Originally Posted by Earl

Yes, of the Apollo missions, specifically the Saturn V missions, Apollo 6 was kind of the odd man out with that pretty much fully white SM. Here again though, it was not the gray color as shown on the JSC Saturn V currently on display, so I'm still not sure where the JSC folks came up with that color combination.

As best I can tell from the harware I have seen on display (some of which was actual excess flight hardware), the 'silver' color of the SM appears, in many places, to be a silver paint (high temp one would assume) over the outer structure. I had assumed for many years until I actually saw some of this hardware that the 'silver' we all saw in the launch photos and such was actual 'bare metal'. Not the case in most instances. It seems that, as I recall, a good portion of the SM outer surface is covered in a layer of somewhat thin insulation (possibly a cork-type material, as was the case for a portion of the Boost Protective Cover or BCP for the Command Module) which was then painted with this silver paint. From any real distance however it appears to be a metallic surface.

The 'silver' of most Command Modules (save for the Skylab CM's as you noted above) is a covering of relatively narrow strips of what I recall to be highly reflecitve mylar, definately giving it the appears of a bare 'metal' finish (as a kid, I thought this outer surface was some type of relatively light stainless steel shell of some sort). These strips of material can be seen burnt off and hanging in small, torn sections on many CM's during recovery operations in the ocean.

Earl