A tip about colouring: there is very good evidence that flimsies carrying petrol were painted RED.
Thats interesting. I had not heard about that before. However, thinking about it, at the start of the war, the WD used whatever petrol tins that they could find and i would think that the majority of them would have been embossed with the petrol manufacturers name and would have been painted the preferred colour of the manufacturer. i would only think that they were painted a uniform shade of green/brown if and when they got around to it. I will have to have a look and see which manufacturers used red.
Also, the correct term is "2 gallon petrol tin". A "flimsy" is something entirely different and only used just prior to and during the early stages of WW2.
I have just found an Army Service Corps memo from 11 June 1915 which states "all tins that are used for oil, paraffin and water must be painted black, with a white W, P or O as the case may be marked on both sides. "Tins that are used for petrol are to be left their original colour".
The original colour was the manufacturers preference, but would certainly have included red, blue and green. Some people collect these two gallon tins so i will see if i can get a list of the correct colours.
I am also trying to model some petrol cans in 1:35 scale. I find all the information here very interesting and helpful, as is the rest of the site. I would like to add some cans to the gun carrier that I am attempting to scratch build. No one states the actual size - any information available? My gun carrier can be seen on the Airfix Tribute Forum under scratch builds. Thanks. Dave
-- Edited by DaveS on Wednesday 12th of March 2014 09:38:04 AM
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