That elusive Bosun Blue.........

[mackem01]

Looking at a potential build for an upcoming GB and the colour above has made an appearance. I believe this was mixed in the field so there would be some variation,

but would anyone like weigh in with an approximation of I need to mix, or does anyone do it, or is there a close rattle can equivalent?????? Questions, questions!

 

T.I.A......

[sanguin]

I claim no knowledge about paints or any of the technical stuff about colours, hues, reflectance and the other variables that some of our far more learned members can deploy.

However my personal view of Bosun Blue is a very dark blue that would appear to have been darkened using either black or very dark grey mixed into the basic blue.

If this makes sense, a deep blue is still clearly seen as blue but Bosun Blue is a dark colour that appears to be blue.

Also it does not appear to have any obvious green tones present.

 

If I need to mix it I add drops of black to any dark blue until it satisfies my eye; utterly unscientific but I suspect that is what happened at squadron level.

I would be delighted if any other members could  make any better suggestions using a less empirical basis to describe the colour.

 

John (who despite the astigmatism and short sight apparently has good colour vision when looking at blood cells and bacteria down a microscope).

 

Edited July 29, 2018 by sanguin

[Troy Smith]

15 hours ago, mackem01 said:

the colour above has made an appearance. I believe this was mixed in the field so there would be some variation,

but would anyone like weigh in with an approximation of I need to mix,

Previous thread on the colours, with a model by @tonyot

 

 

here's the mix

Quote

I came across the correct paint mix for the blue applied to the well known Hurricane Mk.I, V7101 which was converted for PR use over Sicily and mainland Italy. It was painted in a dark blue colour concocted from " five gallons of De Lux Bosun Blue, seven pints of turpentine, 16 lbs of zinc powder and 3lbs of De Lux Black". 

HTH

[sloegin57]

Purely an observation but I have often wondered when reading about the use of "De Lux Bosun Blue" paint, if the name "De Lux" is not a misinterpretation/misunderstanding/misspelling of the familiar trade name "Dulux", formed in the mid 30's I believe.  I can find no trade name De Lux anywhere.

 

Just an idle thought waiting for wood glue to dry........

 

Dennis  

[Graham Boak]

I wonder what would have been the effect of the zinc powder?  A matting agent? That's quite a large weight in proportion to the paint.

[VH-USB]

3 hours ago, sloegin57 said:

Purely an observation but I have often wondered when reading about the use of "De Lux Bosun Blue" paint, if the name "De Lux" is not a misinterpretation/misunderstanding/misspelling of the familiar trade name "Dulux", formed in the mid 30's I believe.  I can find no trade name De Lux anywhere.

Dulux was DuPont's trade name for their enamel paints. Their lacquer paints were called Duco.

Back in the 1930s General Motors offered a Dulux color called 'Boatswain Blue' which does sound rather like 'Bosun Blue'.

I spent many decades spraying cars with Dulux and Duco paints.

 

Tim

[sloegin57]

1 hour ago, VH-USB said:

Dulux was DuPont's trade name for their enamel paints. Their lacquer paints were called Duco.

Back in the 1930s General Motors offered a Dulux color called 'Boatswain Blue' which does sound rather like 'Bosun Blue'.

I spent many decades spraying cars with Dulux and Duco paints.

 

Tim

Thanks for that heads up Tim.  Bosun, is of course, an RN term for Boatswain - and probably in other Navies as well.  Looked up the colour as follows:-

 

Hex colour code - 212d4e

Comprises - 12.94% red, 17.65% green and 30.59% blue

 

thanks again

 

Dennis

 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

22 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

I wonder what would have been the effect of the zinc powder?  A matting agent? That's quite a large weight in proportion to the paint.

Hi Graham, I expect that would be zinc white pigment in powder form. Mixed in those proportions with black paint that will result in a fairly dark neutral grey which would have the effect of desaturating the proprietary Bosun Blue paint to a duller version of itself.

 

I have to say the colour values for Bosun Blue which are linked to in the thread Troy in turn linked to above raised an eyebrow. They are rather "theoretical" in have a brilliance to the blue whilst being almost black in light reflectance value. Whilst theoretically possible in colourspace getting real pigments to give a paint so vibrantly saturated whilst being so dark as to appear almost black might be questionable. If they are accurate though, then it looks like Bosun Blue could be made from Ultramarine and Black - the blue they result in has a strong reddish bias.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

17 hours ago, sloegin57 said:

Thanks for that heads up Tim.  Bosun, is of course, an RN term for Boatswain - and probably in other Navies as well.  Looked up the colour as follows:-

 

Hex colour code - 212d4e

Comprises - 12.94% red, 17.65% green and 30.59% blue

 

thanks again

 

Dennis

 

 

 

Those colour values sound more credible. I don't speak hex codes but the code converts to the more tangible CIELAB coordinate system of L=19.014 a=6.041 b-21.918

 

CIELAB is a 3-axis Cartesian coordinate system. It's easiest to think of the L-axis as the vertical one and the a-b axis plane as horizontal.

L=0 is theoretical black whilst L=100 is theoretical total reflectivity. The a-axis and b-axis are theoretically limitless but practically bound by visible light, and the practical bounds are different in each direction. The a-axis runs from negative being green to positive being red, with the b-axis running from negative being blue and positive being yellow.

 

L=19 a=6 b=-22 is a very dark, reddish but fairly vibrant blue

 

That sounds like a substantially Ultramarine based paint to me.

[Fernando]

Hallo, everyone,

 

My guess was always "a colour very similar to Roundel (dull) Blue". I feel it has the exact amount of desaturation. In most pictures of Hurricanes so painted it barely discerns if at all from the top wing roundel; a thin Yellow ring deemed necessary to separate them.

 

Fernando

Edited July 31, 2018 by Fernando

[LotusArenco]

On 7/31/2018 at 12:22 PM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

On 7/30/2018 at 1:49 PM, Graham Boak said:

I wonder what would have been the effect of the zinc powder?  A matting agent? That's quite a large weight in proportion to the paint.

Hi Graham, I expect that would be zinc white pigment in powder form....

Zinc oxide used in paint manufacture is extremely heavy (specific gravity when made into oil paint of about 3.2? IIRC, the zinc oxide alone is about 4.5 SG).

 

Mart

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

2 hours ago, LotusArenco said:

Zinc oxide used in paint manufacture is extremely heavy (specific gravity when made into oil paint of about 3.2? IIRC, the zinc oxide alone is about 4.5 SG).

 

Mart

 

As some here will know we've faffed about for quite a while remaking old RN paint samples using these base ingredients. What's always surprising is that despite the fairly massive relative bulk of white pigments weighed in, a relatively tiny amount of strongly staining pigments such as carbon or lamp black, ultramarine, chrome green etc can shift it to an impressively dark colour. E.g. a 10-1 ratio of white to black will result in a very dark grey.

 

This was so much so that when scaling down the RN's recipes each intended to make a hundredweight of paint, we scaled the formulae based upon how accurately we could weigh in a few grams of black on the digital precision balance. The sensitivity on getting the strong staining pigments right at very small quantities was such that we still needed a good 100g or so of zinc white for each.