Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: vorticon on February 24, 2004, 01:28:06 PM
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why do people insist on making rivets "visible" from the outside view at a rather excessive distance...last time i checked rivets are small and get painted over on the planes...there is no reason why we should be able to see them at all...
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I make my rivets 2 pixels and make them similar to the color of the surface I am placing them on.
And, you can see rivets actually pretty clearly on an aircraft IRL even if they are painted over.
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Your right here Vorticon!
(http://www.ottoweller.de/1901.jpg)
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hmm thats interesting. I just compared the rivets to the piper warrior I fly.
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Rivets should be only barely visible from very close up, with panel lines being a little more visible from farther out. It varies from aircraft to aircraft, but from only a few dozen feet away, I think even panel lines were barely visible on the painted sections of most planes.
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Originally posted by Ecliptik
Rivets should be only barely visible from very close up, with panel lines being a little more visible from farther out. It varies from aircraft to aircraft, but from only a few dozen feet away, I think even panel lines were barely visible on the painted sections of most planes.
I agree that many skinners make panel lines and rivets way too visible. But it does depend on the plane and what panel on it. Note, however, that airplanes often have big screws holding down cowlings and access panels. These are often QUITE visible, as opposed to rivets.
Rivets
In general, most WW2 planes had flush rivets. These are invisible under paint from more than a couple of inches away, and can only be seen on bare metal within a couple of feet. Therefore, in such cases, it's not only a complete waste of time to draw rivets at all, but seeing them is also completely inaccurate.
However, there are several cases where rivets are visible at rather long distances:
- Domehead Rivets: Some early-war planes had these all over, and most late-war planes had a few here and there where the skin was too thin to countersink or dimple for a flush rivet. On bare metal and light colors of paint, the protruding rivets appear as grayish dots on the lighter skin. On NEW painted planes, however, they're not very visible on dark colors. But because they stick up they quickly get their paint scraped off before the surrounding skin. Then they show up readily as silver dots on the dark background.
- Poor Parts Fit: This was a particular problem for later-war German planes and early-mid Russian planes. There were often gaps between the skin and the underlying structural members. Thus, when rivets were shot in, they tended to make wide, shallow dimples in the skin. These dimples, several times as wide as the rivets themselves, show up well under certain lighting conditions, although the rivet in the center might be invisible. It's very hard to duplicate this effect on a skin, however.
- Pre-painted Subassemblies: This was most common for late-war Germans, although some Brit planes with similarly dispersed production sites also had this. Some upstream factory would build a chunk of the plane all the way to final paint, then ship it somewhere else for final assembly with other such chunks. The rivets along the joints between chunks often weren't ever painted, especially for the Germans, so even if all the other rivets were invisible, you'd have scattered rows of silver dots. NOTE: this is also why some late-war German planes had different panels painted RLM 76 and others that greenish shade sometimes called "RLM 84". Different subassembly factories had different colors of paint.
- Hard Use: High G and hard landings can bend the plane. This can sometimes pop rivets out, and their replacements sometimes aren't painted. Also, the skin can get slight creases in it along underlying stringers, and along that stringer the skin will dimple more around the rivets.
Panel Lines
The visibility of panel lines also varies a lot on the same plane. The line represents a seam between 2 panels, and because there are several types of panels with different purposes, the lines between them look different. In general, it's like this:
- Fixed, Flush Panels: These make up the bulk of the surface of the plane. These panels are never intended to be removed. They have a very narrow gap (less than 1/8") between them for thermal expansion, but this is filled with putty to keep out rain and make a smooth, aerodynamic surface. Under paint, these lines are usually invisible beyond a few feet, and they're not much more visible on bare metal. However, sometimes there wasn't any putty. This was usual for early-war Russian planes and common for late-war German planes, at least where major subassemblies joined. With no putty, you have a small 3D trench in the surface, so the line would be rather visible. Also, hard use could spring up the edge of 1 panel by a fraction of an inch, making a rather visible 3D step.
- Big Access Panels: This is like cowlings, gunbay doors, and things like radio and baggage compartment doors in the mid-fuselage. These almost always have a 3D trench effect around them, and it gets worse the more the panel is opened, because they get bent slightly. This is especially bad for big, flimsy things like cowlings, that get removed after nearly every sortie. Gaps here can get rather wide and very noticeable. But things like radio doors are sturdier and usually don't get as much use, so they're in between cowlings and fixed panel lines.
