dk nkf - Nordisk Konservatorforbund Danmark

Figure 3 WW2 airplane with newly-painted engine cowling and propeller. New paint is conspicuous in archival photos. Source:
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. Call Number: LC-USW36-393.
member or maintenance person, will have formed a
reliable memory of the painted finishes. [10]
Finally, we must consider the deficiencies of language.
Most people do not have a reliable or accurate
vocabulary for such things as luster and depth. The
best we can hope for is a memory of “shiny” or “flat.”
Only a paint technician or a professional painter
might have a more accurate vocabulary.
For the same reasons, written records offer little
information in terms of recreating finishes.
Photographs and film
Original finishes on such things as automobiles,
airplanes and locomotives are best viewed in their
original historical context. The best – and arguably
the only – way to do this is to study them in period
photographs. That is, automobiles and airplanes from
the 1940s should be studied in photographs taken
during the 1940s. The Kodachrome transparencies
in the American Library of Congress archive are an
excellent example of a photographic resource. The
photographs show artifacts in use and are extremely
informative. Unfortunately, Kodachrome was not
introduced until 1935, so everything before that
time is in black and white.
The LOC photographs vividly show that new paint
was far from the norm during the 1940s. New paint
stands out in the images. It often indicates that
repairs or maintenance were recently carried out on
a machine, and in many cases, it was only applied
to part of the object. There are signs of wear, dulling
and overspray in the vicinity. [11]
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