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British Olive Drab No15


Yeoman1942

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4 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

and contains a a sheet of printed chips,

And there's your problem.  Replicating paint with printing ink, although it can certainly be done.  But how well?  And +/- 3% of what??  A 3% shift in any of the individual colours will give a very different outcome.  How do you measure the colour at 100%?

 

I used to buy portable photographic equipment for MOD and we had software to adjust the colourisation of printed images to match precisely the digital image on very expensive screens.  Don't ask me how it all worked because that must surely depend on the exposure of the original image: I only paid for it!  Very important for recce and evidential photos: less so for PR.

 

AK certainly went round looking for known original paint to scan, as was done for the Jadgtriger and King Tiger repaints at Bovington from items in the archive collection.  Tiger 131 was matched to original paint found in various areas that had never been repainted, which is how they knew she hadn't been painted in the later scheme with the darker disruptive colour.  But colour matching back then was not as advanced as it is now.  I guess we've all at some time or another chosen house paint from a shade card or a sample pot and then realised we don't actually like it on a large expanse.  Says he, sitting in an orange study .............. (which I do like - but I'm wierd).  And this is where people talk about scale adjustment of colour.  There used to be rules of thumb for the distance at which a real object should be viewed from in order to match the model at a shorter distance.  I'm sure they're still out there: the distances at which they look the same size.  Which is fine and dandy if you happen to have a reference object in original paint that you can view from the correct distance.  For anything that has been repainted, all comparative bets are off.  As the models absorb less light, the paint should be a slightly lighter shade than an exact match to compensate.

 

I'm afraid that when someone says to me about a model colour "that's not right", the only sensible response (assuming it isn't actually completely the wrong colour) is "and how exactly do you know this, and to what are you comparing it?" (other answers are available!).

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1 hour ago, Das Abteilung said:

I'm afraid that when someone says to me about a model colour "that's not right", the only sensible response (assuming it isn't actually completely the wrong colour) is "and how exactly do you know this, and to what are you comparing it?" (other answers are available!).

Exactly.

Here are two good reasons why museum exhibits should be treated with extreme caution. Comet and Centaur at the Saumur museum.

7d4d88ae-eb52-4a23-9bde-e08734b86a31.JPG

941ab6fe-d661-466a-bd34-63843a066772.JPG

 

Their Matilda is suspect also.

 

John.

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18 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Comet and Centaur at the Saumur museum.

7d4d88ae-eb52-4a23-9bde-e08734b86a31.JPG

 

Ah, now I know where Matchbox got the paint scheme for their Comet kit from,  that how mine was painted in 1979,  from the kit instructions!   Makes me feel a lot better 🤣

Even looks like those black rubber tracks...

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18 hours ago, Das Abteilung said:

Despite the claims, many of AK's Real Colours are decidedly dodgy.  Their G3 is far too brown, for example, and their Desert Pink is almost salmon.  I believe that AK did not necessarily listen to everything their panel of experts told them.

 

The actual truth of the colours are the colour chips in an original copy of BS381C, which Mike S has worked long and hard to replicate with reference to surviving original paint on artefacts.  These are rarer than rocking horse poo.  I have held an original and have a scan of it but, for all the reasons I mentioned further up, that cannot be trusted.

 

SCC15 was a green, not a true olive.  US OD was made from mostly yellow and black pigments.  I've been looking to see what the base pigments for SCC15 were, without success.  It was probably a yellow/blue mix as we still couldn't get true green pigment in 1944.  As for the Hataka colour, it looks about right to me.  There are several SCC15 vehicles at Bovington, but how many are untouched original paint is another question.  The Mk1 Centurion is a strong contender.  Of course the colour from the pot and the final colour after finishing vary according to how you finish your models.  Compare these "before and after" photos of Hataka SCC15 on the rather substantial "what if" Tortoise: acres of paint.  Same camera and lens, same settings.  Different light, though - so not truly comparative.  But the right hand one matches well to the finished model by eye.

 

baf1EvL.jpg  yrkSzuV.jpg 

 

A56wsJm.jpg?1NB - not entirely trustworthy 

 BTW I took some track link photos at Bovington yesterday.  I'll post some once I've sorted them out.

 

Bovington is not always reliable.  A couple of years ago I was there trying to get an idea of what SCC 2 looked like.

 

I got talking to one of the curators and he told me that sadly I shouldn't rely on the colours in the museum.  He said that things were getting better but in the past it was common just to get a team of cadets to use whatever paint was available.

