Armoured glass WW2 Fighters - Colour tint conundrum

[easixpedro]

Although I haven't tried it on canopies, here's how I do gunsights and armored glass behind the windscreen.  Take a green sharpie and go around the outer edge of the clear piece. It'll give the flat parts a green tint as the light refracts.  Only pic I have is the sight on my latest Phantom build--you can just barely make it out which is perfect to my eyes.

-Peter

[adameliclem]

True story: When Stanley Kubrick was prepping “2001: A Space Odyssey” he wanted a big, clear tetrahedron to be the alien machine influencing human evolution. When fabricators calculated the cost, they suggested casting a simpler monolith in lucite. It took a lot of time to fabricate, weighed two tons and (still) cost a small fortune. When Kubrick saw the finished monolith, he said, dismayed, “It’s green!” Although it was plastic and not glass, refraction through the big, thick slab still produced a green tint. He couldn’t make it work on film, so he scrapped the idea of a clear slab and went with black.

 

Good discussion. Like others, I use Future with trace amounts of green and blue tints, usually watercolors, to get the right look. I’ve also noticed that plexiglas canopies can, like Kubrick’s clear monolith, have a very subtle tint to them when viewed from certain angles. For those, I use watercolors, a trace of Tamiya Smoke or a dip in soft-gloss polyurethane. Depends on what I see on a given subject.
 

Cheers,

Adam

[AirCorps Library]

As promised, here are a few pictures of the glass in our P-47 restoration:

[John1]

9 hours ago, easixpedro said:

Although I haven't tried it on canopies, here's how I do gunsights and armored glass behind the windscreen.  Take a green sharpie and go around the outer edge of the clear piece. It'll give the flat parts a green tint as the light refracts.  Only pic I have is the sight on my latest Phantom build--you can just barely make it out which is perfect to my eyes.

-Peter

Added to the tool box.   Thanks Peter!

[Thunderbolt]

On 12/19/2021 at 5:10 PM, Landrotten Highlander said:

I understand that you are referring to a real physical effect.  My note on 'artistic licence' is more related to what you want and can represent on your model.  Getting the tinting right without it looking artificial and 'unreal' is pretty difficult.

thanks for the replies, all. 
 

let me ask this a different way: does “Bluey’s” Spitfire, supposedly 100% original in every way, show any evidence of tint? The photos I’ve seen online aren’t clear. 

[Thunderbolt]

Just now, Thunderbolt said:

thanks for the replies, all. 
 

let me ask this a different way: does “Bluey’s” Spitfire, supposedly 100% original in every way, show any evidence of tint? The photos I’ve seen online aren’t clear. 

Also, I wonder if Jerry Crandall could chime in: when he was working on Yellow 10’s restoration, did he notice any obvious tinted hue to the armored windscreen? 

[phasephantomphixer]

Agree it tends to vary, but it is there. I have a modern sample which I placed against a white wall to verify.

Surely the thicker, and as discussed - by manufacture will determine tint. For application I use food color

in future floor wax.

[Radub]

One other optical effect caused by the thicker "armoured" glass is refraction. This causes the glass to behave in the same way as a periscope. This is best described in this video about the armoured glass used on the FW 190: 

 

 

HTH 

Radu 

[John1]

On 12/21/2021 at 1:40 PM, AirCorps Library said:

As promised, here are a few pictures of the glass in our P-47 restoration:

Is that armored glass?  I thought the early -47's just had standard glass or perspex for a windshield and then a big slab of armored glass mounted behind.

[Thunderbolt]

1 hour ago, John1 said:

Is that armored glass?  I thought the early -47's just had standard glass or perspex for a windshield and then a big slab of armored glass mounted behind.

I thought that as well. 

[Thunderbolt]

2 hours ago, Radub said:

One other optical effect caused by the thicker "armoured" glass is refraction. This causes the glass to behave in the same way as a periscope. This is best described in this video about the armoured glass used on the FW 190: 

 

 

HTH 

Radu 

It’s a fascinating effect. He notes the thickness of the glass to be 1.5x the original; I wonder what the view was actually like in the period thickness 

[AirCorps Library]

6 hours ago, John1 said:

Is that armored glass?  I thought the early -47's just had standard glass or perspex for a windshield and then a big slab of armored glass mounted behind.

That is correct, this is just standard laminated glass in the photo