You pretty much nailed it. The interior bins, ceiling and walls are gloss white. I even found areas where the white didn't quite cover the original grey primer. The inside of the doors of course are brown, as is the seats, wireless table and battery trays...all meant to be removable. What is odd is that the angled portions of the cab/body division panel nearest the body door windows are white and stick out quite visibly (wartime photos show this a lot). There are of course black vinyl covers for these windows but they would have to be rolled down to cover all that camouflage-ruining white. The floor is checker plate and brown. I wasn't sure if this included the insides of the wheel wells but now am convinced they were white. I may resort to painting the floor last with a brush. What is linoleum and I'm having a hard time finding material for is the wireless table top.
What is going to be hard to duplicate on the interior is the yellowing of all that white by years of chain smoking signalers. Forget wrinkle paint, where oh where do you find nicotine varnish in a rattle can???
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Originally Posted by David Dunlop
Hello again, Bruce.
The interior paintwork for the rear section (working section) of your HUW sounds interesting. I am quite familiar with the original factory paintwork in the WIRE-5 2K1/2 Boxes, and you have peaked my curiosity as to how similar the logic was for painting up the interior of the HUW.
I would anticipate all interior walls and ceiling of the working section of the HUW to be done gloss white. The floor, if not given a layer of battleship Lino, would be painted either a dark grey, or done matching the exterior colour applied to the vehicle at the factory. The key here is that if the rear roof hatch is open, the floor colour should not give away the vehicle location to passing aircraft.
For security/safety/camo reasons in the field, the doors accessing the working section should all be exterior colour inside and out. For the same reasons, the exterior colour should cover any exterior metal work that wraps around any door and window openings they are acting as frames for, and end wherever that metal ends on the inside.
The rear roof hatch gets a bit interesting to sort out. You may have to stand somewhere to look down into the opening to fully figure out what needs to be done.
First thought would be the exterior colour would wrap down over all the metalwork forming the frame of the hatch in the roof and end wherever that metal ends. The exterior colour on the hatch itself would also likely wrap around the four side/edges and follow that metal to where it ends. The main ceiling of the underside of the hatch should be gloss white.
When standing looking down into the opening for the rear hatch. What you would need to be looking for are any parts around the perimeter of the opening, like tracks, rails, handles etc. that would stand out if painted gloss white and ensure they are all painted to match the exterior colour. Again, you do not want to accidentally give away who you are and where you are, if you can avoid it. The rear hatch will definitely be the most exciting bit of the HUW to sort out for painting. It will probably not look very uniform when finally completed.
It always amazed me that the basic concealment processes in wartime vehicle painting were lost so quickly in the Canadian Army in the postwar years.
Keep us up to date on this, Bruce. It is going to be fascinating stuff, worthy of your skills and attention.
David
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