 

He said the only be sure would be to remove a tool box and hope for original paint underneath.

 

After all, the Matilda at Bovington is the source of so many inaccurate caunter scheme paint recommendations.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

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1 hour ago, Das Abteilung said:

And there's your problem.  Replicating paint with printing ink, although it can certainly be done.  But how well?  And +/- 3% of what??  A 3% shift in any of the individual colours will give a very different outcome.  How do you measure the colour at 100%?

I have no idea.  

book intro says

Quote

the chips that appear in he book, even though they are not painted with real paint(which would increase the complexity  of the publishing process) are highly controlled and calibrated in the most precsie way, under the current and most modern parameters of of printing and technology to match the original colors.

The tolerance of the colors in the book is +/- 3%

 

there is then stamped "quality control" and a signature in pen.

 

I just had a google to see if I could find comment from any of the authors, I did find this

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/missinglynx/ak-real-german-colors-disappointment-t58055-s20.html

 

Might have to see if Mike Starmer's books with chips are still available

Ah, after some searching, found thiis thread, and this

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/track48/ak-interactive-real-colors-t10663-s20.html

Quote

Regarding the AK book.  To be honest I am livid and disgusted at the way they published the British section.  My submitted original text was requested to be shortened, which I did.  They then edited that without my knowledge. I sent complete sets of camouflage diagrams with copies of the official orders.  These orders were totally ignored.   Then redrew some of the disruptive diagrams in their own style and colours transposed onto mostly American vehicles, apparently the British didn't have any of their own.  To cap it they then applied a disruptive pattern from one tank type onto another type, it doesn't fit of course.  The ultimate was putting the pattern for the Greek based A10s onto a Crusader which never carried the design nor deployed to Greece.  Samples of their paint were sent to me for assessment.  None were accurate, not even close, which I reported back with larger samples.  New samples then arrived for testing, still not right.  In discussion I discovered that they were matching under 'daylight' lighting!  FGS are they not sharp or what?  I gave them up as a waste of my time, I told them that too.  Rant over.

posted 20 days ago

 

Jeez, wish I'd seen this before buying the book.  Still, good to know when something is cobblers, amazing this info is not better know on the net.

 

I'm getting echoes of Pilawskii here...  (Soviet Airforce colours..another story)

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I always read colour discussions  in the context of model forums with a degree of puzzlement.

 

I think from an overall historical research perspective that colour discussions are interesting and to some degree move the ball up the field. 

 

When you’re debating the accuracy of a colour match to +- 3% in the context of a model paint then perhaps things are getting a bit over complicated. 

 

With models and especially armour and to a degree Aircraft builders will use all manner of techniques to apply and then manipulate the paint that applied. From pre-shaded base coats  post shading effects, filter washes, pastel weathering ad infinitum. All of which effect the supposedly accurate base colour. So if the initial paint is broadly in cooee of the correct colour in all practicality you are good to go aren’t you?

 

Add in the fact that on a forum any model will be viewed by a image taken on a camera and then rendered on a screen...

 

Does it just become a bit of an academic debate rather then a practical one???

 

 

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1 hour ago, Plasto said:

When you’re debating the accuracy of a colour match to +- 3% in the context of a model paint then perhaps things are getting a bit over complicated. 

this is in regard to the printing of color chips in a book, which is claiming to be a color guide.   That said book is now being shown to have serious problems by one of the authors, AND is responsible or a line of "accurate paints" that are not is the point in question, and while I was aware of problems with the paint i wasn't with the book.  https://www.track-link.com/forums/site_blogs/33527  

Quote

Date:Dec 22, 2017 (03:17:25)

From:Mike Starmer

On the subject of AK paints. I have 7 samples of the Middle East colours for the desert and Italy. Greatly disappointing. Only Light Mud is reasonably close to the appearance of this in photographs but currently lacking a standard would do. Khaki Green 3 is far too light and ginger, lacks depth and the green tinge of the original. Slate 4 is too light and green, should be darker and more grey, Silver Grey 28 is not even close, being too light and very sickly yellow. Portland Stone is too light and lacks the slight green tinge it should have. Light Stone 61 is too dark and too red, Desert Pink is a bright shocking 'girly' hue nothing like SCC.11b , should be duller and earthy in appearance. SCC.14 Blue-black is dark but too red.

