Matching Paint

[Anonymous]

Several years ago I bought a box of "old", and I do mean old kits from a friend.
The box contained 20 or so Model Die Casting freight car kits manufactured in the 1950s. They are made of pot metal, require some filing to remove flash, use Kadee #4 couplers, etc. The car sides are painted, the ends and roof areas are not. The colors don't seem to be any standard Floquil, or Scalecoat colors. I have not found a way to match these colors as yet. I should say that the kits are mostly boxcars and refers. I suppose I could paint the roof and end areas on the refers boxcar red and let the sides speak for themselves, but I don't believe that would look right on the boxcars. The "boxcar red" car sides aren't even close to the colors we use for boxcar red or mineral red today.
Any suggestions? I'm all ears.

[wp8thsub]

How successful you are depends to some extent on how proficient you are at color perception. I keep a stock of varied colors around, like boxcar red, oxide, rail brown, Tuscan, along with plain white, black, red, etc.

Matching pre-decorated cars can usually be accomplished by mixing two or more colors after first spraying the closest pre-mixed color onto part of the model. Compare the result to the factory paint. Is it browner, redder or something else? If it's too red, throw a few drops of brown in, if it's too dark try some white and so on. I can usually come up with a color that matches almost perfectly after a few tries, but have learned not to expect much until I've messed around for a while. Sometimes I drop paint into the mix with a piece of scrap rail to avoid mixing in too much once I get close. Start off with the mix in the airbrush jar a little too thin anticipating you'll be adding more straight paint as you keep fine tuning.

If you really can't match exactly, sometimes it works to mist a very thin version of the paint you used on the pre-painted parts of the car to help blend everything. Once the car is weathered the minor differences should disappear.

[Anonymous]

Excellen thoughts, Rob, thank you. One question, however. You mention a "thin version of the paint you used on the pre-painted parts of the car". I am trying to match the paint SOMEONE else used, 50 years ago, on the prepainted part of the car. If I had some of that paint, or knew the mix to match it, I'd be home free.

[jrbarney]

Consider that the cars may have been painted with then popular 410M or some other brand that has been discontinued in the past 50 years. I don't know of any articles that give the correct mix in current brands to match 410M. Does anyone ? I think you have a lot of trial and error mixing ahead. Good luck.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543

[DSchmitt]

A little weathering can help match slightly disimilar colors. Also some prototypes have ends and roofs that are not the same color as the sides. While this was more common on reefers it was true of some boxcars too. Another option is a complete repaint.

[wp8thsub]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ebriley

You mention a "thin version of the paint you used on the pre-painted parts of the car". I am trying to match the paint SOMEONE else used, 50 years ago, on the prepainted part of the car.

Sorry if that part wasn't entirely clear. What I meant was to take the paint you used full strength on the ends, roof or wherever and thin it way down. Then spray the thinned mixture over the pre-painted parts of the car to disguise the fact that the 50 year old paint isn't an exact match for yours. After that, finish with weathering.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Rob. I think I failed to mention that the car SIDES are factory painted. So who knows what was used. It may be something that was mixed up at MDC way back then. I like the near match followed by the thinned mixture over the factory paint followed by weathering. If it doesn't work I guess "complete repaint" isn't a bad idea.

One good thing about these old metal cars.....you don't have to add weight!