hold off sending them for a bit as it's a holiday tomorrow here for one but also, Jeff Herne of scalecolors.com has offered to mix some acrylic paint for me so I'll wait for those to arrive and I'll do paint chips of those too to send to Jamie for his take on both brands. Hopefully, one of them will be "correct" or close to.

[tardis1916]

And of course with me being the dim bulb in the box, Jamie, am I correct to understand that you believe the Hood was a mix of A & B? about 13% B that is?

[SovereignHobbies]

Not quite. I believe that from the outbreak of war 507B stocks would have been used up, but communications exist summarising that ships in the Home Fleet were painted dark grey and in a matt finish, which suggests that 507B was overcoated with 507A OR potentially an equivalent shade of matt paint made by a dockyard.

Remember that Admiralty Patterns are an exact specification/formulation, not a colour. In terms of paint we (and the RN) often summarise to simply saying 507A or 507B when what we really mean is "Dark Grey, Home Fleet Shade".

This may seem like semantics but it's important to understand the distinction because to be Admiralty Pattern 507B it has to contain the 10 pints of Pattern 11 Dark Grey Enamel which makes the resultant CWT of 507B somewhat glossy.

I believe Hood was simply painted Home Fleet Grey. As enamel use was ordered ceased in 1940, no new paint would contain enamel therefore Admiralty Pattern 507B defacto ceased to exist. By the time Hood was repainted 2 weeks before she was lost it's highly unlikely that anyone still had stocks of 507B sat around mixed up to apply and even if they did, the exterior finish would certainly have been overall matt finish.

Thus, whilst I say 507A, the pedantic but accurate answer is "Dark Grey, Home Fleet Shade in a matt finish".

As a by-the-by, Home Fleet Grey is quoted in contemporary documentation has having either 10% or 13% light reflectance value, so I made both for modellers.

Apologies for the lengthy post but it's useful to understand what is fixed and what is variable in subjects like this

[FW_Allen]

Tardis- I�m guessing you are building the Trumpeter 1/200 kit? I�m also guessing that if you�re interested in getting precise colours, you�re also interested in detailing the kit. If so, our article at http://www.hmshood.com/hoodtoday/models ... ter200.htm might be of interest. It just points out a few things to be aware of.

There are some excellent aftermarket detail sets and 3D parts which can go a long way towards fixing Trumpeter�s confounding errors (they chose to believe nicely-drawn yet nonetheless erroneous is morskie style publications rather than the people who know the ship best, but no, I�m not bitter, LOL). Folks have been turning out some excellent builds. If only it were not the size of a small car I might consider building one too...

[tardis1916]

Ok, I think the dim bulb is starting to brighten. lol

And I purchased the detail set from Pontos as I had heard about the inaccuracies thanks to this forum. I have done some work on it but decided to pause for awhile to make sure I get the correct (as possible) paint.

I've attached a picture of my current progress. Yes, her temporary dock is atop my fish tank. I had started using Dark ghost Grey on the turret areas until I realized that I should probably try and find something closer to real life.

I thank everyone for their help, it's been great.

Going to do a side build; a 1:72 Handley Page Victor to keep my occupied while I wait for the other paint to arrive.

https://www.twitch.tv/tardis1916/

[Jabberwock]

Hi Jamie et al.. thank you for your research and experimentation into this fascinating subject, you are certainly shedding some light on what, until fairly recently, has been a grey area (see what I did there?)

But of course, there is a whole other layer to this issue, actually lots of layers!

In your papers, do you have detail of the surface preparation and base layers prior to the final coat? It would be interesting to find detail of primer, undercoat and protective layer colours which would appear as the paint wore and chipped away.

Presumably these would have been, like the outer finish, subject to directives from the Admiralty? So, are we looking at a black or grey primer, a pink or green undercoat and then the red oxide followed by the surface finish?

Cheers, Jabb

[dick]

This set of instructions from 1943 is typical:

[Jabberwock]

Thanks for the answer, so basically red lead, poss darkened with black and a grey undercoat.

Something to work with.

Cheers, Jabb

[FW_Allen]

With regard to paints, I've recently obtained AK Interactive's Royal Navy Camouflage Set 1. It contains hull red, 507A, B and C (probably based on S&S chips or possibly formulae for other paints that were based on the chips), deck tan and B5. AK supposedly incorporate "scale effect" into their formulae. I also believe they are likely meant to be used with their filters, etc. Even so, I am of very "mixed" opinion for now (pardon the pun...).

Here are my observations thus far:

A. Hull Red- Its more like maroon to me. Reminds me of Japanese hull red (at least it does if used straight/as-is without highlighting or filtering etc.). Its definitely not red lead!
B. Wooden Deck- This is fine. Of course, its a pretty bog standard shade not too dissimilar from Vallejo Iraqi Sand.
C. B5- No comment. Hood never wore this colour so to me it doesn't exist (but for what its worth, it looks like a med blue-grey).
D. 507A - It strikes me as being dark with no bluish tinge. My wife (who has an excellent eye for subtleties of colour, etc....must be from art school) said pretty much the same thing...plain dark grey.
E. 507B- It looks very similar to the old WEM RN02 507B, albeit a tad darker and a wee bit less bluish. Still too light for the real HF grey. Perhaps it could be darkened...
F. 507C- Looks "muddy" to me. Not bluish enough. It very much reminds me of Tamiya's XF-80...which doesn't strike me as being very accurate in and of itself. I only mention this for folks who want to build Hood circa '36-'39.

I've posted image here which compares various greys to the original, old WEM RN01 507A. Yes, its true that RN01 is too dark, but its something many of us are familiar with and may work as a baseline for comparison (albeit roughly). Among the other paints are the AK Interactive 507A and the Testors 507A that someone asked about earlier (albeit an acrylic version). There is also a swatch of the �hull red.� Please forgive the poor quality of this endeavour, but I am temporarily one-handed for a few months and cannot easily airbrush. I had to glob the paint on with my non dominant hand. I also had lighting issues (but this was taken outside in late afternoon with the sun behind a tree (no direct glare). Even so, it gives one an impression of how the paints look in comparison to one another. So, this is certainly just a rough "FYI" sort of thing! Its in no way scientific or precise. I don't know if it helps, but hopefully it does.

Note: I tweaked the wording a few times after initially posting this (as no one had responded, I thought I would take the opportunity to make some corrections/updates here and there).