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LGOC B Type Lorry from MiniArt


Kingsman

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Just building one myself. Very nice it is too... But, what colour should it be... (preferably using available paint ranges) Any advice greatly appreciated.

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 Dick Taylor's 'Warpaint' vol. 1 says that there is no definitive record of paint spec. or names during WW1.

 

 His view is that in 1915 - 1916 the standard colour used was what was called 'Service Grey'. This seems to have been a Blue/Grey shade.    Later in WW1 he says that the colour changed from Service Grey to 'Service Brown' although "some records point to Khaki and Greens also being used". He mentions that there seem to have been at least 3 brown shades.

 

In a nutshell, some shade of darkish Grey or brown would probably be appropriate.

 

I'll use a roughly similar mix I've used on my Mark IVs - 50% XF55, 50% XF52

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

He is indeed correct and has researched the subject extensively for that series of books.  There was no codification of colours in the WW1 era: not until the 1930s  Manufactured paint in cans as we are used to today did not exist.  I was fortunate enough to hear a talk by him about post-war MBT development a few weeks ago and another on WW2 colours and markings a couple of years ago.

 

Grey was commonly used on horse-drawn transport, artillery and quite possibly on early war motor transport.  Many impressed requisitioned vehicles went into service still in their civilian liveries.  Standard civilian finishes were also a possibility.  I hear that Bovington has recently discovered that all MkI tanks left Fosters' factory in their commercial brunswick green paint as no colour had actually been specified in the contract and Fosters used what they felt appropriate, and had to hand.

 

As noted, by the time motor transport began to appear in service in real quantity Service Brown or Service Colour was predominant on most mechanical equipment, artillery and anything else needing to be painted.  One thing is certain: there would have been considerable variation in shade.  Paint was batch-mixed at factories and/or depots from linseed oil base, white lead, dry pigments and shellac and had a short life once mixed - certainly once the shellac was added.  So there would have been frequent mixing of paint batches at multiple locations against a standard recipe.  It should also be noted that paints of the day were what we would today call satin finish.  High gloss and true matt finishes were not possible until advances in paint formulation in the 1930s.

 

While preserved vehicles are no real guide for the reasons mentioned above, most seem to be in a very brown shade of green.  By eye, Vallejo's Model Air Khaki Green 3 looks "about right" to me: a distinctly brownish green  The AK Interactive Real Colour Khaki Green 3 is somewhat browner (and isn't KG3!).  Tamiya paints and I don't get along and I'm not a fan of mixing because of the shade repeatablility - the very WW1 problem!

 

But whatever you produce, as long as it's a browny green or greeny brown then no-one can say you're wrong.  Because truth is that no-one knows what is right.

 

As with their LGOC Bus, MiniArt have just released a civilian version of the lorry in a bright yellow coal merchant's livery.  That would be post-war, probably a demobilised ex-Army lorry.  The wide availability of cheap-ish ex-military petrol lorries after WW1 and people who knew how to drive and maintain them was the death-knell for steam lorries and much remaining horse transport.

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  • 1 month later...
On 3/20/2020 at 12:29 PM, keithjs said:

Just building one myself. Very nice it is too... But, what colour should it be... (preferably using available paint ranges) Any advice greatly appreciated.

Hi Keith. Also been building the lorry; I chose the 3rd variant namely Lancashire Lass; but can you or anyone else tell me what the capital B stands for on the cab side?  I’ve looked and looked but cannot find an answer... tia
cheers

Andrew

Edited by McNab
Autocorrect!!
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