Colourcoats Khaki Green 3 is too light and far too green. It should be deeper hue and more brown 

 

1 hour ago, Plasto said:

So if the initial paint is broadly in cooee of the correct colour in all practicality you are good to go aren’t you?

yes, but that's the nub,  getting a correct-ish basic colour.   

When the information on colours is wrong,  or misunderstood,  then you are starting from the wrong place.

 

Examples that have come up are the continued use of Humbrol 30 for RAF Dark Green, 

the lasting influence of the fantasies of Erik Pilawaskii on VVS colours, 

years of incorrect colour info on Royal navy camouflage,  of which @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies  has been doing some fascinating work on,  and then producing paints for,

and the world of USN blues

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235049797-us-navy-sea-blues/    Note also here the link to AK INteractive, and their incomplete USN colors..

 

Or Zero grey,  of the persistence of AVG P-40's having grey undersides.... or British armour colours, or even here the fascinating story of what tank tracks actually look like colourwise      and then how it changes.  

 

1 hour ago, Plasto said:

Does it just become a bit of an academic debate rather then a practical one???

it's an academic debate with a practical application.   

What you take from it, and do with it is up to the individual,  but being able to start from correct information is something many modellers appreciate. 

Sure, it can lead to some OCD geekiness, but in the right hands, a model that is going to a better representation of how the real thing would have looked.   

It should be noted that in Robert Mikesh book on "Restoring Museum Aircraft"  he says that if you want to get the details right for a restoration modellers are good people to ask.....  

 

 

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Or as one leading tank modeller told our club, tanks are always either olive drab or sand, and then you cover them with dust, so you don't have to bother with all these colours...   Agreed, those were simpler days. 

 

I agree with what  was said initially.  Discussions on paint colours are something of an academic subject in themselves, but they do move the model ball up the field - over the years I've been modelling I'd say quite a considerably long way up the field!  And as long as new references keep coming out and fouling up, it isn't time to stop moving yet.

 

I'm not sure how to define colour accuracy to any given percentage - when would a colour be 100% wrong?  Answer: when it isn't right to the history, as well as that is known.  Different people  have different abilities at determining even tiny differences in hue.  They will also have different guidelines when it comes to moving from the history to the model.  And this will depend upon how much work they are prepared to put into it.  (Not to mention how good they are.)  And if you do shovel washes and filters and weathering onto a model, it will help to disguise the underlying colour.  But not every one does, and some of those that do restrain themselves.  Not everyone is converted by the Verlinden method, nor the Spanish School.

 

The bottom line is that if a model isn't capable of representing the difference between G3 and SCC15, or indeed SCC15 and US OD, then it doesn't matter whether you call the difference 4% or whatever, the model isn't doing a very good job of representing its subject.  Not all modellers consider that as important as creating something "artistic", but some do.

 

(Started before Troy posted, but I think it different enough to stand.)

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On 1/19/2019 at 3:26 PM, Das Abteilung said:

Now, I find myself wondering if the UK ended up making mild steel tracks for training tanks and reserving the manganese ones for operations, especially perhaps with the heavy links on the Churchill. 

Of course, if I'd had my brain working when I spouted this random idea I would have realised that mild steel tracks would not remain shiny for long anywhere except the wear points and would have rusted very easily unless constantly oiled all over: a significant maintenance chore, especially with otherwise dry-pin tracks.  It would be essential to avoid the mating surfaces and pins rusting up when parked up.

 

So - leaving aside the actual colour for a moment - bright metal tracks like the Churchill photos posted earlier must be a rust-inhibited alloy such as manganese steel.  But it does surprise me that the tracks are still so bright overall noting the extent of wear on the spuds I pointed out.

 

I tend to agree with Bullbasket on paint colour consistency.  But in other discussions on the same sort of subject I have been assured by others that wartime paint in various nations - even Russia - was carefully controlled and inspected and that off-colour mixes were rejected.  Something I find staggeringly hard to believe in the middle of a war.  Close enough would certainly have been good enough.  You can't tell me that 49,000-odd Shermans and 60,000 or so T-34/76s were all exactly the same colour shade as their brethren.  I suspect that the USA was probably the most consistent because of their highly-developed automotive industry and advances over there in nitrocellulose paints, spray paint technology, bake hardening etc.  Germany of course had a highly developed chemical engineering industry and this was the time when commercially manufactured paint in ready-to-use cans was becoming more commonplace.  But elsewhere a lot of batch-mixing from dry pigments and an oil base still went on.  I believe the British supply system of the time specifically identified ready-to-use paint as such. 

