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A basic GWR paint question.


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Precision Paints are unavailable in the USA and cannot be mailed.  I managed to pick up "Railmatch" paints on previous UK visit. Humbrol lists a GWR/BR green which is available thru Canada.  So, opinion please. Is the Railmatch GWR green a sufficient improvement of the odd Hornby green color?  Compared with Humbrol???  Or must I wait until I return to Oxford & Howes.

 

Thanks

 

George

North Carolina

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Yes the Railmatch is a big improvement on the Hornby shade, BUT I found the shade still a little light, so (after undercoat)), it was improved it by a quick blow over with gloss black before the first coat of green - but all my locos end up slightly weathered.

Edited by bike2steam
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Precision Paints are unavailable in the USA and cannot be mailed.  I managed to pick up "Railmatch" paints on previous UK visit. Humbrol lists a GWR/BR green which is available thru Canada.  So, opinion please. Is the Railmatch GWR green a sufficient improvement of the odd Hornby green color?  Compared with Humbrol???  Or must I wait until I return to Oxford & Howes.

 

Thanks

 

George

North Carolina

 

Are there car accessory shops in the states that mix paint to match a swatch, like Halfords do over here? Others may be available.

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Wait until you get to the UK.  Railmatch are acrylic, whereas Precision and Pheonix etc are oil based.  Oil based paints seem to take weathering that bit better even if you want to do "dirty turps" weathering.

 

You just have to be careful which varnish to use on top - I now try to use Testers Dullcote after accidents with "alternatives" such as the Rustoleum varnish.

 

But That's my opinion.  I really don't get on with acrylics and weathering powders.  Some people do.

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Games Workshop acrylic paints are worth experimenting with, Caliban Green or Warpstone Glow may work. Vallejo Game Colors Dark Green and Sick Green are the equivalents.

 

Badger Modelflex acrylic paints, Railroad Colors, are excellent paints but of course for US liveries but one of the greens may be suitable.

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I'd like to know as well.  I've had a Humbrol HR104 GW green tinlet, for ages which is ideal but its getting old.

 

Brian.

That is a great match.  I still have half a tin. Shame that they stopped producing it.

 

There are a couple of others on here who have a tin hidden away.

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There is a list of alternative Vallejo paints you can use on this forum but I can't find it to give the link.

 

Some one reading this might know it's location  

Edited by 81C
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I put up my suggestions for Vallejo Air basic colours for GWR liveries but I've not tried the green in anger.

 

It's here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/108209-gwr-1927-non-corridor-bow-end-stock/page-5

 

Although there is probably a neater way to link to it!

 

I have found with the dropper bottles it's fairly easy to adjust the mixes in a repeatable way (so long as you write down what you used of course).

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Yes the Railmatch is a big improvement on the Hornby shade, BUT I found the shade still a little light, so (after undercoat)), it was improved it by a quick blow over with gloss black before the first coat of green - but all my locos end up slightly weathered.

 

I use Railmatch GWR green a lot (the enamel, not the acrylic). If anything I find it a bit dark. But I like it. Colours would vary depending on what sort of lighting conditions prevail; under an overcast sky with rain in the offing they'd appear darker than on a dry fine summer's day. Humbrol RC405 GWR/BR green is acrylic; never tried it, did find some Humbrol enamel a long time ago which matched with Hornby Dublo BR(W) green but not sure if was a railway colour or Brunswick Green. If you want to try paint available in the U.S. then Brunswick Green would be a good starting point.

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Did the GWR mix their own paint ? How consistent was the green colour on their locomotives ?

Most companies mixed their own paint according to published formulas, however there were invariably inconsistencies depending upon the raw materials and skill in measuring quantities. GWR green has a chrome cast to it. The Brunswick green I once bought over here was nowhere near GWR green.

 

As an artist I try to never mix more than two colours as it is then repeatable, more than two and you can never get a repeatable shade.

