Last of the line
 

I see on the RAF egoat site that the very last Painter and Finisher shut the doors on the service yesterday. Not one of the most exciting trades however one that goes back to the very first days of sticks and string. I always thought they were good guys and always there for the quick paint job, and always to an impeccable standard. Sadly yet another rung removed from a ladder thats getting so short that one day it wont reach anything.

Half of tg13 gone. How long has the other half got?


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Last of the line
 

So who paints the toecaps now?

if the question was "who paints their toecaps now"? Then the answer would be easy :ugh:

S-D

The Exploding Trousers
 

Ah, reminds me of an incident in the mid-80s on a station "somewhere in the West"!

It was my final Orderly Officer duty and in the early evening I was called to attend a fire in one of the Airmens Barrack Blocks. It was largely smoke-logged and not very serious, evacuation was very rapid and all were safe - the main interest was the number of scantily-clad young ladies who emerged!

Cigarettes/matches were suspected but the investigation revealed a more bizarre cause. A Painter and Finisher had come off duty and, in a rush to get away for a hot date, had left his paint and reagent-splashed work trousers on his bed. The various mixtures had apparently created a chemical reaction generating sufficient heat to cause smouldering ignition of the trousers and his bed! Result = bags of horrible black/grey smoke, fire alarms, evacuation and a lot of embarrassed young ladies and gentlemen! I suspect that he never lived it down!

DS

What's that "Liar, Liar, your pants are on fire!"

I'm glad to see that this subject hasn't been glossed over.

I hope the young ladies, obviously in the primer of their lives, had the chance to put at least one undercoat of some sort on. No doubt someone was willing to give them a rub down first.

But what a poor finish.... ;)

Well, I just hope that the Last of the Line was at least straight.
(And you can interpret that any way that suits you (sir)).

This trade is now contractorised. The contractors on my station are still willing to do painting jobs for a few beers in their lunch/tea breaks :ok:

And in due course flying will be contractorised to the RN and AAC and others.

Ditto:

Aeroplane Fixing.
Clerking.
Air Trafficing.
Educating.
Phys Educating.
Safety Equipping.
Policing.
Motor Transporting.
Etc, etc.

Even the Officering by 1 April 2018.
:ouch:
.

Toe Caps
 

Electrolube laquer. Available in a spray can. DIY. Probably get some from the Fairy Bay (Oh dear Fairy bays contracted out too I suppose).

It brought up some SRBF bits on the Mosquito undercarriage I did for the Pathfinder Museum very nice. Made the inspectors pencil signatures stand out a treat.

Not very good on C130J Cargo Handling Systems though.

Get a plumber to slap some of the liquid rubber they use on the leading edges of droptanks on your toe caps, nice gloss finish and hard wearing.


I wonder what rank the last painter and doper was, I suppose he could pick his own :D
One has visions of half painted aircraft with the spray gun sitting on the ground where he put it down as he left :)

Not long till you will be able to say..

The Royal Air Force, a member of Her Majesties armed contractors.



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I wonder what rank the last painter and doper was, I suppose he could pick his own :D
One has visions of half painted aircraft with the spray gun sitting on the ground where he put it down as he left http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...lies/smile.gif

Strangely the unit he cleared from was Akrotiri.

At least he probably had the pick of Stations and picked a nice one to leave from.. Must be weird being the last of anything in the RAF and also strange to deal with manning wise etc. hope he turned the light off when he departed :)

Have they notified the appropriate MoD department so that they can cease hiring in paper-shufflers to administer the trade? :confused: Probably not............

That news is very sad. Whilst many will take the mick out of the painters, I always found them very keen and professional tradesmen. When running a second line team at Lyneham, with little room in allowed hours to work with, our team painters were often willing to work a night shift, weekend shift, around the other trades. And, they always did a superb job on Albert. My hat is off to the last of his trade, and an old blokes salute to all of his comrades.

Smudge

I am truly overcome with emulsion........

My late mate worked in station workshops in the early 70's. He was a brilliant engineer with the trade 'blacksmith welder'. Bet that has long since been re classified or vanished?

The writing was on the cards when the first VC10 went off to Luton to get painted, previously having been done in house, the first or second sat outside for a while and everyone looking at it couldn't put their finger on what was wrong.. ( the fin flash was reversed)... Must have been a pomme fritte loving Lutonian that did it.. C'est La Vie.

Did a lot of VIP fits on the Ten and they were always there and produced a superb finish, even when the RAF stopped them spraying and started rolling them they still came up with the goods.




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