- Small, Flush Access Panels: These are like handholes in the lower, outer wing surfaces, fuel filler caps, etc. These hatches are recessed into the skin and the doubler required to mount them is rather visible, plus there's often a noticeable 3D trench around the edge of the panel. These are fairly noticeable as a result.
- Protruding Access Panels: These are usually found covering control linkages near the tail and wingtips. The skin there is often too thin for a flush panel, so the panel sits on top of the surrounding skin. Therefore, it has a 3D step all around and is quite visible.
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last weekend i was in dark carrier hangar and easy can see rivets and panellines on navy blue TBM from 40-50 ft.
Panellines was vilible on F84 (bare metal) from about 100ft
I can count rivets on P11 panted polish khaki (dark olive drab) from 30-40 ft.
Rivets and panellines on spit mk16 was visible from same distance.
I cant saw rivets on bf 109 with really fresh painting (2-3 years ago)
edit
style of skinning depends from artist style, its balance between artwoork and reality (still)
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thanks...
another question...
any real reason why the flames coming out of our planes are so large? im not expert on aviation fuel or anything like that but i do know even gas well flares aren't nearly that large...or is it just to show off fancy flame effects
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Not to put too fine a point on this....but theres no way you can tell me youve never seen the massive flames that result from aviation fuel burning.
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Some aircraft had quite prominent rivets. That 190 picture above is painted with gloss paints and kept in doors. A service 190 could have very very prominent rivet detail especialy allong the fueselage side.
I aggree in general that many people over do rivets but some aircraft did have quite visible rivets.
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out of the factory the plans were gleaming and new...
on the eastern front with supply lines streched, spare parts were hard to get , canablisation from other aircraft was common, weather rusted the edges of the panels, the putty froze and dropped out, and all sorts of stuff including algaes formed between the pannels. all of the above will make panels more prominent..
going to a musem to look at the planes wont give you the look of a combat aircraft..only photographs will do that..
i personaly like the look of the weatherd skin.
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vorticon said:
any real reason why the flames coming out of our planes are so large? im not expert on aviation fuel or anything like that but i do know even gas well flares aren't nearly that large...or is it just to show off fancy flame effects
I don't know what you're drinking, but I want some ;). Geez, I was in the 1st Gulf War and saw hundreds of burning wells. A good gas well blows flames well over 100' into the air.
But as to gasoline, even low-octane car gasoline will blow flames 20' high in still air if you have say 10 gallons going at once, along with the flammable materials of the car. Now picture say 50 gallons of 100-octane avgas burning and being fanned by a 300-knot slipstream, and having flames trailing 50' or more behind the plane is very reasonable.
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SELECTOR said:
out of the factory the plans were gleaming and new...
on the eastern front with supply lines streched, spare parts were hard to get , canablisation from other aircraft was common, weather rusted the edges of the panels, the putty froze and dropped out, and all sorts of stuff including algaes formed between the pannels. all of the above will make panels more prominent..
This is all true (except that aluminum doesn't rust), but also remember that planes didn't last long in WW2. IIRC, the average life expectancy of a front-line combat plane was 6-8 weeks or less, even for the winning side at the time. By that time, most planes had either been shot down, damaged badly enough to be cannabilized or sent to a repair depot, wrecked in the very frequent accidents, or replaced by a later model. Thus, most planes weren't exposed to wear and tear long enough to get extreme amounts of weathering. Some did, of course, but they were the exceptions. They were either the few survivors in busy areas or were in low-threat areas where survival was high and the need to upgrade to newer models was low.
Thus, IMHO, while SOME weathering is good, it's very easy to take this too far. Most planes were cut down in the prime of life, after all. So to me, when doing weathering, it's better to err on the side of caution. All planes were cherry at one point, but very few lived long enough to get totally clapped-out, and most only got a limited amount of exposure before they left the line for whatever reason.
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It'll take less than a day or two in the right conditions for an aircrafts panel lines and rivets to start showing up. Reason being is fuel, hydraulic and oil leaks. Look at some F-15's from the middle east and you'll see how visible high leak areas are. Plus washing the aircraft weren't accellerated due to the area even though they got dirty extremely quick.
