UP Armor Yellow in Craft Paint

[dbduck]

Can anyone suggest an acrylic craft paint color or mixture that would closely resemble UP's Armor Yellow.

I a wanting to paint a few boxcars to be weathered  so an exact match is notabsolutely necessary

[Wolf359]

I painted some Athearn/Globe passenger cars in UP colors around a year or two ago, and I used Model Master 2954 Dark Yellow. It's an enamel though, and I don't know if it's available in acrylic, or if you can even still get it as Testors is discontinuing the Model Master line. However, according to this paint chart, http://www.microscale.com/Floquil%20Color%20Chart.pdf Testors does make a substitute numbered 2118 Deep Yellow, but it only comes in enamel.

[snjroy]

I'm not good with colors, and I'm not good at mixing paints... But I get close matches taking pictures of the paint with my cell, and going to the craft store to buy samples. You need to go to a higher-end craft store to get a good selection. Find 2 or 3 bottles that are close, buy them (they are so cheap), and paint them on strips of wood, let dry and compare.  Considering the territory, the prototype colors probably get pale under the sun, so it does not need to be a perfect match with the UP "shop" colors.

Good luck.

Simon 

[Overmod]

Be sure that you have checked discussions in places like RyPN where highly technical and often far worse than rivet-counting threads about things like Reading Railroad green can carry in for many pages.  And, search engines sometimes being oddly literal, that you try with the correct spelling of the color name -- it is Armour Yellow.  Remember the meat-packing firm?

Far more important than getting the 'out-of-the-shop' color precise is understanding how the color weathers over time, and how various conditions of cleanliness or environment can affect it.  The green paint on the P&LE A-2-A Berkshires is a complex and interesting example, and there are a number of notorious paint schemes that rapidly weathered or changed, making the results of spectrophotometric measurement of a 'reference' sample far more meaningful than plugging in the associated Pantone code or LAB value for the original paint or its manufacturing code.

Much has boringly been written about how cellphone pictures of a color that are then fed into a paint-mixing system by scanning the cell-phone screen are, to put it gently, potentially far from accuracy.  This before we get into all the fun involved with ambient light, etc. both when a picture is taken and when we mix paint that will likely only be seen in weird model train room lighting...

[SeeYou190]

Delta Ceramcoat "Straw" will probably meet your needs.

Hopefully it is easy to find where you are.

Good luck, let me know if I got it right.

-Kevin

[Overmod]

SeeYou190

Delta Ceramcoat "Straw" will probably meet your needs.

Very likely a color with such a name will suffer from the 'issue' described in Don Strack's pages, where UP responded to someone wanting the 'official' RGB value for Armour Yellow "from the horse' mouth".  Part of the reply:

 If you were to take the actual paint sample and did a color spectrograph of the paint to exactly match RGB or ink color you would be disappointed. The "real" Armour Yellow is actually a mustardy-chartreuse color that would look sickly on the calender photos or on a Web site. When locomotives are in the sunlight on the tracks, our eyes "correct" the yellow and they appear more how we visualize them in photographs.

 Now it's pretty obvious to me that the color 'value' for use on models, in typical train rooms under typical layout lighting, will have to reproduce the visual effect... not the colorimetry from the du Pont or Pullman standards or cards.  The fun part there is going to be 'standardization' of that value across manufacturers, or by consensus.

[dknelson]

Another thing is that it is striking, if you take enough pictures of Union Pacific locomotives and passenger cars, or any one railroad's rolling stock for that matter, how many different shades of the colors appear even in the same photograph.

So don't obsess about it.

Dave Nelson

[SeeYou190]

Overmod

Very likely a color with such a name will suffer from the 'issue' described in Don Strack's pages

The OP simply wanted this:

dbduck

Can anyone suggest an acrylic craft paint color or mixture that would closely resemble UP's Armor Yellow. I a wanting to paint a few boxcars to be weathered so an exact match is notabsolutely necessary

I replied this:

SeeYou190

Delta Ceramcoat "Straw" will probably meet your needs. Hopefully it is easy to find where you are. Good luck, let me know if I got it right.

He did not ask for this nonsense:

Overmod

If you were to take the actual paint sample and did a color spectrograph of the paint to exactly match RGB or ink color you would be disappointed.

I hope he lets me know if my suggestion was good enough or helpful.

If you know of another acrylic craft colour that is as good, or even better, please make your suggestion, as the OP stated, it just needs to be close.

-Kevin

[Overmod]

SeeYou190

If you know of another acrylic craft colour that is as good, or even better, please make your suggestion, as the OP stated, it just needs to be close.

Thus is of course both correct and the 'right' approach.

 I would repeat, though, that any color that actually resembles 'spectrophotometrically' or otherwise what UP paints on their engine is -- as UP representatives, not me, said -- not going to produce the effect of 'Armour Yellow' the OP likely wants to get... weathered or not. I will have to look around Hobby Lobby in the next day or so as my daughter is coincidentally out of paint, and see what looks best.

EDIT: I suspect the answer is going to involve judicious mixing of a couple of the standard craft-paint yellows rather than one shade being 'close enough' unless you have a really large section of different craft paints.  And yes, the lighting in the store may not give you a good idea of the actual color... wet or dry.

[dbduck]

I have since been experimenting with colors I already have...

Deco Art Americana's  "Saffron Yellow"    Ceramcoat's  "Burnt Umber"  & "Medium Foliage Green" (very close to BN green)

I have come up with a color that works for now...airbrushed it  lightly over existing UP car to give it a faded look

[SeeYou190]

That looks very good. I think you have what works.

Congratulations on the nice weathering work.

-Kevin

[dbduck]

SeeYou190

Delta Ceramcoat "Straw" will probably meet your needs.

Hopefully it is easy to find where you are.

Good luck, let me know if I got it right.

-Kevin

 

 

Well I went to the local Hobby Lobby Tuesday afternoon...this is what I found

But I did see a spot for  "Straw"

[dbduck]

SeeYou190

That looks very good. I think you have what works.

Congratulations on the nice weathering work.

-Kevin

 

Thank you for the kind words

[kasskaboose]

I agree that finding the exact color is difficult since we all see color slightly different.  It seems you have to reach the "good enough" stage and move foward.  Curious what the manufacturers use.

[dbduck]

i am sure they have a lot more time & money invested into color matching...and to be honest, I would not know how accurate they may be. I have never  held up a model next to a actual locomotive, boxcar, etc

[dbduck]

kasskaboose

I agree that finding the exact color is difficult since we all see color slightly different.  It seems you have to reach the "good enough" stage and move foward.  Curious what the manufacturers use.

 

i am sure they have a lot more time & money invested into color matching...and to be honest, I would not know how accurate they may be. I have never  held up a model next to a actual locomotive, boxcar, etc

[FlyingScotaman]

This looks as though it may be just the very ticket.

http://railfonts.com/Reference/paint_cross.pdf

[FlyingScotaman]

At a glance this has more explanation.

https://dokumen.tips/reader/f/railroad-paint-ohio-bo-blue-bando-imron-35hd-864664-42p-2012-wabbo-monticello