Info needed: correct colours for WWII Aust vehicles

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Gina Vampire

One of the Holy Grails was found! That being a colour chip card from Berger paints along with two other specific samples. They were found in files MP508/1 [ 305/773/146] and MP508/1 [305/773/146] I have attached photos of these. Negotiations with the Archives are ongoing to have spectrometer readings made available and attached to the file notes.
Interestingly I was told that there is a lot of equipment to do this kind of work in the Archives lad and the nearby art gallery lab but both facilities are unused on account of the lack of staff and funding to run them. It makes sense that they would have that stuff from a conservation point of view. It is incredible that the very expensive equipment including x-ray facilities is unused.

Fantastic work ......... " you ought to be congratulated "

[BSM]

Gina, having spent many hours in the AWM, various offices of the NAA and various State Libraries myself I can well appreciate the substantial effort you must have put in to once again bring to light the valuable information regarding
Military "paint" that you continue to post for the benefit of forum members. A treasure hunt can be very rewarding and I echo the sentiments of the previous 2, congratulations and well done. If you happen to trip over any info re WW1 paint supply in your travels I would be pleased to hear of same. Regards... Rod

[Mrs Vampire]

Many thanks everyone for you kind words and encouragement.

Rod I will keep my eyes peeled for WWI stuff. I imagine that is close to the Genesis of WWII paint and given that Alkyds and Nitrocellulose lacquers weren't invented until the mid to late twenties....I wonder what on earth they used!!!

[Mike Cecil]

So, Gina, hopefully we'll see all of this research consolidated into a publication 'Australian Camouflage of the Second World War' (or similar - my mundane titles need a little work!) sometime?

I'm sure there is a lot more complexity to what you have discovered and 'distilled' out for presentation here, but it would be great to have all that detail in a handy reference (websites are a bit too 'temporary' for my liking - flick off the power and they are gone. I suppose that's old fashioned?) . I'm always ready to buy a copy or two of a good reference.

Nice work.

Mike

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

So, Gina, hopefully we'll see all of this research consolidated into a publication 'Australian Camouflage of the Second World War' (or similar - my mundane titles need a little work!) sometime?

I'm sure there is a lot more complexity to what you have discovered and 'distilled' out for presentation here, but it would be great to have all that detail in a handy reference (websites are a bit too 'temporary' for my liking - flick off the power and they are gone. I suppose that's old fashioned?) . I'm always ready to buy a copy or two of a good reference.

Nice work.

Mike

Ive been thinking along the same lines . A smallish book could be published , the many publishing formats these days . Of course it takes time and the rewards are not always forthcoming

[Mike Cecil]

Yes, it takes time, but Gina is apparently already spending a significant amount of time in the research phase, so I was hoping to motivate her to move to the publishing phase......

REWARDS??? Only the love of the subject, Mike......

After 10 or 11 books, with two more currently 'in press' and due to be released in 2015, I can assure you that the rewards are NOT financial!!

Krystii keeps pointing out that maybe its the subject matter ....you know, dry, lack of character development (even characters!!), plot, etc etc !! Hmmm.... she may have a point there.

We do it because .... well, I'm not really sure sometimes...

Mike

[Mrs Vampire]

So far as a book on camouflage is concerned my main worry is that it would be hard to find .... :/