 

And while the colour might be "right" on the day of manufacture, variations in quality of ingredients would almost certainly men different weathering in use.  And then we come to chemical oddities like the authorised mix of Russian 4BO green apparently darkening with age rather than fading because of chemical changes in the pigment used.  How many artistically-faded T-34s do we see?  Now, whether all the T-34 production facilities used identical paint mixes with identical ingredients between 1940 and 1945 is hugely open to question.  And no-one knows.

 

Linseed oil based paints would have a natural sheen and not be matt, which obviously also changed their reflectance and therefore the visible perception of the colour.  When we talked earlier about color shifts during finishing, even varnishing your model prior to or during the finishing process(es) will alter your eyes' and camera's perception of its colour.  A matt varnish will tend to lighten it while a gloss will tend to darken it.  And we will often use both at different stages.

 

Remind me again why we chose this as a relaxing hobby ...........................

 

PS - I knew that Mike S had reservations about what AK had done with his input as he'd told me as much privately.  But I hadn't seen the quotes extracted above showing the extent of those reservations and the extent of AK's ignorance/arrogance.  And of course people looking at their website and the book will think he has endorsed the products - which he clearly does not.  I did buy most of the AK British Real Colours and a couple of others, fortunately at a discount, but took one look inside the bottles, fished out out Mike's booklets and came to the same conclusion as Mike about the colours.  They went straight on eBay....

 

But AK are not the only guilty party.  I bought the Ammo MiG Commonwealth Sherman paint set in the Bovington shop.  On the outside it lists 6 named British colors against MiG product numbers.  But they changed 2 of their paint colour names - which is really naughty.  Of course I didn't think to check the numbers: why would you?  Surely no paint manufacturer sells the same paint with the same stock number under 2 different names?  Well apparently MiG does.  Inside the box the Slate turned out to be RLM Grau and the Light Stone turned out to be their generic Sandy Yellow.  So apparently close enough-ish really is good enough - especially for making money.

Edited by Das Abteilung
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I've been looking at the track photos I took at Bovington at the weekend, but the colour is very difficult to capture and I only had my camera phone.  I don't think that any of them really add to what we've seen already.  I was looking for those most relevant to the original A13 question.

 

I have 2 colour scanner apps on my phone so I thought I'd see what they told me.  Firstly they were fooled by the range of colours.  When I did manage to get them to focus on the spuds they both told me "silver" and the main link colur as "grey".  Hardly either accurate or infomative.  I've just tried them here at my desk: my oak-effect desk is apparently Olive and my very black mouse is apparently Chocolate.  Those are going in the "deleted" bin...........

 

Here are the A13 tracks, front and rear.  This vehicle hasn't moved for years (2009?) so the wear points have lost their sheen.  But that means you can see oxidation process at 2 stages: the main link oxide is 79 years old (track links dated 1940) whereas the spuds are perhaps 10.  Someone has scratched off a little patch of the oxide in the left picture but you can't really gauge the colour from that.

oIDorKX.jpg  HIwIU6S.jpg

 

These are the similar tracks, but much more worn, on the Crusader.  This vehicle has been run more recently but not I think for a couple of years now, so the spuds are more polished.  Don't be fooled by the main link colour: that's arena mud.

tuQva2l.jpg  3HS4bAz.jpg

 

These are the Cromwell's tracks.  This vehicle hasn't moved for about 10 years either but the surface is a bit brighter than the A13's

SyDOZP7.jpg  0KkliPn.jpg

 

But the best impression of the colour is still the massive links on the Tortoise, which again hasn't moved for several years but the spud surface remains polished even after this time.

o9lrPyh.jpg

 

For a bit more info here are the A10, M4 T62 type and WW1 MkV tracks.  US all-metal tracks were broadly similar in colour to British, and the T62 type there captures the colour quite well.  Note that the WW1 tracks were made from face-hardened plate (as were some other pressed types like those on Char B ) and so were solid brown.  These wore to a polished brown, again never silver or graphite as so commonly depicted.  How can you possibly get a silver finish on solid brown metal?

XkaZz2f.jpg   f1wPkXL.jpg

 

qgPNsF2.jpg  xNXB2mY.jpg

 

 

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This is picture of freshly milled manganese steel plate might be of help.