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Did the GWR mix their own paint ? How consistent was the green colour on their locomotives ?

 

They all would have done.

 

It was all mixed to a formula and pretty strict guidelines of undercoats, rubbing down, amount of coats and varnish. There may be slight variations, but I doubt there was any substantial differences.

 

There was a guide somewhere that had all the weights of the ingredients. It was along the lines of take 10 lbs of x and add 20 lbs of y, etc. 

 

 

 

Jason

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 GWR green has a chrome cast to it. The Brunswick green I once bought over here was nowhere near GWR green.

 

 

Brunswick Green and GWR Green do not match.  Neither does British Racing Green, which I have seen suggested elsewhere.

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Western Chrome Green is, as the name suggests, made with chrome powder. In real life, it's not very nice stuff, as my nose can testify. Depending on how the paint is 'let down' will give you either a darker or lighter hue. White lead or other oils are the main ingredients. Chrome mixed in with the pigment is quite hard wearing, as the metal is held in suspension.

 

In my early foundry days, a lot of labourers had 'corroded nose', where inhaling the stuff rots away the membrane between the nostrils, leaving a large cavity above the roof of the mouth. Happily, you can't get stuff like that any more!

 

Cheers,

 

Ian.

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GWR green was not Brunswick Green. There will be a paragraph on this in the forthcoming HMRS book on early BR SR liveries. The author states:

"A group of slightly bluish greens was assigned the name “Brunswick” (qualified as “light”, “mid” and “deep”), based on the name of the part of Germany where the pigment associated with the colour was first produced. The 1948 edition of BS 381C: “Colours for ready mixed paints”⁶ allocated numbers 225, 226 and 227, respectively. These greens do not represent GWR or British Railways Standard Locomotive greens. Both GWR and BR greens contain more yellow in the pigment mix than represented by the Brunswick greens and the author understands that the GWR colour upon which BR based their choice of green was properly known as middle-chrome green.
This of course was the green adopted by BR."
And although in earlier days the railway companies mixed their own colours, in more recent years they bought in paint from a number of manufacturers which produced it to the railway company specification. By Nationalisation this was the rule, and of course new types of paint were coming into use.
And the comments about lighting are apposite. You need to paint your models under the same lighting as you use to light the layout, and preferably the same kind of light distribution - direct, diffuse etc.
Jonathan
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I use Railmatch GWR green a lot (the enamel, not the acrylic). If anything I find it a bit dark. But I like it. Colours would vary depending on what sort of lighting conditions prevail; under an overcast sky with rain in the offing they'd appear darker than on a dry fine summer's day. Humbrol RC405 GWR/BR green is acrylic; never tried it, did find some Humbrol enamel a long time ago which matched with Hornby Dublo BR(W) green but not sure if was a railway colour or Brunswick Green. If you want to try paint available in the U.S. then Brunswick Green would be a good starting point.

 

My first attempt at matching HD green was with Humbrol Brunswick Green on a gloss finish Duchess (many years ago!). At the time I thought it close enough - in any case, it was better than the bare metal. Later, when they introduced their railway colours, I found the GWR Loco Green (HR104) a perfect match for the green on my 'Bristol Castle.

 

I understand that the use of 'Brunswick Green' for BR green was to avoid admitting that the colour was actually GWR 'Middle Chrome Green'*, just as the later LMS style 'Crimson Lake' was described as 'Maroon'. (This was OK with the Western Region as the GWR had used this colour in the past though proper chocolate and cream was preferred and they introduced several named trains to justify its use.)

 

* Post-war paint had a different composition from pre-war, but there is no reason for the actual colour to have changed.

 

EDIT Removed a spurious 'i' from Humbrol (finger trouble!).

Edited by Il Grifone
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One thing which makes a big difference is the undercoat. As these changed through the years there may have been a significant effect on colours such as Crimson Lake and the various greens in use.

