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Thunderbird 3 colour?


RobertF

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Hello all,

I don't want to open the proverbial :worms: on the subject of the "correct" colour, but does anyone have any suggestions as to which paint (brand, number) to use on Aoshima's beautiful Thunderbird 3? Their box sides examples are far to reddish for my liking.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Robert

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When I built mine I used Halfords Peugeot Seville Orange over a white primer which I was told by "the experts" was the closest you could get to the studio model. If you look at TB3 carefully it is more orange than red so this worked for me.

 

DSCF8052.JPG

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Halfords Peugeot Seville Orange was the color consensus over at EagleTransporter.com, a site devoted towards Anderson.

 

Sadly that does not help me much since that brand is not available here in the US.

My TB-3 kit is slightly stalled- scribing lots of sub paneling. When it gets to painting stage I plan of capturing a PMS color from several screen grabs and having a custom mixed color made at a local paint store.

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Kallisti, thanks for your quick reply.  That colour does indeed look like a perfect match.

 

Halfords does have a few stores in the Netherlands, but not close by where I live. I hope they also do mail/website orders for paint. If not, Richard's idea sounds like a good alternative if Richard, you're willing to share that PMS colour in due time.

 

Thanks chaps!

 

 

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I will be glad to share the info!

Most paint stores here can match to a sample with their scanner or to a PMS spec, then load the paint into a rattle can if you wish.

Due to pixel variations in the samples, I will grab about a dozen and average. Right now I am in the early stages of the Zvezda ISD build, but if the TB-3 color information is needed soon I can get that determined earlier, just let me know.

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You may want to check an automotive store in any case, I'm sure Peugeot sell cars in the USA and there might be an alternative brand that does it, Halfords is a UK company but I'm sure this colour paint is sold in other countries.

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The Halfords website states that " The Halfords Peugeot 'Seville (Red Orange)' car spray paint is an exact match for the Peugeot codes: PQF, 670 & 3189. "  With that information, you could go and try get one of these paints at an Peugeot outlet.

 

Having said that, I'm not too keen on using automotive paints as those have never worked for me (that's probably due to me, not the paints) so I would prefer using an different kind of paint.

 

And as my TB-3 is almost next in line for the paint shop, Richard, I'd like to take you up on that kind offer to speed up the colour determination, but only if that does not inconvenience you too much. 

 

Robert

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ADDITIONAL: according to my local car dealer, the codes in my earlier post are not so much Peugeot paint codes as they are more general automotive paint codes. In other words, (one of) these codes should enable you to have the correct paint mixed at any paint store capable of mixing custom paints. 

 

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FWIW  If you look at the very nice colour photo on the aoshima tb3 and launch bay box you will notice it's a mixture of orange with red panels ....this is key to getting the colour to look right . TB3 looks orangey red because it's a mix of orange and red patches . It's very subtle but also the best way to paint it IMHO .... I added a top coat of tamiya transparent yellow to male it pop and unify the effect

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sadly my main computer at home blew a motherboard so my library of images is not available for a while.

I did use the computer at work to search out stills from the show (not relying on painted replicas right now.

I did some sampling for the more evenly parts of the hull and got a number of RGB values-

Best equivalent to Pantone seems to be either PMS #1788c or 'Warm Red c'

 

One limitation to the Pantone system is that it does not cover every color- it steps through a range instead. It was originally designs for mixing printer's inks and was the standard for printing color communication for years.

 

I am taking further samples and will post the raw data (R/G/B) values here next week

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Sorry to hear about your computer, Richard. I hope your image library will be accessible again. I had the same problem a few years ago, after which I set up a backup of all my photos and other valuable (well, to me, anyway) files on an EDD. No pc crash has occurred since then, but it did wonders for my peace of mind..

 

Since my last post in this thread, l asked my local Peugeot dealer paint shop to mix up 500ml to the specifications of the PQF code. This colour is known here as Talbot Orange (I suppose Seville was the UK name of the Peugeot Talbot). It is an acrylic paint, airbrush ready provided you use an airbrush as used in the car industry, but it can be thinned with water.

 

I brushed it on a piece of scrap plastic to see how it turns out. It doesn't dry as quickly as the model acrylic paints, but leave it overnight to harden and it dries to a nice matt with a very slight sheen. It needs to be sealed with a varnish. That's what we do as a rule anyway, so no problem. When compared to the colour images I have of Thunderbird 3, it's exactly that reddish orange of the original, as Kallisti of course already said.

 

I could not resist trying to get that same colour by mixing some orange and red hobby paints  and a 60/40 mix of Revell 30 and Xtracolor X104 (FS12197) comes very, very close. So a model paint alternative is available if the PQF paint can't be found.

 

No prizes for guessing what I will be doing between Christmas and New Year's Day! :D

 

Thanks for all your replies chaps!:yes:

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Really looking forward to seeing how the test comes out!

 

I have been building computers since the old 486DX2 days- one thing I have sadly learned is that technology fails, you just do not know when. I have kept my library files on a separate drive, should be no loss. I just need to save up for a new Motherboard/CPU/RAM to get things going again...

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Be well interested, just picked up Bensmodelworld TB3. so am looking forward to cracking on with that and will use this for inspiriation :)

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Now that is some impressive work!

 

The Thunderbirds are some difficult shapes to get right- they look simple to a casual glance but when you get right down to the compound curves and proportions they are very hard to match. Aoshima is the first mass production company to get TB-3 correct- and I have seen a lot of kits over the years. The UNCL kit I have is pretty much dead on- so much so that Product Enterprise(AKA Sixteen/12) recast for their uber-expensive replica with launch silo (IIRC about 3K worth of display)

 

Ben's Model Woreld editions are wonderful and appear perfect- I want to see your buildup when you get that Thunderbird rolling!

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