1/700 USS Bunker Hill CV-17 (1944)

[Tracy White]

Are you talking about the overhang at the fore and aft ends or the overhangs at the port and starboard side around the catwalks?

If you're referring to the sides they would be the same color as the bulkheads underneath them and would carry the lines of the camouflage pattern.

If you're talking the fore and aft overhang.... I dunno. Best I can offer is this shot of CV-12 Hornet after her forward flight deck collapsed; It was a June 1945 report so she had gone from the original blue paint she launched in to MS 33 3A and sat in that for a bit.



If you look at the far overhead it's significantly lighter than those nearer the camera. Now, It is extremely possible that this is because they're closer to the light and reflective surface (Water) that could brigthen them. But if you look at the top of the overhead there is just no way in Ned that what we're seeing is 5L. My guess is that we're seeing 5N. The demarkation is just too sharp for that to be the natural fading of light.

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Tracy,
.....the ship shown was re-painted, (like you eluded to...probably Ms22), and the 5N was used or 20B...then what? Would there still be white underneath? I'm talking all overhang areas that show their...."belly"?
Hasn't anyone already asked this question?
What color is the underside of the flight deck that overhangs the forecastle and is clearly exposed. Same question for the vertical supports for the flight deck.
Photos don't seem to be readily available.
On CV-17 Bunker Hill the forecastle horizontal surfaces were 20B, (except for the flight deck...Stain 21). The camo area around the forecastle is predominantly 5L, so it would not be that different from white. I won't to beat a dead horse, but.....
Thanks for any help.
Tony "ettin the masking tape out" Bunch
ps going to KC?

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
I am sitting down mixing up a batch of Testors Acryl Fllight Deck Stain 21.....this color looks too light...is it??
I still added a pinch of chicken giggle....I mean white to add "scale effect", but it seems that most pics I've seen left me with a mental impression of..."darker".
Any thoughts??
Thanks, Tony

[Werner]

Any thoughts??

Yeah. I still don't know how you work on that table! The squiggles would drive me nuts.

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Werner et all,
The table shown is not my, "primary", any longer.
I just hapened to be at my wife's apartment, (my former residence), where the table remains. The, "boomerang", designs are supposed to be very, "retro". She has two such tables, however dissimilar they are.
The flight deck stain 21 looks a whole lot like the USN a/c camo color, intermediate blue.
I just thought the FDS-21 would be darker.
"Until I've opened and stirred it for the first time, it is an unknown to me".
faithfully submited, Tony Bunch

[Werner]

Regarding colors in photos, I have two observations: first, we all know the pigments of color photos fade as the material ages and reacts with the atmosphere over the years. Second, the speed of the old films means that the shutter was open for very long intervals, even in black and white. I think a lot of the photos we see are about ASA 20-40. Nothing we've taken in decades is that slow. That means that flash photos are really very distorted due to the amount of light flooding the near part of the image and the absence of meaningful light further away.

It might be interesting to experiment with a digital camera under similar conditions of exposure and light to see how the grayscale compares (assuming you can slow a CCD down to ASA 20).

[Tracy White]

Guys, don't get into color film debate unless you are willing to learn a lot. It's a minefield otherwise.

Tony: The stain WAS lighter, but consider that radial engines are very dirty powerplants and that douglas fir when weathered is fairly dark. Fresh stain was light but the deck would darken as oil and dirt was ground into it and the wood exposed. That's one thing I've seen people do wrong fairly consistantly on carrier models; they use a LIGHT wood color instead of a dark one.

Finally; regarding overhangs... if the ship was countershaded, it would be a light color, probably white or 5L.... otherwise the overhangs would be painted the same color as the vertical bulkheads nearby.

[Ron Smith]

Guys, don't get into color film debate unless you are willing to learn a lot. It's a minefield otherwise.

Such as what was the original film? Are you seeing a print from the original or a copy negative? Was it processed with the correct chemistry? Was it stored properly before exposure and untilprocessed? Was it allowed to come to ambient temperature before exposure?

Finally; regarding overhangs... if the ship was countershaded, it would be a light color, probably white or 5L.... otherwise the overhangs would be painted the same color as the vertical bulkheads nearby.

At least a few CVE/CVL design sheets call for 5-P countershading, might be some CV sheets too.

