Bristol Beaufighter collector rings

[Gerhard]

Quick question for all the Bristol Beaufighter boffins. Why on almost all model kits, do they show the engine collector ring as copper? In my opinion it should be more of a rust color, pitted with black spots that would be the steel underneath that the rust formed on, same goes for the exhausts? Am i wrong? Reason I am asking is that I am busy building a Beaufighter kit, and the copper just looks all wrong.

[Hubert Boillot]

Agreed. Not copper at all.

 

The ring was in steel. It took with a reddish color with the heat it was sbmitted to - hence the "copper" mistake, but as could be expected, it also took some bluish tinges, like blued steel. The color should therefore be varying between steel grey, reddish brown and blued steel on the same ring.

 

Hubert

[BradG]

Exhausts and collector rings were steel, so a steel colour or rusty steel would be fine. You could also simply paint the camouflage over them and bash the paint up as it would burn off eventually. Some beas had a heat resistant black paint on them and some had glare dampners fitted to the front of the collector, hence in some pictures it looks differently coloured. Definitely not copper though.

[Gerhard]

I played around a bit and have a solid idea of how I want to achieve this. Hope it works, let's see. Will post some pics a bit later. But thanks for the confirmation. I saw pics of so  many very very good builds, but then they have these solid copper collector rings and exhausts.

[Old Dog]

Think of exhausts on custom cars or motorcycles, right at the cylinder they turn blue and as you get farther from the cylinder they turn a coppery brown color. I suspect (but have no proof) that the collectors were probably from stainless steel, I wouldn't think its one area you would want to have rust heavily like an exhaust pipe. I read some where that the night fighters used a heat resistant paint on them because at certain conditions at night the exhaust rings would glow cherry red giving their victims two nice red bulls eyes to shoot at. At one time there was a long thread about these on one of the model sites but I have lost track of were it was. I suspect copper would melt or become unstable at the the temperatures of exhaust gasses that close to the cylinders.

[Radub]

The exhaust collectors were made of stainless steel. The heat fro the exhaust caused the metal to change colour. 

I saw the Blenheim in Duxford (similar type of exhaust collection) from up close a short while ago and there were all kinds of colours on it, from blue to burned orange. 

A picture may illustrate it better, so here it is. 

HTH 

Radu 

 

[MikeMaben]

Another Blenheim...

 

[Cees Broere]

I actually fully agree with Jennings here.

[Jeff T]

Looking at those two photos, I can see where people have portrayed them as copper, looks more of a copper colour to me than a steel colour, but not as deep of a copper shade that you see portrayed on a lot of models though.

 

Cheer's,

Jeff.

[Gerhard]

This is what I ended up with, using Tamiya metallic black as a base, and then matt dark brown, thinned down a bit, then a semi-gloss clear over the top.

 

Edited August 14, 2017 by Gerhard