 

The outer of the plate has an oxide layer formed from the steel milling process.

A casting or forging would also develop a outer oxide layer. 

 

On in these plates the ends are not oxidised showing the base material colour. Which seems to be common to a lot of austenitic steels. Of which Hadfield / manganese steel is one...

 

 

31914458447_64b93168e1_b.jpg

 

https://www.westyorkssteel.com/manganese-steel/

 

HTH

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Interestingly if we look around we can dig out what a fresh manganese steel track casting looks like..

 

39898397203_079c7753fd.jpg46811002472_9fb6005270.jpg46138095484_38811f5deb.jpg46863012271_7520672741.jpg39898397253_67b70ffef4.jpg

 

Not dissimilar to the manganese steel plate image posted earlier... a greyish outer oxide layer. Where the casting have been dressed the oxide layer is removed and we can see the base metals natural colour which to me looks to be a standard steel.

 

 

if we compare to a ww2 period photo in colour...

 

46803186251_257e5bc687_b.jpg

 

so to me... The period image of the Churchill looks to have tracks that are a greyish metallic colour on the main part of the track link casting... The contact cleat which does the majority of the track to ground contact is a polished steel colour.

 

This to me looks to be consistent with the modern track casting images above...

 

Whats happening to the track mechanically is, as the link passes over the ground the cleat contacts the surface and the surface abrades the material... Over time this wears through the oxide layer on the cleats surface exposing the base material of the link which depending on the surface being run on may polish the cleat to quite a high shine... If the track is left inactive over time the surface oxidises again. Given the iron content of the steel the oxide forming will be an iron oxide.

 

The IWM colour image set of the Churchill depicts tanks in training in the UK.

 

45948863825_e0f960f04e_b.jpg

 

The reality is these tanks would be being run daily and I’m picking were less than 12 months old. So we have new equipment being used frequently. Which is probably true of the majority of contemporary WW2 Images.. 

 

These period original colour images seem to show the same thing track wise...

 

45948863735_db56da67dd_b.jpg

 

46863252771_0179d16585.jpg

 

 

45948863615_533fb67343.jpg

 

Now I don’t know if in WW2 the link castings for the track would have had a protective paint coat when supplied. I’m guessing in a war time economy probably not. So probably they were fitted in the raw casting state and wore from that point once in service.

 

 

What this image of a museum exhibits show.

 

46078107614_9672db469c_b.jpg

 

Is the links have heavily oxidised since manufacture. As the tank is infrequently run the oxide layer on the cleat while polished is not completely removed.

 

if we look at this image of a ww2 era tank that’s been run extensively in the current day...

 

31922298347_ca0d5545eb_b.jpg

 

Looks to give an identical look to the contemporary ww2 images...

 

My take from this in a modelling context.

 

1. A metallic grey is correct for unworn links on new tanks

2. Polished or bright steel cleats are ok.

 

 

HTH

 

Edited by Plasto
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Noting all of the foregoing on this page, I can assure you that there is not one single tracked vehicle of any vintage from any nation from Little Willie to CR2 at Bovington with silver metal tracks: even 1945 German.  And that's over 300 from a wide range of nations and manufacturers.  I'm not talking oxide.  I'm talking the native colour of the base metal, which will be the same colour today as the day it came out of the foundry.

 

So maybe I'll start painting brass parts silver because they're shiny too.  That will attract comment!!

 

The period photos above are all colour-shifted with green tones.  The Centaur "Assegai" is believed to be in SCC2 and the Covenanter is certainly in SCC2, yet both look green.  So the track colour in those photos has assumed an unnatural green tinge.

 

Of the link photos, the top right one is the goldy-brown colour I meant - unpolished at that stage.  If the others were angled to catch the colour and not the light, that polished colour would be seen.  The colour of the metal will vary according to the manganese content.  Lower-manganese alloys will be very much at the silver-grey end of the scale.  Tank tracks are among the highest manganese content alloys used, hence why they display the noticeably goldy/brassy colour tint.  They're still made like that today where all-metal tracks are used, like Israel and Russia.

 

I think you need to see it in the flesh, so to speak, to get it because it is so difficult with imagery.  But no-one is going to criticise you for having silvery or graphite-y tracks on your models as it is the accepted norm.  Although if you're claiming shine or glint on the tracks, don't you need to simulate shine or glint on everything else - and probably use zenithal lighting effects?

