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I've been following (and commenting on ) a few threads dealing with, what basically boils down to 'is it real or is it Memorex?'
This pertains to restorations and recreations of warbirds, colors, stencils, toilet paper holders, and just about any thing else someone can get their thong twisted up over.
On the subject of 'restoration or recreation' EVERYTHING is only original ONCE! Classic car people now seek out the barn find cars that have never been restored except for safety issues like brakes, Pebble Beach has an entire new classification for ORIGINAL vehicles with all the patina out there to be seen and admired showing that particular automobile is a true survivor, they also are starting to take a different view of over restored cars.(no 31 Plymouth ever looked that good).
If you replace a light bulb in your otherwise untouched airplane it is technically, a restoration because it's no longer 'original'. (see how thin you can slice that subject?)
Aviation is about the only large scale industrial undertaking where you can recreate or restore an entire airplane using only the original data plate from the donor aircraft and do it legally, you absolutely cannot recreate your 1969 CAMARO from a repop manufacturer because, legally you are prevented from reusing the original vehicles VIN.
If you are digging a hole for a fence post and find the only data plate for the only Tippsy Howden AIR PAL ever built, you can legally use that to build a new one, and no questions asked.
On the subject of correctness of colors used, if you want your restored 1935 FORD tudor sedan to have it's original color reapplied, the guys at the auto paint store will ask you to bring in a door or some other painted piece that has been shielded from direct sunlight and UV to get a more perfect match to the color, most places now the computer will automatically compensate and 're tone' the paint to be close as possible to original, got the inner doubler for that flush mounted access cover so they can match the exact shade of gray from the overspray? No? well this is as close as we can get pal.
If you wallet is the size of Paul Allens, you can afford to have the part number stamp inks chemically recreated, and you can have everything absolutely dead nuts 'on spec' and one out of two hundred people who see the airplane will know enough to care whether that shade and tint of gray is exactly correct or not. the balance could care less! Technically, if you want to restore say a B-17E to factory fresh then take into account that Kenworth who built the horizontals and vertical fin used a different shade of OD than Boeing did even though the two plants are right next door to each other. and the paint all came from Preservative Paint Co. across the field from the factory. Look at lesser WW2 vehicles like WFA Harleys, you can find four or five different shades of OD on them because of differing paint suppliers and subassembly manufacturers, and lower priority ranking from suppliers, which shade of OD is correct on that Harley? ALL OF THEM ARE! Look at Corsairs, there are examples of one wheel well being true and original salmon pink and the other wheel well on the same aircraft is white or Glossy Sea Blue but both are correct.
People rave on this site about 'what a great looking airplane good old John Barfwhistle has created from a small pile of scraps in a field (myself included)' and don't comment on the fact that the airframe is painted IMRON silver and not bare metal, or that the red stripe shade and tint would be more at home on a street rod, I don't think DuPont was making IMRON in 1944.
Recreation or restoration? basicall I could give a flying fig one way or the other, as long as it's in the air or on display somewhere and not on a hill side or the bottom of the Zuiderzee.
Get over yourselves and let some air out of your egos-
Some times I wonder if collectively we all think we need to be held, changed, or burped.
_________________
Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-
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I think I'll just continue to look at the pictures, read the posts and pick out what I wanna read, and comment on. You guys that build, and maintain these machines know more about them than I do.
