Soviet (and other) Aerocraft Paints

[Kari Lumppio]

Originally Posted by Martti Kujansuu

Were the aeroplanes in the 1930s and 40s painted with oil based paints or what was the binder? Martti

Hello!

Cellulose nitrate would have been the most used binder. I.e. nitrocellulose laquers. Even in Soviet Union. These were painted on all types of surfaces and materials. AII- (that is Roman numeral 2) and AMT- laquers.

Oil paint were also used on wooden and steel surfaces. Also on aluminium. Oil paints would not normally be painted on fabric surfaces. A- and AE- paints.

Some Soviet aviation primers were glyptal resins. Likely only as the major part of the mixture, though. IIRC ALG-5 (green) was one of them, but needs verification.

In 1943 or so perchlorovinyl primer for wooden surfaces was introduced. This paint DD-118 seems to have been used on interior surfaces only. Soviet aviation paints included also perchlorovinyl paints for exteriors but IIRC were not produced in quantity during wartime. Post-war they became a norm, apparently.


Some further reading:
http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/report.php?NID=21
"Airplane dopes and doping" by Smith, W H. A NACA report (nr. 38) from year 1919. Good and short - only five pages - explanation about cellulose acetate and cellulose nitrate dopes.

Search net with keywords like: stand oil, linseed oil, glyptal resin, alkyd etc. Good explanations are hard to find, though.


Pigmentation is whole another world to add.


Hope this helps some,
Kari