From: Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...> Subject: Re: Paint, not as simple as it looks
Amen to all that, Garrett. Why modelers persist in seeking the holy grail - i.e. the same EXACT color as the prototype - in spite of all the uncontrolled variables that affect the appearance of color on a model - just baffles me. Get a clue, guys. Painting models and getting the color to look right on your layout is an art, and no amount of research will tell you how to do it (it may help, but only slightly).
If you have a consistent group of paint chips you can tell if, for example a given Mineral Brown is redder than the same shade on a different railroad. This will help get the approximate differences right. As for the rest, yes you do have to use your eyes.
Discussions of which SP cabooses had orange ends in what years are fine, but splitting hairs about what color orange was used is an excercise in futility, not to mention a waste of everybody's time and bandwidth.
At least without a common reference. A Panatone color number or the like would be cool!
From: Anthony Thompson <thompson@...>
Bruce Smith bravely wrote:
Oh, sure, Bruce. These directions usually say something like "40 lbs. best quality iron oxide" or "1 bag standard copper verdigris" etc. etc. Lotsa luck. I'm not so sure the old drift cards are as hopeless as you surmise. They were, after all, meant to survive and if properly stored in a black envelope, may well have done so. Now of course if you really knew the chemistry of a century ago, fine, but I'd hate to stake much on it.
All the books are still available, so yes we do. Of course I'm a nut case, I use boiled linseed oil that was cooked and doesn't have the Japan driers added ;) I admit that I don't worry to much about exact color matching, I use the cheap craft paints from Michaels and add black or white if I need to change a hue!
