Landships II

Date: Dec 7, 2005

steel plate colours

Date: Dec 7, 2005

Hello Thomas

I am sorry I can not help you with this problem, But I do look forward to seeing the end result. I hope you share it with us!!!.

Good luck with your quest.

All the Best

Tim R.

Date: Dec 8, 2005

I second Tim - but here's a little picture I found to get you started (I don't know about steel plate colours):

From John Glanfield's superb 'The Devil's Chariots', Whippets being built in the Foster's erecting shop (ooh matron!):

OK, not the right tank for you, but it gives an idea of the factory floor. The right side is blurred as I didn't want to break the spine of the book by flattening it on the scanner.

Date: Dec 8, 2005

Hallo Thomas!

Milled steel has the same appearance as an unpainted garden tool, or knife blade; slightly grayish with considerable shine on milled edges. The surface would be blemished( taken on a light sheen) here and there from scuffing. There would be no rust; unless storage of shipped materials was in the elements. That's my opinion; based on machine shop observations.

Date: Dec 9, 2005

Just to play devil's advocate:

In the top photo, the forward interior bulkheads look much lighter than raw steel -- much lighter than the aft vertical plates. Could they be pre-primed? White lead, maybe?

I can cope with being told it's my imagination.

Date: Dec 9, 2005

Certainly part of the interiors were painted white (there's another photo in Glanfield of women painting Mark IV interiors white in a Birmingham factory), but I don't know if the whole interior (including the front bulkhead) was. Anyway, it's not unlikely that the bulkheads are painted, is what I'm trying to say in a rambling fashion...

Date: Dec 9, 2005

Hah, I knew I'd seen some photos on the net, here (bottom of the page):

http://www.landships.freeservers.com/mark1-3_info_walkaround.htm

It's a restored one, and interiors in the Mark IV tour on Landships show a different colour interior, but as I said, I have a photo in a book of a tank interior being painted white at the factory.

Date: Dec 9, 2005

Jack Mueller wrote:

Hallo Thomas! Milled steel has the same appearance as an unpainted garden tool, or knife blade; slightly grayish with considerable shine on milled edges. The surface would be blemished( taken on a light sheen) here and there from scuffing. There would be no rust; unless storage of shipped materials was in the elements. That's my opinion; based on machine shop observations.

True but don't forget that this would apply to the basic frame work of the tank but not to the armour plate - this would not have been milled - indeed there were manufacturing problems just simply drilling it (see The Boiler Plate War) as, despite the title of the book boiler plate, was not used except possibly on some early Mark Is. Mark II and III being intended for training were plated with mild steel (except for the Mark IV type sponsons fitted to some mark IIIs) and this might have been milled. I'm not sure what colour armout plate would have and this would depend very much on how freshly cast and rolled it was anyway.