Recent Bachmann GWR wagon grey?

[sp1]

A few recent Bachmann purchases (shunters truck, brake van, cattle wagon) all have a very dark, almost black, finish: I have read a great number of posts on paint colour, so am aware of the differences due to prototype paint mixing methods, the effects of fading etc, but this appears very dark compared to some other wagons in my collection and precision/ railmatch etc paints that I have used on kits.

 

Is this colour too dark?

[DKGL]

Not too sure regarding the current Bachmann Grey, but having a number of both kit and ready to run items, in many different shades, I tend to give a light spray of Dark Earth to all. Seems to give a more uniform shade.

[57xx]

I can't say I've seen any of the new Bachmann stuff in person, but from the pics I've seen, it doesn't look any darker than the Phoenix GWR Goods Grey I use. have you got any pics of your stock side by side for comparison?

[sp1]

I can't say I've seen any of the new Bachmann stuff in person, but from the pics I've seen, it doesn't look any darker than the Phoenix GWR Goods Grey I use. have you got any pics of your stock side by side for comparison?

I will try to sort out some pics at the weekend (and working nights at the moment)

[Andrew Bartlett]

#

 

 

 

Although the real thing evidently needs a repaint, you can still see the general colour and I'm pretty sure that would be an accurate livery. The difference is quite shocking. The Bachmann Mogo is much darker and with the grey roof really does contrast the real one. 

 

Being a GWR modeller myself, I have only began to question the GWR wagon grey recently. I am a propriety buyer, sticking to Bachmann, Hornby or Dapol wagons and when you put Dapols version of the GWR grey together with the Bachmann, it looks plain stupid- particurlarly with prestine wagons. 

 

Here is a comparison between a Dapol and a real one:

 

 

 

The difference speaks for itself really.

 

So generally, I think that Dapol wagons are considerably too light and almost have a sort of slate colour while Bachmann wagons are probably more accurate to the colour but come on the other end of the 'spectrum' and are probably too dark as you have said. 

[Il Grifone]

 

The van (MINK) is more the shade I aim for on my wagons. The white seems too bright however. Modern paints tend to have whitening agents in them, which would not have been present in GWR paint - white lead, (Now someone will tell me they still use it!). In service the white roof would have gone grey/black quite quickly, though photographs show light coloured roofs to have been more common than generally supposed.

 

EDIT

 

For typos

[bécasse]

The main factor in the darkening of white roofs was the chemical reaction between the white lead oxide content in the paint and hydrogen sulphide in the atmosphere (which converted the lead oxide to lead sulphide, which is pretty much black).

 

The rate at which this happened depended on the concentration of hydrogen sulphide in the atmosphere which varied considerably, although it was always very low - just as well as it has a noxious smell and is highly toxic (interestingly it effectively loses the smell just as the concentration level becomes deadly). It was a component of town gas and, in particular, carriages regularly stabled anywhere near a gas works would gain darkened roofs very quickly. On the other, carriages which habitually worked on a country branch line not serving a gasworks would remain more or less white for quite a long period - unless, that is, the branch was bordered by a lot of marshland because marshes produce hydrogen sulphide too.

 

The issue of smuts from locos is really a red herring with rain washing most of their effect away, heavy rain though actually speeds up the hydrogen sulphide reaction.

[garethashenden]

You really shouldn't be using preserved wagons as a colour guide. They use modern paints and Didcot at least paints them intentionally darker so that they won't look faded too soon.