RAF Dull Roundel Red WWII

A red disc you cut to measure

The Royal Air Force roundel is not one color but a composition of several concentric areas. The inner disc was always red and it is that which determines how the whole marking comes across. During the war its shade darkened, because a bright signal red made an aircraft an easily recognizable target on the ground as well as in the air.

The sheet offered here is raw material, not a finished product. The color covers its whole area with no outline whatsoever, so you cut from it a disc of exactly the diameter your build needs. Vertical stripes for a rudder, rectangular bands or small areas the size of a pinhead come out of it just as well.

Working with it has its logic. First the larger blue ring is cut out, it is left to dry, and only then is the red disc settled in the middle. The reverse order leads to the edges lifting each other and the marking losing its symmetry. It also pays to leave a longer pause between individual steps than is usual with ordinary markings.

It comes into play where roundels are not involved at all. Red warning areas on propeller blades, bands around a barrel, marks for walkway zones or a patch in the place where a motif applied earlier was damaged during handling.

Release is done with water, so the sheet behaves like any other decal. It is sold on its own, without cutting tools and without chemicals for refining the surface. Anyone working with material like this for the first time will do well to try the first shape on an offcut from the edge of the area, where the result does not matter.