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box car paint scheme

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, December 17, 2017 11:51 AM

Firelock76
Here in the Richmond area CSX and NS don't seem to do either, there's railroad bridges here that haven't been painted in decades.

Newer brisdges around here are usually that darker red oxide color. Amtrak used to paint their bridges silver (complete with logo).

Then there's the people that complain about CorTen structures being "rusty".

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Sunday, December 17, 2017 12:51 PM

zugmann

Then there's the people that complain about CorTen structures being "rusty".

 

We're starting to see some commercial buildings constructed with panels made out that type steel, sort of pre-rusted. They look like h...... (They look bad.) 

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, December 17, 2017 1:54 PM

Murphy Siding
zugmann

Then there's the people that complain about CorTen structures being "rusty".

We're starting to see some commercial buildings constructed with panels made out that type steel, sort of pre-rusted. They look like h...... (They look bad.)

One of the unintended consequences of the Clean Air Act and its successors.  When levels of available sulfur in the atmosphere are too low, the COR-TEN oxide layer (at least for A242, and perhaps for A606-4 and A588) doesn't form with proper strength.  As other components in the alloy are intentionally reactive to speed the oxide film formation, both mechanical damage (USS calls it 'weather damage') and acid rain keep trying to 're-form' the oxide layer, at the expense of course of the underlying metal.  You get not only the splotchy mottling but increased attack into the sections.

Architects and engineers who didn't know the chemistry involved, but thought the Rust Fairy had been blinded by clever metallurgy, were caught short.  Their 'response' has been to pre-rust the panels with the right admixture of pollutants, then install them as noted 'pre-rusted', sometimes with a layer of something containing the right ions sprayed on so joints or field mods can 'heal'.

I now note that a lunatic firm has something called "COR-TEN AZP Raw" which is a high-tech coating applied over plain old Galvalume to give that rusty, splotchy '70s effect.  De gustibus non disputandum est... but who would pay extra to get that effect?

 

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, December 17, 2017 2:05 PM

Really? Thats weird.

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Posted by Semper Vaporo on Sunday, December 17, 2017 2:34 PM

Murphy Siding
zugmann

Then there's the people that complain about CorTen structures being "rusty". 

We're starting to see some commercial buildings constructed with panels made out that type steel, sort of pre-rusted. They look like h...... (They look bad.) 

Several years ago, we had a new bank building downtown that was made of pre-rusted metal.  It was supposed to never rust beyond that state, but the panels shed a lot of the rust in rainstorms and it stained the sidewalks around the building, which prompted the city to threaten lawsuits to get them cleaned.

The bank make light of it in their advertising, with:

"Its big, its rusty and its yours."

I responded to them with:

"If it was mine, I'd paint it."

The sidewalks still have a rusty brown cast to them.

 

Semper Vaporo

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Monday, December 18, 2017 7:04 AM

CShaveRR

We have both silver and black bridges (as well as the "undecorated", or "too-long-ago-decorated" type) here at the Crossroads.  

The newest big bridge involving railroads is blue.  It stands out, for sure!  

We are due to get a couple of new bridges (expanded, really, but involving plenty of new steel) on our main line when they add a third track for the portions of the line that have only two.  Or perhaps the new girders will be pre-stressed concrete.  We should know in a year or so.

 
I assume that you mean South Shore's new bridge over Torrence Avenue and the NS (ex-NKP) main.  I'm used to black, gray, boxcar red or silver on bridges, so that blue really catches your eye.
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Posted by tree68 on Monday, December 18, 2017 10:08 PM

Overmod
... but who would pay extra to get that effect?

Probably the same ones who will pay a fortune for boards off an old, dilapidated barn...

 

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Posted by dehusman on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 7:35 AM

Murphy Siding
Just a slight disagreement- I don't think yellow and black together would make green.

Don't disagree with me, find Peabody and Sherman, borrow the Way-back machine and go argue with the people who published paint formulas back in the 1800's.  

Or....

just mix some yellow and black paint:

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 8:00 AM

dehusman
 
Murphy Siding
Just a slight disagreement- I don't think yellow and black together would make green.

 

Don't disagree with me, find Peabody and Sherman, borrow the Way-back machine and go argue with the people who published paint formulas back in the 1800's.  

Or....

just mix some yellow and black paint:

 

For real? We were taught that mixing the primary colors of blue and yellow gave us green. Now you're making me doubt the usefulness of my elementary education? What’s next? Are you going to tell me that ‘new math’ was just a passing fad?

And how come Mr. Peabody never just up and smacked Sherman and told him to put a cork in it?

