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covered hopper grays
Ed Hawkins
On Sep 16, 2019, at 11:03 AM, Eric Mumper <eric.mumper@...> wrote:The last email about this subject did not provide a lot of responses which I kind of figured on as it is really obscure.
Let me try this another way: If you have painted a covered hopper gray from the steam era, please respond with what paint you used and the model it was used on. Any other information included with the response would be appreciated.
Eric,
I don’t know if this will be of any help, but here goes.
About 30 years ago I obtained permission from ACF to cut slivers from larger paint samples that are glued to the inside covers of bill of materials documents. In the mid-1990s these documents were donated to the Barriger National Railroad Library, part of the St. Louis Mercantile Library on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where they are available for viewing.
I lined up 17 gray paint samples that pertain to 1958 cu. ft. covered hoppers on the scanner glass & scanned using an Epson V100 scanner. The ACF lot number & railroad or company reporting marks are shown.
While I believe the scanner has done a “credible" job, however, there are some hues that the scanner hasn’t picked up accurately. In particular lot 3376 SSW has a slight olive cast that I don’t see in the scan. The Lot 2963 BM sample appears to my eye as battleship gray, but the scan has a darker hue. I cannot explain the differences in the hues seen in the scan vs. actual.
There are 8 more paint samples of 1958 cu. ft. cars that I don’t have in my possession, but they are in the bills of materials (the Barriger Library calls them "Lot Books"). These include lots 2430 SHPX (same as lot 2412), 2458 L&N & 2490 NC&StL (same shade of color bordering on olive), 2597 CG, 3102 DPCX, 3143 KSMX, 3302 GM&O, 3475 RI.
A few more available paint samples include ACF triple covered hoppers lots 2833 SSW, 2841 T&P, 3193 M-I.
That these same paint samples appear vastly different (much lighter) when taken outside & viewed in natural light, especially in bright sunlight.
Perhaps this will provide at least some idea to the relative differences of light, medium, and dark gray shades as denoted in my RP CYC Vol. 27 captions. All of this, of course, doesn’t taken into account any scale affect that will cause the color used to appear darker on a model.
Regards,
Ed Hawkins
Tom Madden
One of my duties at the rapid prototyping (3D printing) company where I spent the last 21 years of my work life was developing pigment and dye recipes so our cast resin parts would match customers' samples. Much of our output was housings for telecommunications or computer equipment. With few exceptions the customers wanted gray, but each wanted theirs to be different from anyone else's gray. We developed over 2200 color recipes, over half of which were various shades of gray ranging from deep charcoal to off-white. The bulk were mid-range grays, many indistinguishable from each other unless compared side by side in strong lighting. And as Ed says, they looked very different depending on the lighting,and also whether they were glossy or matte.
Tom Madden
Tom Madden
Back in the 1960's I worked as a color matcher for a major paint supplier, and one of the colors I was asked to match was a gray for Western Maryland covered hoppers.The color standard the WM used for this was a color from the Federal Color Standards book. This was a light gray and, unfortunately I can no longer the Federal color number. .Based on this experience, I suspect that other railroads also used Federal colors as the basis for their freight car colors. So, this may be another source for matching freight car colors and olne I have not seen mentioned on this Group.
I do have a Bowser HO WM covered hopper and the color seems pretty close to the WM color standard in my memory. Also,, remember the paint vehicles used back in the 50's and 60's were not particularly light stable ( Cheap was the name of the game), and colors often weathered rapidly once exposed to the elements.
Jim Kubanick
Morgantown WV
On Monday, September 16, 2019, 4:09:17 PM EDT, Tom Madden via Groups.Io <pullmanboss@...> wrote:
One of my duties at the rapid prototyping (3D printing) company where I spent the last 21 years of my work life was developing pigment and dye recipes so our cast resin parts would match customers' samples. Much of our output was housings for telecommunications or computer equipment. With few exceptions the customers wanted gray, but each wanted theirs to be different from anyone else's gray. We developed over 2200 color recipes, over half of which were various shades of gray ranging from deep charcoal to off-white. The bulk were mid-range grays, many indistinguishable from each other unless compared side by side in strong lighting. And as Ed says, they looked very different depending on the lighting,and also whether they were glossy or matte.
Tom Madden
Tom Madden