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Title: VVS Light Grey - Not AE-9/AEh-9 Post by: John Thompson on January 31, 2014, 05:37:08 PM Possibly this has already been discussed, and I missed it (sorry!) - searching the forum turns up some references to AE-9, but I don't see anything that discusses this colour in detail. I just received some AKAN acrylic paint, including a bottle of AE-9. This is a very dark greenish colour, certainly not what I'd call light grey (or silver-grey according to some references). Now, here's a page from the AKAN web site, in which A. Akanikhin discusses this dark green AE-9; I don't question what he says, especially since he has apparently got a related Albom Nakrasok page for reference, although that colour is not specifically named AE-9:
http://akan.ru/articles/item/29-покорённые-вершины-истории-аэ-9-уже-не-тайна.html (For some reason, I don't seem to be able to create a working link to the English translation of this page; I'm sorry, but you'll have to copy and paste the URL to Google Translate or whatever, in order to see it in English) My question, then, is "What is the correct designation for the familiar light grey colour which we (and a lot of other people) have incorrectly been calling AE-9?", as applied to the cowling and other metal parts in this photo of a wrecked I-153: (https://i.postimg.cc/mgH8BtYX/I-153-56.jpg) (https://postimages.org/) (https://i.postimg.cc/HL4xG9Vp/fuselage-colours.jpg) (https://postimages.org/) (By the way, it's also puzzling that the AKAN bottle label calls this dark green colour "Light Grey", even though, as far as I'm concerned, it's neither "light" nor "grey"!) Thank you; John Title: Re: VVS Light Grey - Not AE-9/AEh-9 Post by: KL on January 31, 2014, 07:48:36 PM Hi John, :)
You should ignore Akanihin's page about his AE-9 research. From the title "Conquering the Summit", one may conclude that Akanihin admits that he didn't know what colour AE-9 was until recently. Then he used some unrelated artifacts (interior side of TB-3 skin and postwar gunsight) and somehow figured what AE-9 was. AKAN AE-9 is close to Soviet "Sero-dikaya" paint ("wild gray" or gray-green); you may use it to paint artillery shells and postwar missiles. "Sero-dikaya" was actually quite common, it was used as a standard anticorosive paint by the Red Army - if something had to be protected from the elements and it didn't have to be camouflaged, it was painted in gray-green. Real AE-9 isn't a mystery: there are several SB fragments in museums in Finland and there is I-153 in France stripped to it's original AE-9. I happen to have information from those sources, if interested send me a message. Another myth that can be found on Russian modelling forums is so called "silver-gray". Supposedly, AII Aluminium weathered fast, it was prone to "chalking", it would loose luster and turn to gray. This is not true! All preserved samples of AII Aluminium are shiny as Al foil. HTH, KL Title: Re: VVS Light Grey - Not AE-9/AEh-9 Post by: John Thompson on January 31, 2014, 08:28:49 PM Thanks, Konstantin - I appreciate your reply. Too bad the AKAN interpretation of "AE-9" is the wrong colour, or at least, wrong for my purposes; however, light grey in many slight variations is widely available, so it's not hard to find something that's close enough for modelbuilding. Thanks again!
John Title: Re: VVS Light Grey - Not AE-9/AEh-9 Post by: Massimo Tessitori on January 31, 2014, 08:43:07 PM Hi,
there was some discussion on this choice of Akanihin here: http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=1169.0 (http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=1169.0) Regards Massimo Title: Re: VVS Light Grey - Not AE-9/AEh-9 Post by: John Thompson on January 31, 2014, 08:57:07 PM Thanks, Massimo - that is also helpful! I started using Humbrol 147 for this colour; it looks correct compared to the chip in your table of colours.
John |