 

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Posted by tree68 on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 8:19 AM

Murphy Siding
We were taught that mixing the primary colors of blue and yellow gave us green.

And indeed, they do.  But many dyes and paints are actually a mix of colors (just like your inkjet printer), resulting in blacks that will fade to other colors.  Look up fiber reactive dyes (used by tie dye enthusiasts) - you get several options if you want black dye.

With dehusman's example, it's clear that the black pigment doesn't overwhelm the blue in the paint.

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 9:00 AM

I'm just going to tell myself that yellow and black combined make dark yellow. Whistling

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Posted by kenny dorham on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 9:03 AM

Yeah, Lamp Black (to name one) ran VERY Blue.

Ergo....... Smile

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Posted by wjstix on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 9:25 AM

tree68
 
Murphy Siding
How could you tell? Every photo I've seen of those was black and white?

 

Well, there were colorized (tinted) photos...

It is a curious problem, though.  We rarely think of how colorful things were "back in the day."

I've found evidence that my house was once painted peach, or something close, with brown trim.  Actually sounds rather attractive.

 

 
Also, railroads kept records of what paint they bought, and had specifications of how freight cars, passenger cars, depots, water towers, etc. were to be painted.
 
Plus, it's not that hard to tell a light colored car from a dark one in a black and white photo, although knowing exactly what colors were used is difficult without other info. For example, it was discovered in the days of black and white TV that under studio lighting, pale green actually looked whiter than white - pure white tended to look light gray.
 
When artificial paint became common in the 1860's and 1870's, people kinda went nuts painting things. I recall an old episode of "This Old House" where their research showed that a Victorian era house they were working on had originally been painted in something like 13 different colors! Of course, the house had a base color, but there were many different shadings of trim colors.
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Posted by Euclid on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 9:26 AM

 

If you mix black and yellow and get green, then your “black” was not black.  It was dark green.  Colors can be neutralized and/or blackened to resemble black, while still being a true color.  But true black is at the dead center of the color wheel, and it is completely neutral, and contains no color.  So if you mix very dark green with yellow, you get a lighter green.  If you mix true black with yellow, you get a lighter yellow. 

 

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Posted by dehusman on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 10:17 AM

Euclid
If you mix black and yellow and get green, then your “black” was not black.

Don't care what you say, pick any black paint you want and mix it with yellow, you will get an olive green.  Try it.  The formula used in the 1800's mixed "lamp black" (which is NOT blue) and mixes it with yellow to get a green. You can argue all you want that its dark yellow, but if you show a swatch to 100 people on the street they will tell you its green.

Euclid
If you mix true black with yellow, you get a lighter yellow.

Nope, you get a darker color.  If you mix white with a color you get a lighter color.   

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Posted by dehusman on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 10:25 AM

Murphy Siding
or real? We were taught that mixing the primary colors of blue and yellow gave us green.

Why do you think "Pullman Green" is a dark olive green?  Its because that's a stable color made from two stable, cheap pigments. Same with olive drab.  Very cheap, stable pigments.  Blue pigments tend to be expensive and tend to fade easily.  Carbon black doesn't hardly fade.

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 10:31 AM

wjstix
For example, it was discovered in the days of black and white TV that under studio lighting, pale green actually looked whiter than white - pure white tended to look light gray.

Not to mention that (due to characteristics of nitrate emulsion) the makeup used for 'white' faces in early silent films was actually yellow.

I think Euclid has fallen foul of a couple of fallacies: first, that actual pigments represent positions on a color wheel, particularly 'true black' as an intersection of CMY (which of course is why there's K in that system, but I digress), and second, that the old tale about 'putting a few drops of black in white to make it seem whiter' applies to other colors.  Homeopathic colorimetry is little better science than phrenology, at least in my opinion.

The interesting thing about this, to me, is that I'd have thought lampblack would be just about as good a common absorber across the visual spectrum as anything (someone please find and provide an actual absorption spectrum for it, please; I don't have the patience), so the olive would be a characteristic of the yellow pigment used as the black component absorbed more and more of the broad-spectrum light.  Or there is preferential absorption of other wavelengths with re-emission in the range producing composite 'olive'.  See this article for some further ideas.

More to it than grade school principles, that's for sure!

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 11:21 AM

Duck,duck,goose.

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Posted by kenny dorham on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 11:36 AM

Not sure if it applies to day, but......when we needed a "Real Black", we had to order Drop Black or Mars Black.

As i said earlier, Lamp Black is Very Blue. So it follows that if mixed with "Yellow", it would give you a Dark/Dirty Green. Of course, that all depends on the yellow. Is it going Blue or going Red.