 

No, tracks were not painted except for spare links.  It would be a pointless exercise.  The metal was naturally corrosion-inhibited.

 

We've been talking so far about all-metal links.  The situation is very different with rubber-padded tracks, where the rubber provides the wearing surface.  These are often, if not usually, made of cheaper low or non-manganese steel.  They are often painted and can rust to the usual orangey-brown tones.

 

But at least on this forum we can agree to disagree without it getting all heated and pointy-fingered.  And I'm sure the subject will come up again.  Wasn't this thread originally about vehicle colours a couple of pages ago?  I guess that's my fault ...............

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The Duck test may apply in this case...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test

 

If it looks like a 

 

46813316862_794a23e609_z.jpg

 

quacks like a 

 

46813316862_794a23e609_z.jpg

 

waddles like a 

 

46813316862_794a23e609_z.jpg

 

 

then ergo it’s a 

 

46813316862_794a23e609_z.jpg

 

Simplistically

 

No one is saying all tracks are shiny silver.

 

Thats just an attempt at reductio ad adsudium...

 

If tracks links are manganese steel castings or forgings then they will appear  as cast manganese steel castings or forgings how that looks depends on the age of the tracks you want to depict. 

 

If left untreated the casting will form an oxide layer. This is common to most steels unless they fall into the stainless steel catergory with a high chromium content. While manganese in an inhibitor to corrosion it is not a preventer of corrosion.

 

If you’re depicting wear on said tracks and depending on how much wear you want to depict and taking in to consideration the terrain then a prototypical wear pattern backed up by historical and contemporary images is to have a steel finish to the cleats not always but also not uncommonly. 

 

For a manganese steel to be useful in terms of a tank track or indeed any other track then you need an alloy containing 11-15% manganese but probably not much over 12% as the increase in the manganese content above that point actually reduces the mechanical properties you want in a tank track which I would think are hardness (to resist wear and abrasion) and ductility (to enable the material to withstand compressive and torsional loadings without deformation which you’ll get with a tank track) also adding in a higher content of manganese makes what is already a hard material to machine exceptionally difficult to machine even with modern tooling. ( This is why the modern track castings in the images above have been dressed by a surface grinder as it hard to mill the material.)

 

 I think if you were working with ww2 period tooling and cutting technology then you would want your cast part to be as close to finished as possible and work with an alloy that gives you the mechanical properties you want with as little manganese as possible in the alloy enabling macineability and conserving a resource.  I’m not sure how they machined it perhaps with Stellite tooling??

 

But perhaps pondering on ww2 era machining practices is going s not too far down the rabbit hole. 

 

For a model you just have to look at the period images to understand what’s correct..

 

HTH

 

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And I think that perhaps draws the discussion to a neat conclusion.  At least in this thread, which was originally about vehicle colour before I let my hobby horse have a canter around. my mistake .......................   I'm sure the question of track colour will come up again in the future.  Personally, I won't be using silver or graphite to simulate worn tracks.

 

Returning to vehicle colours, another question bound to come up again is the question of the validity of period colour images taken on different film stocks on different cameras in different light with varying degrees of exposure of the image and the print, with different degrees of print fading scanned on scanners of different qualities and settings and stored as digital images in varying formats and displayed on monitors of varying qualities and colour settings.  I suspect that discussion will never end.  The simple answer is that they cannot be trusted for colour accuracy.

 

On which subject I was watching last night the new series of Fantom Works, a US car restoration programme.  If you want to see the very opposite of restoration, catch the new series (also last night) and back catalogue of Sin City Motors: they are mad people........  Anyway, back in the room, they were trying to colour-match black paint on a rare early-60's Maserati.  Obviously a high-gloss paint.  He called it an acrylic lacquer but had earlier said it was hard to get because of EPA regulations so I suspect it was still a nitrocellulose lacquer in the early 60's.

 

They were weathering the paint by adding a few drops of white at a time to the can and painting patches on the original-paint curved filler cap lid until they got a perfect all-aspect match.  Now on TV the car still looked a very deep black and the owner enthused about its restored shiny blackness - but there was obviously some very slight greying.  So I suppose this reinforces what we largely already know: that even known original paint is not necessarily exactly the same colour today as when it was applied.  More so with matt than gloss.  And WW2 vintage vehicles have another 20 years or so on the Maserati.

