General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Re: Painted uboat interior?
Posted by:
Keith Gill
()
Date: September 01, 2006 09:26PM
Regarding the thick coats of Paint on interiors.
The paint is of course for precenting rust, and the colors used were carefully thought out. Ivory was used in most of the interior compartments which appears a yellow/cream color; when you see it in U-505 you will understand immediately. The engine rooms used a light ivory partly due to the fireproofing put into the coating. The interiors of both torp rooms if I recall were either light ivory or plain ivory. If I recall it was not explicitly called out but either was ok. Certain machinery and handles for equipment had specific colors to identify their use; i.e. open for surfacing or open for diving and so on.
The Americans did not like the use of Ivory as it did not reflect enough light, they preferred bright white. Also the extensive use of wood in the living areas abosorbed a lot of light to which they also objected.
The thick coats you see are the results of years of maintenance painting by its caretakers. I noticed this particularly at U995 but at the others as well. In U995 everything looked fuzzy to me (hmm, maybe it was the German Beer) because it had been painted so many times, drips had dried and very thick coats. The alternative is to chip and remove, a horrendous project in a U-boat. We were happy to know that with U-505 now indoors our need to repaint so regularly will hopefully be eliminated.
When I was working on the U-505 interior I was removing flakes of paint from each valve and electrical box, basically every surface, and looking at its edges under a microscope to see what layer was the last German layer. I must have looked at 500 flakes and was about to go crazy! In some areas I counted up to 5 German layers and then 5 or 6 US Navy and Museum layers over that. What helped a lot was that the US Navy painted everything white when they were testing it and while on the war bond drive. I knew that anything below a white layer was basically German. The longer the boat was in service the more times it was painted. U-505 was in service from Aug 41 to June 44 so it had some routine care. Pluse it spent time in port during extensive repairs. So it seems logical that 5 layers is not surprising. When I spent a week crawling through U534 in my research for the U-505 restoration I found original paint layers but maybe only 2 layers which makes sense as it was not in service very long.
The crudeness of the pigments was the key to identifying German and US layers. The colors also shifted and with the RAL color cards it was possible to exactly identify what was German.
My guess is I have given way too much information for the question but I hope someone finds it useful.
Best regards,
Keith Gill
The paint is of course for precenting rust, and the colors used were carefully thought out. Ivory was used in most of the interior compartments which appears a yellow/cream color; when you see it in U-505 you will understand immediately. The engine rooms used a light ivory partly due to the fireproofing put into the coating. The interiors of both torp rooms if I recall were either light ivory or plain ivory. If I recall it was not explicitly called out but either was ok. Certain machinery and handles for equipment had specific colors to identify their use; i.e. open for surfacing or open for diving and so on.
The Americans did not like the use of Ivory as it did not reflect enough light, they preferred bright white. Also the extensive use of wood in the living areas abosorbed a lot of light to which they also objected.
The thick coats you see are the results of years of maintenance painting by its caretakers. I noticed this particularly at U995 but at the others as well. In U995 everything looked fuzzy to me (hmm, maybe it was the German Beer) because it had been painted so many times, drips had dried and very thick coats. The alternative is to chip and remove, a horrendous project in a U-boat. We were happy to know that with U-505 now indoors our need to repaint so regularly will hopefully be eliminated.
When I was working on the U-505 interior I was removing flakes of paint from each valve and electrical box, basically every surface, and looking at its edges under a microscope to see what layer was the last German layer. I must have looked at 500 flakes and was about to go crazy! In some areas I counted up to 5 German layers and then 5 or 6 US Navy and Museum layers over that. What helped a lot was that the US Navy painted everything white when they were testing it and while on the war bond drive. I knew that anything below a white layer was basically German. The longer the boat was in service the more times it was painted. U-505 was in service from Aug 41 to June 44 so it had some routine care. Pluse it spent time in port during extensive repairs. So it seems logical that 5 layers is not surprising. When I spent a week crawling through U534 in my research for the U-505 restoration I found original paint layers but maybe only 2 layers which makes sense as it was not in service very long.
The crudeness of the pigments was the key to identifying German and US layers. The colors also shifted and with the RAL color cards it was possible to exactly identify what was German.
My guess is I have given way too much information for the question but I hope someone finds it useful.
Best regards,
Keith Gill