It is very hard (expensive) to get components, into paint, that reflect the true colors of The Rainbow. "Nobody" grinds color anymore. A lot of Dark/Bright Color house paint is damn near colored varnish, or at best, a Neutral Base that the squeeze colors can hit real hard.

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Posted by Euclid on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 11:57 AM

dehusman
 
Euclid
If you mix black and yellow and get green, then your “black” was not black.

 

Don't care what you say, pick any black paint you want and mix it with yellow, you will get an olive green.  Try it.  The formula used in the 1800's mixed "lamp black" (which is NOT blue) and mixes it with yellow to get a green. You can argue all you want that its dark yellow, but if you show a swatch to 100 people on the street they will tell you its green.

 
Euclid
If you mix true black with yellow, you get a lighter yellow.

 

Nope, you get a darker color.  If you mix white with a color you get a lighter color.   

 

  Yes I mis-stated the effect of mixing yellow and true black. It results in a darker yellow. 

However, my point about not getting green from mixing black with yellow is accurate with true black.  Whereas your choice of "any black paint you want" is likely to be a black paint that is a mix of colors and not "true" black. 

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 1:24 PM

kenny dorham
Not sure if it applies to day, but......when we needed a "Real Black", we had to order Drop Black or Mars Black. As i said earlier, Lamp Black is Very Blue.

When used as a pigment, lampblack can have a bluish tone, although I certainly wouldn't say 'very blue'.  This appears to be an artifact of how the physical pigment material was made, as pure carbon lampblack is a reference blackbody material.

Ironic, perhaps, that magnetite (the material Mars Black is made from) is what produces true gun blue.

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Posted by kenny dorham on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 3:21 PM
I realize Colors and Descriptives can be quite subjective, but.......Let me put it this way. Most people would think that a little Black into White makes a light "gray". I would bet that most people would be shocked if they compared the gray tone of a little Raw Umber Vs. a little Lamp Black into white. Lamp Black, at least to a painters eye, goes "Very" Blue.
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Posted by Firelock76 on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 5:04 PM

Fascinating the direction this is going. Maybe we'll discover the secret of "Brunswick Green?"

Maybe it was more than "...two parts black, one part green..."

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Posted by SD70Dude on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 5:35 PM

Firelock76

Maybe it was more than "...FIFTY parts black, one part green..."

Fixed it for you.

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 6:02 PM

Firelock76

Fascinating the direction this is going. Maybe we'll discover the secret of "Brunswick Green?"

Maybe it was more than "...two parts black, one part green..."

 

Well, maybe that's two parts black, one part black and one part yellow.  Clown

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 8:19 PM

Murphy Siding
 
Firelock76

Fascinating the direction this is going. Maybe we'll discover the secret of "Brunswick Green?"

Maybe it was more than "...two parts black, one part green..." 

Well, maybe that's two parts black, one part black and one part yellow. Now which black to use depends, I guess, on what the meaning of 'is' is. Clown

Always featured it was 10 gallons of black mixed with 10 ml. of yellow.

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Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 8:25 PM

Brunswick Green is locked in a vault along with KFC secret recipe, the  Coca-Cola formulae and the last stages of making BabyBels. We can guess, we can come close but we cannot get the authentic!

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Posted by zugmann on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 8:35 PM

..and is there a difference between Brunswick Green and DGLE*?  The world may never know.

 

* - Dark Green Locomotive Enamel

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Semper Vaporo on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 9:19 PM

BaltACD
 
Murphy Siding
 
Firelock76

Fascinating the direction this is going. Maybe we'll discover the secret of "Brunswick Green?"

Maybe it was more than "...two parts black, one part green..." 

Well, maybe that's two parts black, one part black and one part yellow. Now which black to use depends, I guess, on what the meaning of 'is' is. Clown

 

Always featured it was 10 gallons of black mixed with 10 ml. of yellow.

 

Well there's yer problem... mixing English with Metric!

Semper Vaporo

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Posted by tree68 on Tuesday, December 19, 2017 11:17 PM

wjstix
For example, it was discovered in the days of black and white TV that under studio lighting, pale green actually looked whiter than white - pure white tended to look light gray.

Blue was a color choice for men's shirts for B&W TV.  Or maybe that was early color TV...

Those old enough to remember the show "Car 54, Where Are You?" may recall the trivia regarding the patrol car Toodie and Muldoon drove.  While NYC police cars were in reality green and white, the show car was red and white, so it wouldn't be confused with the real thing.  On B&W TV, they looked the same.

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There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

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