ANZAC vehicle color?

[vaoinas]

Hello, 

 

I'm having some ANZAC Ford Model-T's on my bench at the moment.

These should be in some sand color. Instructions suggest Tamiya XF-59, 

but it seems too yellow and vibrant to me.

 

Which colors have you used or would suggest for WW1 ANZAC vehicles?

 

 

Cheers!
Kristjan

[Kingsman]

Colours in WW1 were not codified in any meaningful way.  Just named. I have seen it suggested that the Model Ts supplied to ANZAC forces were painted in Australia before shipping.  That opens up a whole world of possibilities.

 

Making a huge assumption that the Australian Army followed British practice, there were mixes in the Handbook For Artificers for Service Colour, a slightly greenish brown, and for an Ochre - with a note that this could be varied according to local conditions.  That sounds like a strong possibility. I don't have the mix to hand as I'm at work.

[Kingsman]

Now, remember this is a mix for dry pigments with white lead in linseed oil, as paints were made in WW1, and everything is measured by weight - noting the different densities of the ingredients.  So, not easy to replicate.

 

Stone Colour

Ground White Lead - 64oz  (68%)

Stone Ochre - 0.5oz  (0.6%)

Turkey Umber - 1oz  (1.1%)

Patent Driers - 6.25oz  (6.7%)  (probably Shellac)

Raw Linseed Oil - 22oz  (23.6%)

Turpentine - "a small amount"

 

White Lead had a yellowish tint rather than being bright white like Titanium White.  Turkey Umber means Burnt Umber, a dark brown.  Stone Ochre was at the paler end of the wide range of ochre colours.  So we have a lot of yellowish white with a touch of brownish yellow and twice as much darker brown.  So you are probably right that it would be browner rather than yellower.

 

However the Handbook notes that "The colour may be varied by the quantity of Turkey Umber employed.  A common stone colour can be made without adding Ochre.  Leave out the Ochre and you have dark brown and white, possibly in variable proportions.  And that leaves a whole range of possibilities.

 

IMO definitely not Tamiya XF-57 Desert Yellow.  XF-52 Buff might work at one end of the scale.  XF-49 Khaki might work too: it's quite close to Service Colour.  But I'm actually thinking of one of the German colours like RAL8000 or 8020.  Tamiya's XF-92 DAK yellow-brown passes for 8000 Gelbbraun.  I quite like the look of that here.

 

I have the Miniart Dunsterforce Austin armoured car to do, in the same part of the world as the Light Car Patrols.  But these were Russian contract cars taken over by us Brits, and so may have been in their Russian colour (which no-one knows either) or may have been repainted.  Miniart suggest Tamiya XF-62 Olive Drab: I'm not convinced.  I'm thinking more like XF-49.

[Kingsman]

Something has just struck me sorting through the photos I took at Bovington's archive earlier this week.  BS381 1930 has 3 swatches for Stone colours - Light, Middle and Dark.  These obviously came from somewhere, so I wonder if they might give an indication of the likely range of Stone colours from WW1?  RAL8000 Gelbbraun is similar to BS62 Middle Stone.

 

[vaoinas]

Thank you very much, Kingsman, for thinking along.

 

I thought along the line of German yellow colors as well while

sorting my color pads.

 

 

Cheers!

Kristjan
 

[2DeeBee0]

Given the broad AO the ANZACs served, is it possible the vehicles were repainted in-theatre from the baseline colour IAW LI's - Palestine, Syria, Middle East, Turkish Peninsula very likely to be an entirely different colour to Villers or Passchendaele 

Edited October 15 by 2DeeBee0