Painting Perferated Steel Plates (PSP) Question

on 11/13/2007 9:04 PM snipped-for-privacy@the.computer said the following:

Do you mean Marston mats? I don't know that they were painted at all. They just looked like a dull steel grey and probably blackened by oxidation.

snipped-for-privacy@the.computer wrote: : I picked up a display base that is a runway made of Perforated Steel Plates : (PSP). Anyone have any info on how they were painted? I did the usual google : search and came up empty (lots of pictures of it). Any info on this would be : greatly appreciated. : From the photos I have seen, I am not certain that they were painted. I expect the pilots didn't really care one way of the other - bare steel or painted, they were likely as slick as a greased pig when wet, and I can't see a fricton cloating lasting.

At any rate, I expect that they quickly became the color of the ground they rested on, so I'd finish them that color (mud, coral, etc).

Make a few areas where the PSP is fairly new (lightly oxidized) when repairs were made (bombs, ground settling, etc) and you should be good.

Bruce

they must have had something on them. otherwise they would have gotten rust colored in a hurry. perhaps a good coat of cosmoline.

The other name for it is Marsden (or Marston) Matting. This Wikipedia article's photo makes it look like it's a yellowish zinc chromate color:

set looks more like raw steel, after a lot of years aging: do these Vietnam photos: 's a good close-up of some aged WWII era stuff: 's a pig pen made from surplus WW II era stuff: looks sort of like faded zinc chromate again.

Pat

If they are oxidizing they seem to be doing it toward a yellow shade rather than blackish or orange rust. Were they anodized or coated somehow to prevent rust?

Pat

Wow, your search talents are much better then mine. I did not know they were also called Marston Matting. Looks like I will just weather like a tank tread. Thanks a bunch for the assist/info.

on 11/14/2007 5:07 AM Pat Flannery said the following:

I don't know, but any coating would be worn off pretty quickly by aircraft tires. These were just for temporary runways, and weren't expected to last more than a few years, so I don't think that they would go to any extra expense for long term use.

there were thinner forms than the grease. it could even be sprayed, sez my uncle who mothblled stuff after ww2.

Go down to item 3 on this page:

:-) In that version, only a few holes completely pierce the plate.

Pat

Like most government contracted stuff, they seem to have been way overbuilt, considering there still appears to be huge numbers of the plates being used for odds and ends across the Pacific. I could see simply dipping them in zinc chromate paint for corrioson protection, or zinc anodizing them in the later version like shown in the surplus items sale that only has a few of the holes going through the plate (that's apparently later Vietnam-era PSP) Some more goodies on it here:

this: "Mats, airplane, landing...geez we bought a lot of this stuff in three forms Aluminum alloy, pierced plank 17,819,000 square feet. Steel, pierced plank 702,398,000 square feet Welded wire fabric type 123,131,000 square feet." and this: "Quite a bit of the matting we pulled up from Gurney was in as new condition with little or no rust. The metal was actually still shiny. Unfortunately both my camera and video recorder buggered up form the humidity and moisture there and I never got any pics of it. I have never seen rain as heavy as it rained in Alotau." That makes it sound unpainted, though possibly anodized against rust.

Pat

What was really supposed to suck is if it got hit by bombs, mortars, or artillery fire... then it rose up in razor-sharp shards that could shred tires or people that came in contact with it. There's photos of doing repair work on it after a attack here:

don't know what year this is from, but here aluminum mat is being put in place: nothing else, that would solve any corrosion problems.

Pat