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On 23/01/2019 at 04:20, Das Abteilung said:

PS - I knew that Mike S had reservations about what AK had done with his input as he'd told me as much privately.  But I hadn't seen the quotes extracted above showing the extent of those reservations and the extent of AK's ignorance/arrogance.  And of course people looking at their website and the book will think he has endorsed the products - which he clearly does not.  I did buy most of the AK British Real Colours and a couple of others, fortunately at a discount, but took one look inside the bottles, fished out out Mike's booklets and came to the same conclusion as Mike about the colours. 

 

The AK Real Colors book gets "better" 

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/missinglynx/ak-real-german-colors-disappointment-t58055-s20.html

 

so they stuffed up some (all?) of the German paint...  

 

They are working a Real Colors of WWII Aircraft book apparently....  

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235048651-rlm-83-dunkelblau/&do=findComment&comment=3256825

This looks to be "interesting"  

though at least there is plenty of accurate information already available on this...  

 

the weird thing is that the negative comments are buried in the depths of a couple of specialist armour forums, while glowing reviews of the book abound.

The book certainly is impressive, and if they had ACTUALLY say,  used what Mike had supplied them correctly,  then at least that would have been trustworthy,  what galls me is that AK are able to get the kudos of Mike Starmer's name, whilst having mis-represented his information, and this is not widely known,   Yet ;)

 

 

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It would be interesting to know what the other 3 consultants think of the situation.

 

If I might venture a controversial suggestion, I think this situation may be a symptom of the companies being run by people more interested in the art - literally - of finishing with little or no knowledge of the historical background.  Which is perhaps not surprising for a paint company: finishing is their business.  But why bring in experts and then ignore them?  Reading between the lines they'd already gone into production and print to meet the release date and when further input was received that required change it was too late to turn back.  Effectively they missed a review stage, it seems.

 

My current employer regularly has the same problem with externally-commissioned reports, surveys etc where the "final" version delivered - which can be hundreds of pages long - is often incomplete, and/or incorrect because insufficient effort has been put into reviewing the document(s) along the way.  One of my current jobs is to try to improve this situation.

 

Reviewing very detailed factual documents and supporting information is damn hard work.  It takes dedicated time and it takes effort: and sometimes much caffeine and more than a few paracetamol!  I'm surmising that AK didn't put this in.  And we return again to Henry Ford's fairly universal truth; that "thinking is the hardest work there is, which is why so few engage in it".  In the context of this discussion he also said that "research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing".  A final product is not something you should be doing when you don't know what you're doing, because by Henry's definition you're still doing research...................

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I'll need to contact Mike again to check his remark on mine relates to the current green and not WEM's original one.

 

Our armour paints are poor sellers tbh so it would probably just be less hassle to drop them. They do go very well at the Scottish Nationals where MAFVA members buy a lot, but not much shifts in between. It's not got "Acrylic" on the label...

 

Graham the usual industry practise for comparing colours objectively is the Delta E calculation, where a result <2 is widely accepted as being a close match and >6~7 is substantially different.

 

Does anyone know if the RAL standard has changed over the years? (for colours that are still current, I mean - German stuff holds no personal interest for me so I never get round to looking too deep)

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52 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Does anyone know if the RAL standard has changed over the years? (for colours that are still current, I mean - German stuff holds no personal interest for me so I never get round to looking too deep)

HI Jamie

Well, this vid

has some interesting information RAL paints,

I recently got a RAK K7 fan deck, and it has RAL3000 Feuerrot , RAL 7003 Olivegun and RAL 8017 Schokoladenbrun,   at 9.43 he discuss RAL classic and their relation to wartime RAL,  "pretty close to the wartime colours"

Some useful history on RAL at 2.00 onwards.    Worth watching.

 

1 hour ago, Das Abteilung said:

It would be interesting to know what the other 3 consultants think of the situation.

I tried searching for Steven Zaloga's comments,  nothing so far.

1 hour ago, Das Abteilung said:

But why bring in experts and then ignore them?  Reading between the lines they'd already gone into production and print to meet the release date and when further input was received that required change it was too late to turn back.  Effectively they missed a review stage, it seems.

 

My current employer regularly has the same problem with externally-commissioned reports, surveys etc where the "final" version delivered - which can be hundreds of pages long - is often incomplete, and/or incorrect because insufficient effort has been put into reviewing the document(s) along the way.  One of my current jobs is to try to improve this situation.

