beartown550
Airman
- 23
- Jan 28, 2020
Looking for paint brands and color choices for wing navigation lights.
paint for navigation lights
- Thread starter beartown550
- Start date
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Usually the lights were/are blue, green, red or "white" ( clear). To be honest any kind of paints can be used but these gloss colours seem to be better than the matt ones The set of colours depends on the plane that is going to be replicated. The paint should be thinned in order to get the quite transparent tone. The thinned coat can be applied either on primed with a gloss grey paint, the light cover ( moulded at the wing tips ) or on the ones made with the clear polistyrene if the light cover was made of the colour glass. Of course you may use the glass of the correct colour too.
However if the lampshade was clear you have to drill a small hole in that to imitate the colour bulb inside of the clear part before attaching it to the wing tip. Also the hole has to be filled with the correct colour firstly.
Here a couple of examples found in the net...
Making colour and clear light cover
the clear cover without the colour bulbs..
the clear cover with the colour bulbs ...
The pic source: the Internet.
However if the lampshade was clear you have to drill a small hole in that to imitate the colour bulb inside of the clear part before attaching it to the wing tip. Also the hole has to be filled with the correct colour firstly.
Here a couple of examples found in the net...
Making colour and clear light cover
the clear cover without the colour bulbs..
the clear cover with the colour bulbs ...
The pic source: the Internet.
- Thread starter
- #3
beartown550
Airman
- 23
- Jan 28, 2020
What you say makes sense. I will just have to do some experimenting and see what I can come up with.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
There are also 'clear' paints available, in both acrylic and enamel, in red, green, blue, yellow etc, with Tamiya and Humbrol being the ones I use.
These can be used where the clear lamp over is tinted, rather than the actual bulb.
These can be used where the clear lamp over is tinted, rather than the actual bulb.
- Thread starter
- #6
beartown550
Airman
- 23
- Jan 28, 2020
This sounds like a real good way to go. Thank you !!
- Thread starter
- #7
beartown550
Airman
- 23
- Jan 28, 2020
I know that red is port side,and green is starboard, where were the blue and yellow lights used?
The most of planes here in the Europe had the Red/Green/White ( or Blue ) lights used while the USA made planes had the Blue ( instead of the Green) /Red/White set mounted often. The yellow or the amber rather could be used at the bottom of fuselage or for the ID lights. So all depends on the particular type of aircraft.
TheRealMrEd
Airman 1st Class
- 114
- Aug 2, 2017
Actually, most often, the "blue" lights were simply blue-tinted clear lenses, used in conjunction with yellow bulbs, with yellow and blue combining to give a green light. Reason? Probably cost. You can buy yellow bulbs all over the place, but other than at Christmas, green bulbs are hard to come by...
Ed
Ed
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Red-port (left) and green-starboard (right) has always been a standard aviation convention (based on established maritime rules) but during wartime, alternate lights (and combinations) were used for "friend or foe" recognition as well as distinction between air groups (flights), flight leader and so on.
Here's something I do when the nav light is molded as part of the wing, and it is impractical to replace with clear or colored plastic. I start by painting the entire light Tamiya Nato black, then dry brush a small (fuzzy) area of silver in the upper center. Finally I paint the entire light with either Tamiya clear red or clear green (or green/blue mix). It actually looks surprisingly realistic.
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