BTW-for Werner:

Both Kodak and George Eastman house will tell you that WWII era Kodachrome is color stable for 100 years *if* it was properly processed. Most US Navy color film was Kodachrome and properly processed. Not so for Ilford or Agfa films of the era. Aerochrome is also reasonably color stable but it's color infrared film and the entire image is orangey-red but it's supposed to be.

Very high end DSLR's can do the film speed trick but I'm not sure how low they'll go.

A further hint for B&W prints, most of the high contrst prints are either from original color negatives or are from copy negatives on Eastman Safety Film which did not exist until 1948. Each generation of copied negative increases contrast and ESF was particularly bad in that regard (it had high detail fidelity but lousy contrast rendition).

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Tracy,
The BDS21 was a light color. Good enough for me.
Weather to be darker? I can do that.
Gordon,
Thanks for the info. I just got the Trumpeter a/c set yesterday, and the quality is same as Dragon. I will be looking for the sink marks you mentioned. The Dragon a/c, (some), HAVE FOLDING WINGS AND NONE OF THE TRUMPETER ONES DO.
Score one for Dragon.
Film and color film...Don't know squat...and guess what...okay with me.
I'll leave that to you guys. I just want to build a decent carrier!
Thanks for all the input, and I'll get some pics posted soon.
faithfully submited, Tony Bunch

[Tracy White]

Hey Tony, regarding the deck color I mentioned before, it occured to me you might not have seen this picture of CV-15 Randolph's deck. Note a blue tinge on the tie-down strips, but the rest is a pretty dark wood color.

[Devin]

Hey Tony, regarding the deck color I mentioned before, it occured to me you might not have seen this picture of CV-15 Randolph's deck. Note a blue tinge on the tie-down strips, but the rest is a pretty dark wood color.

How were those tie-down strips handled? Painted 20-B? Painted another color closer to the deck stain?

I'm surprised to see that uniform of a wood color on a CV that late in the war.

-Devin

[Tracy White]

Stain wouldn't work on metal so they've got to be painted. I haven't found anythingg that talks about how often the crew would do paint maintenance on the deck at the front.

[Tracy White]

Posted this in another thread but I think a copy belongs here...



This is from a January 1945 document regarding the shift to neutral gray colors and camouflage measures. The document states that "5-NB" (in 1945 5N Navy Blue was re-designated 5-NB and the new #7 Standard Gray as 5N) was to be used on the lower hull until stocks of the blue were depleted, at which point the gray was to be used. I just found this last weekend and still haven't been able to determine WHEN stocks would have run out at different yards. So there are a couple of ships that we don't know if they had blue or gray in their paint

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Tracy,
Thanks for the pic. I appreciate it, and I had not seen that one before.
Weathering the flight deck for a, "museum model", may still be prudent!
Thanks once more, Tony

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
I had to share, as You ESSEX FANS are it!
After spending 3+ hours masking, another 20 minutes or so painting and another 15 minutes or so un-masking:
Here you see the Bunker Hill with its second camo color...5-O, (Ocean Grey by Testors Acryl), and once again I added a little white.
I was not overly concerned if I spread the 5-O around onto where the dull black goes.
Here are some after-masking pics...




Here are some after un-masking pics....





After a few drying days, I will get set up to do the dull black. I guess I will do the island and main deck separately....
Thanks for letting me share!
Tony Bunch

[AndrexP]

Nice work!

...but...your table...is much too clean...must not be a real shipbuilder...

[Tracy White]

Can't.... make out.... ship.... . tooo... dazzling!

[Timmy C]

Hmm...that scheme looks familiar... Looking great!

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
I will be applying the dull black within a few days...I hope.
Then I'll post some more pics.
Take care Guys, Tony

[Devin]

Tony,

I love the look of that gray wrapping to the lower hull. Too bad the lower hull red will cover it up!

One thing to look for before you paint any further is to check and make sure you do not have too much of a raised edge on any of the colors. You can shoot the red over what you have on the lower hull, but if you had any paint build-up at the edges of your tape it will show up as faint raised lines when you paint another color over it. Some quick wet sanding with very fine sandpaper will knock the edes off, though. The voice of experience here: My USS Farenholt kit has all sorts of raised lines running through the paint because of this issue.

-Devin