I can't imagine what some of the WWII aircraft in Africa looked like after a few weeks of service. I'm sure leaking back then was as bad if not worse than todays fighter aircraft.
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Thanks Bullethead
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Originally posted by Cobra412
It'll take less than a day or two in the right conditions for an aircrafts panel lines and rivets to start showing up. Reason being is fuel, hydraulic and oil leaks. Look at some F-15's from the middle east and you'll see how visible high leak areas are. Plus washing the aircraft weren't accellerated due to the area even though they got dirty extremely quick.
Leaks are entirely different things from panel lines and rivets. While leaks can effect panel line and rivet visiblity, they do so in different ways depending on the type of leak, and then only in their immediate area, not all over the plane.
Sure, any time you refuel the plane, check the oil, grease a control cable pulley, or whatever, you're going to make at least a little bit of a mess. And then the wet stuff attracts dust and dirt, so you end up with a dirty or clean area, depending on the type of fluid and where it is on the plane, how much got spilled, and how many times it's been spilled before.
Gasoline is a solvent and evaporates quickly, so it usually makes a clean spot in the general dustiness. It flushes away the crap that was there to begin with, and then evaporates before anything new can stick there. However, it can also damage paint over time, kinda melting it and eventually, over a fairly long time, working down to primer and then bare metal in the area right around the fuel filler cap. If the gasoline had dye in it, sometimes that gets left behind as the gas evaporates, too, staining the area with a light tinge of the dye color.
Gasoline usually makes panel lines and rivets LESS visible, at least for the first few months. This is because over time, fine grime collects in surface irregularities, even tiny ones, so rivets and panel lines show up a little more as the plane gets grimier. But the gasoline washes this away so the panel lines disappear again in the area of the spill. But this effect wouldn't have much "blow back" because any spillage would probably evaportate before engines even started. However, over a long enough time, constant gasoline spillage will eat away at the paint (if there is any there) at different rates for skin, rivets, and gap putty. In its most advanced stage, this really makes these features visible as some are down to bare metal but others are still painted. However, this takes a very long time, much longer than most WW2 planes lived.
Oils (including hydraulic fluids) and grease are just the opposite. These things are don't evaporate much at all, are sticky, and seem to have been designed to make a mess. Thin, tacky films of them remain long after the leak has been fixed, and all kinds of dirt, dust, and insects accumulate there. Beads of fluid can slowly blow back for considerable distances along the airstream, because they are in the boundary layer that doesn't move very fast. So you end up with these long, usually very narrow, but pretty visible streaks. Depending on where they are on the plane, they can be either the color of the local dirt or black with exhaust soot or brake pad scrapings, plus any dye color that was in the fluid.
Stains like these also have the opposite effect on panel lines and rivets as gasoline. Early on, the grime adhering to the fluid isn't very thick and usually is more than on the rest of the plane. Thus, panel lines and rivets tend to be more visible where the gunk goes. But after a while, the grime gets so thick that it becomes an opaque layer that obscures any feature below it. So if you start with a new plane, most rivets and panel lines will be very faint, but the stains will accentuate them in a few areas. Then over time, as grime accumulates all over the plane, the rivets and panel lines all over become more visible, except in the area of the oil leaks, where they get blotted out be extra-thick gunk.
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Bullethead I won't sit here and debate the visibility of panel lines and rivets. The aircraft I work (F-15's) have in the past and very often do have very visible panel lines and rivets.
Not sure of the maintenance practices of WWII but our panels don't get sealed constantly. Highly used areas never get sealed. More often than not the oil that is visible in the rivet lines is black from burning for so long inside the engine bays. Once it has leaked out of the panel and gets into the rivet areas its very visible unless it gets wiped down constantly it tends to stay and get darker over time.
And as for fuels it really all depends on the enviroment your in. Sand will accent fuel leaks and whatever that fuel may be on. If you constantly wiped down the aircraft you'd never leave work. Thats the same for hydraulic fluids.
The type of paint used on the aircaft and it's color makes alot of difference too. On one of our gloss painted aircraft these leaks are hardly visible. Only time they are visible is when the color of the leak is different than the color of the painted area. Now you take one of our non gloss aircraft and everything is visible.
My main thing was that in the right conditions these things can be made very visible very quick and thats it.
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the whole point is, why waste pixels on something no one will see, basically.