What Black is Black?

[Richard Phillips]

Apart from Black, what colour black (RAL, NCS, Pantone, RGB, BS or other colour sytem) did you paint your main locomotive frames?

I can tell you one thing, Volvo's Signal Red is not Pheonix Precisions Signal Red - but is it the BS 381 537 Signal Red?

Since everyone in preservation seems to paint the inside of their BR standard frames red (and I assume Signal Red) is it okay to on a model ?- and is Bufferbeam red (on a BR standard) more orangey than that?

... or is Halfords Satin Black, black, or Humbrols Number 21 Gloss black the same black as the railway companies used to paint their underframes.....?

...or in other words, why can't I just order some Black paint, rather than Jet Black, graphite black, gloss black, coal black, blue black etc etc etc

[Alan Wood]

Yes black is strange everyone seems to have a different shade. As for reds the buffer beam colour is different to the inner frame colour , and in full size they only painted red where the motion work was.

[Eddyg]

Richard,

You've really opened up a can of worms now. I must have spent hours - no weeks discussing paint colours on locos over the years.

There isn't an answer. If it looks right to you, someone will tell you it's wrong, and what they think is right you will doubt. Fact is none of the livery colours was consistent. Pre BR the painters often mixed there own, so it was down to personal judgement, and even paint manufacturers can't guarantee the colour (see the batch number warning).

It would be great if someone was to do the research and publish a book with the RAL numbers for every steam loco livery, but I doubt anyone would take on such a task even if there was definitive information out there.

Eddie

[Richard Phillips]

Richard,

You've really opened up a can of worms now. I must have spent hours - no weeks discussing paint colours on locos over the years.

There isn't an answer. If it looks right to you, someone will tell you it's wrong, and what they think is right you will doubt. Fact is none of the livery colours was consistent. Pre BR the painters often mixed there own, so it was down to personal judgement, and even paint manufacturers can't guarantee the colour (see the batch number warning).

It would be great if someone was to do the research and publish a book with the RAL numbers for every steam loco livery, but I doubt anyone would take on such a task even if there was definitive information out there.

Eddie

I don''t mind before I order paint being told I'm wrong, but this sort of thing only happens after painting...! Where are all the experts when the machining is being done?

Anyway, I need to find a paint code for black. An hexidecimal RGB value of 000000 would do me, but what that is in RAL or any other standard used to mix paint I don't know - as "moonshine black" or "blackberry black" means different things to different manufacturers. What is the chromacity/luminance, CMYK value? Who knows? The guy with the paintbrush on the shop floor in the 50's probably didn't either!

Essery gives some examples of LMS paint mixing instructions for Bauxite on wagons, involving various substances so I suspect it was all pretty variable - especially once it weathered down.

The problem with manufacturers is they probably won't give out their research data so I can take colour values and get someone else to mix up paint to that specification. After all the work is in the research I suppose.

Here's a useful little website:

http://scalemodeldb.com/paint" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If only they had railmatch and Pheonix paints on them (or even a full Humbrol range)

I remember the days when Airfix tinlets were 25p! (and I'm not that old!)