 

Reviewing very detailed factual documents and supporting information is damn hard work.  It takes dedicated time and it takes effort: and sometimes much caffeine and more than a few paracetamol!  I'm surmising that AK didn't put this in. 

 

I'll extract this again from Mike

Quote

My submitted original text was requested to be shortened, which I did. 

They then edited that without my knowledge. I sent complete sets of camouflage diagrams with copies of the official orders. 

These orders were totally ignored. 

 Then redrew some of the disruptive diagrams in their own style and colours transposed onto mostly American vehicles, apparently the British didn't have any of their own. 

To cap it they then applied a disruptive pattern from one tank type onto another type, it doesn't fit of course.  The ultimate was putting the pattern for the Greek based A10s onto a Crusader which never carried the design nor deployed to Greece. 

 

The Crusader comment is even more laughable as the text underneath the picture only mentions the A10 and A13, nothing about the Crusader...

One thing I noticed was the use of the wrong chips for the far east colours, SCC 13 and SCC 15, showing Khaki Green G.3 and SCC 2 brown...

 

The problem I can see coming is like the Pilawskii legacy on Soviet Airforce Colours,  where the wrong information then continually churns up and confuses the uninformed.   AK are are not about to back peddle and admit what a crock much of this is,  I mean, they have the book to back up their paints now!

I have been posting up what AK have done where I can post reviews though, so that might deter a few punters from buying dodgy paint.

 

Hmm, at least a member from Russia posted up a load of new too me BoB Hurricane photos this evening,  so that cheered me up somewhat :)

 

Edited by Troy Smith
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  • 3 weeks later...

Back to the original post request about paint-as mentioned above, SCC No.13 is all wrong for a BEF Cruiser from 1940.  Using Mike Starmer’s mix formulas gets you much closer to the real thing. I have yet to find a premixed paint that is worth buying-some are so off the actual colours that it is upsetting that they claim any authenticity.

Here is a pic of G3/G4 as a BEF Cruiser would appear using Mike Starmer’s mixes:

Gecko Cruiser A10 Mk I

 

Edited by f matthews
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If that model is indeed painted with Mike Starmer's mixes, correctly mixed, then the colours ought to be right.  I don't think that any of us are going to dispute the thoroughness of his work.  AK Interactive's ignoring of it notwthstanding............

 

To my eye, the G3 is perhaps a bit too green and not brown enough.  In one of his booklets I'm sure (but may be mistaken) that Mike refers to it as having a noticeable brown hue.  I can't check as my books are in storage.  But we don't know the light conditions or camera settings for the image and my screen may display it differently because I've set it as I like it.

 

As I'm sure we discussed above, variable image capture and rendering remains a fundamental problem when discussing "correct" colours.

 

It is a nice model though, and if mine turn out half as good I'll be pleased.

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  • 2 months later...
On 1/22/2019 at 7:56 PM, Troy Smith said:

Samples of their paint were sent to me for assessment.  None were accurate, not even close, which I reported back with larger samples.  New samples then arrived for testing, still not right.  In discussion I discovered that they were matching under 'daylight' lighting!  FGS are they not sharp or what?  I gave them up as a waste of my time, I told them that too.  Rant over.

 

Oh deep joy, wish I'd seen this thread before! I'm actually waiting for DHL to bring me a delivery of all the AK British AFV colours this afternoon, bought after reading their blurb that they were developed with input from Mike Starmer - which they appear to have plainly ignored!! Oh well, just have to weather them to death then...!!

 

With regard to the RAL paint charts from epaint - accepting all the vagaries of monitors, printing, photographing the charts etc, I can say that on my laptop  their chip for RAL3003 is nothing whatsoever like the real colour. I can say that with authority as we have a rally Mini 1275GT parked in my garage that the previous owner, for reasons known only to himself, had resprayed that colour! :)

 

Keith

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  • 1 year later...

As a reference, I like to show a picture of a Comet restored at BAIV in the Netherlands, which was painted according to my RAL mixes.... which was based on Mike's swatch.
SCC15 shouldn't be really dark close to bronze green as some commercial hobby paints do. It should look like a "cool" "cold" version of US OD. So far for subjective impressions which don't lead too far. ;) 
The more I'm into it, the more I tend to believe scale modellers should aim for scale effect... many many models are too dark.

22549060_1330536017075868_64513542114151

 

22712585_1330535950409208_21983216736752

Edited by Steben
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