And on crimson, from the same source as the info in GWR/BR green, 

"The chosen colour was BS No. 540. In the 1948 British Standard 381C: “Colours for ready mixed paints” colour No. 540 was given the name Crimson. BR officially referred to their colour as Crimson Lake."

Jonathan

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One thing which makes a big difference is the undercoat. As these changed through the years there may have been a significant effect on colours such as Crimson Lake and the various greens in use.

And on crimson, from the same source as the info in GWR/BR green, 

"The chosen colour was BS No. 540. In the 1948 British Standard 381C: “Colours for ready mixed paints” colour No. 540 was given the name Crimson. BR officially referred to their colour as Crimson Lake."

Jonathan

 

I believe this was the colour used for carriages up to the mid fifties (often misnamed carmine, which it is actually more like IMHO). The later colour was 'maroon' to pretend it wasn't the old LMS colour.

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GWR green was not Brunswick Green. There will be a paragraph on this in the forthcoming HMRS book on early BR SR liveries. The author states:

"A group of slightly bluish greens was assigned the name “Brunswick” (qualified as “light”, “mid” and “deep”), based on the name of the part of Germany where the pigment associated with the colour was first produced. The 1948 edition of BS 381C: “Colours for ready mixed paints”⁶ allocated numbers 225, 226 and 227, respectively. These greens do not represent GWR or British Railways Standard Locomotive greens. Both GWR and BR greens contain more yellow in the pigment mix than represented by the Brunswick greens and the author understands that the GWR colour upon which BR based their choice of green was properly known as middle-chrome green.

This of course was the green adopted by BR."

Yes, Brunswick green is definitely bluer than GWR and BR green. My understanding is that BR green actually changed in 1956 to Deep Bronze Green. This was a very similar shade to GWR green but made use of new pigments that had been developed by ICI.

 

The picture below purports to show the various different shades of green under discussion together with GWR/BR style lining.

 

02_BR%20Colours.jpg

 

1. Deep Bronze Green (BR post-1956)

2. Middle Brunswick

3. Middle Chrome (GWR and BR until 1956)

4. Middle Bronze

5. Olive

6. Deep Brunswick.

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JUst another quick question about paint ...

 

There are definately some models that have a glossy finish to their paintwork and some are matt. My question is .. in the STEAM eras what would the finsih be, especially era 2, - most images from that era are (obviously) B&W so would be dificullt to tell.

 

Thanks

Victor

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JUst another quick question about paint ...

 

There are definately some models that have a glossy finish to their paintwork and some are matt. My question is .. in the STEAM eras what would the finsih be, especially era 2, - most images from that era are (obviously) B&W so would be dificullt to tell.

 

Thanks

Victor

Historically, there's no such thing as 'era 2'. Presumably you are referring to what Bachmann call the 1875-1922 period? These dates don't mean much anyway, as liveries overlapped these dates.

 

Locomotives (and coaches) were usually finished in gloss varnish, which probably lost its shine with the regular, sometimes daily, cleaning done in those days on locomotives (WW1 excepted). Oils were used to put a shine on after, but it probably only lasted for the day...

A satin finish would look better on a model as gloss is usually far too shiny to look realistic.

Edited by Coppercap
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Up until WW1 a lot of railways kept their locomotives very clean with brasswork well polished, and so on. Precisely what was "gloss" varied. The Cambrian, my own interest, had the boiler & firebox "gloss", but seemed to use a more matt finish for the smokebox and possibly the footplate. Go on to the mid 1930s say, and the better kept locomotives are still clean, but the liveries in general were more subdued; what you actually got depended to some extent on which sheds had the time and inclination to clean their locomotives, although the star turns would be clean.

 

Trouble is such finishes don't readily translate to models; to my mind gloss finished models look awful. Satin would be better.

 

For my GWR 1930s I use Railmatch GWR green, which gives a dull but smooth finish, not a real shine but not matt either.

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