British Colours and PC10

[Rufe]

Hi JMSmith,

Once upon a time, I was caught up in the Green vs. Brown wars, until one day I started reading Huntley's research. Everything sort of fell in place after that. I can't recommend enough reading his columns in SAM magazine. He can pack more information into one paragraph, than is in most whole pages. This makes it sometimes very difficult to fully understand at first.

One interesting fact, there is ZERO green pigment in any of the PC10 mixes.

[BLOWHARD]

One interesting fact, there is ZERO green pigment in any of the PC10 mixes

Anyone who's mixed colors will know you can get much better greens with yellow and black rather than yellow and blue

[Jesters-Ink]

Many many thanks Rufe, I shall do my best to put it to good use.
Yes you did get the right e-mail too

[Rufe]

A list of factory Finishing Schemes and Codes:

I have run across this list several times on the net, and each time the list appears to have been copied from an online scanned text source. The problem is that it was scanned by an OCR program, this type of scan usually misses the fine points, like symbols, formulas, subscripts, etc. not to mention colours, pictures and tables. This is that list closer to the the way it should appear.

Royal Aircraft Factory - Coding System - August 1916 (in use: 1916-1918)

A.A. ..........Standard Collor Company ‘Armoid’ Scheme A
B.▲ ...........(red triangle) Clarke’s ‘Brittania’ Nitro-Dope (see NOTE)
B.B. ..........Clarke’s ‘Brittania’ Scheme B
C.A. ..........Cellon (Richmond) Ltd, Scheme A
C.B. ..........Cellon (Richmond) Ltd, Scheme B
C.C. ..........Cellon (Richmond) Ltd, Scheme C
C.D. ..........Cellon (Richmond) Ltd, Scheme D
C.♣ ............(black club) Cellon (Richmond) Ltd, Nitro-Dope (see NOTE)
E.A. ...........British Emaillite ‘A’
E.B. ...........British Emaillite ‘B’ (Khaki, dope and pigment mixed)
E.C. ...........British Emaillite ‘C’ (4 coats)
E.C.2 .........British Emaillite ‘C’ (3 coats)
E.C.2 « ....(blue star) British Emaillite Nitro-Dope (3 coats) (see NOTE)
N.A. ..........Siebe, Gorman and Co. ‘Novellon’ A
N.B. ..........Siebe, Gorman and Co. ‘Novellon’ B
N.C. ..........Siebe, Gorman and Co. ‘Novellon’ C
N.D. ..........Siebe, Gorman and Co. ‘Novellon’ D
R.A. ...........Royal Aircraft Factory Raftite A
T.A. ...........British Aeroplane Varnish Co. Titanine A
T.B. ...........British Aeroplane Varnish Co. Titanine B (intro protective covering)
T.C. ...........British Aeroplane Varnish Co. Titanine C
T.D. ...........British Aeroplane Varnish Co. Titanine D (Nitro-Dope)


AMA (Khaki)
AMA (Clear)
Variations
AMAPD .........Khaki - Home and Western Front Use .............Late 1918
AMAPDT .......Reddish Brown - Tropical Use .........................Late 1918

Alum. Covering V84 Similar to the silver powdered aluminum dope used on French Nieuports ... 1919



Note: These coloured symbols denote nitro-based dope. The colour and symbol were meant to make it obvious to the fitters (repair shop).

[BLOWHARD]

Hey Rufe, that is from the Windsock Fabric Special WW1 British Aeroplane Coulors And Markings by Bruce Robertson, page 6. I recognized it right off! It still makes my head swim just trying to make sense of it!

[Rufe]

Hey Dave,

Pretty much the same, the AMA values are from that book. There is a typo in the Fabric Special, and it is the same list sourced from a report from an original book that is OCR scanned, online. The Fabric Special book at least shows the symbols and codes.

The Fabric Special Book also is the source of one major issue. The authors found a recipe for PC10, from 1916. Supposedly, anyway. The problem is that the recipe does not match the patent, and uses nitro-cellulose dope, rather than cellulose-acetate.

Let me find/review my copy, and I will try to explain this in more detail.

Cheers,

Rufe

[BLOWHARD]

My head is still swimming...
As long as I have reasonably accurate RGB numbers I'll be happy

[Rufe]

Ok, this is a visual prop for understanding PC10, the colors are not exact, just approximated.




The point of this is to understand the gradual change that took place, and why.

Too many times, in debates, different people start with different versions of PC10 and argue as if it was the only one, or the only colour. If you look at the pie charts, you can see a gradual browning effect. So, both sides are sort of right, there was a greenish looking version, and a very brown version. Along with PC12.

There is some renewed interest in PC12 being a dark brown instead of red-brown. This arguement fails to take into account the fact that PC12 was originally chosen by the ACA (Advisory Comittee for Aeronautics) as the recommended PC. Their results were rejected by the (War Office?) and PC10 became history as the alternative.

The column at left, shows the pigments used in the PC10 mixtures. As the war progressed, the purity of the Yellow Ochre was lessened steadily by more Iron Oxide content.

Remember, that quantities of the original mixes were kept on hand through to the end of the war in 1918.

[x4btr]

Excellent, thanks for sharing. This is good, sound and proper research here-- I am really enjoying this thread.

[BLOWHARD]

Did I hear someone say "chocolate brown?" Nice work Rufe, Dan-San would be satisfied with those colors I think