mix1, mat1. premixed paints? Any close to SCC2, or G3?

[Alex van de Wetering]

At every militaria fair I come across premixed MV paints in both spraycans and tins. They all seem to come from the same source and are only marked "Mix1", "Mat1" etc. I don't know who actually makes them, but I know for a fact that Jeep Mons in Belgium sells them. I used Mix1 for my parabike because I had a few cans in the garage and because Normandy was coming up quickly. I was actually very happy with the colour in the end, although I have to admit that I used an extra coat of matt varnish, which is actually somewhere in between matt and satin.
Anyway, apart from the Olive Drab-ish paint, there also is a tan and one or more tones of brown. Does anyone know if any of these paints come close to SCC 2? and what about Khaki green 3? anyone used these paints on a British or Canadian MV?
The reason I ask is because you can obtain these paints quite easily and they are reasonably priced.
Don't get me wrong, I want the " right" colour for my C8, but it just makes it a lot easier if you don't have to go to the paint shop over and over again until they got the correct satin-matt finish, the right colour or if you didn't order the correct amount. Believe me, I have had both very good and very bad experience with paint shops and colour matched spraycans in particular.



Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

OK guys,

well, given the fact that you completely ignored my question, I have decided to have a go myself

Yesterday I bought two cans of "Mat 3" at the Keep Them Rolling swapmeet. It's a brownish tone and there is no mention of a manufacturer, brand etc. The most logical explanation I have found is that these paint mixes have actually come from the French Army, which might explain why they are labeled as "mat 3" and not "matt 3"??? So, I guess they would look the part on your Hotchkiss......that is if you can find one that isn't painted in 101 AB 506th PIR registration!

Anyway, I was surprised to see some more manufacturers have stepped up to offer premixed military paints....but most of them are all shades of Olive Drab and non of them are focussed on Commonwealth colours...It's funny to see the OD paints are labeled as RAL 6014.....yes, a German colour system for a US WW2 colour!

I will post a picture of the MAT 3 brown next to a SCC2 sample mixed according to Mike Starmers instructions. Of course the colours will look different on your screen, but at least you should be able to see if the colours are a close match or not.
From what I have seen now SCC is a little more of a "Rich brown" compared to the mat 3. There might just be a little more red in the original SCC2 colour(?). I think I am going to use the Mat 3 during the restoration of my Chev. After cleaning parts and a coat of primer, I will give it a quick coat of Mat 3, assemble everything and when the whole truck is done I will it a full overspay in the correct SCC2 mixed paint.


Alex

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

well, given the fact that you completely ignored my question, I have decided to have a go myself

Yesterday I bought two cans of "Mat 3" at the Keep Them Rolling swapmeet. It's a brownish tone and there is no mention of a manufacturer, brand etc. The most logical explanation I have found is that these paint mixes have actually come from the French Army, which might explain why they are labeled as "mat 3" and not "matt 3"???

Hi Alex,

I wasn´t ignoring it, but giving it some thought

When I read “logical” and “French Army” in one sentence, I thought there must be another explanation. My page on the Bundeswehr VW 181 Fleckenplan reminded me of the camouflage colour Lederbraun or leather brown with colour code RAL 8027 / FSC 30051. I have seen it on VW 181’s and is dark brown colour similar to SCC2. In German “matt” is “mat”. I believe this is a NATO colour, if so it is could (remember – there is no logic in this context ) be the same as the brown found on French vehicles etc.

I have a part in original SCC2 Brown; I’ll come by your place sometime soon to compare it to the paint you bought.

Groet,
Hanno

[Alex van de Wetering]

I have a part in original SCC2 Brown; I’ll come by your place sometime soon to compare it to the paint you bought.

Hanno, your are more than welcome

I have also got an ammo box in SCC2 in the garage and some remains of SCC2 on my Chev. You asked me recently about the proper colour for my C8 and I said I had decided to paint it in SCC2. I didn't tell you though, that my Chev shows traces of both Khaki Green No3 and SCC2 in the interior and another greenish colour on the windscreen frame.
It would be interesting to compare the different parts and colours, along with the Mat3 paint and the samples made according to Mike Starmers instructions.


Alex

[Lionelgee]

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

At every militaria fair I come across premixed MV paints in both spraycans and tins. They all seem to come from the same source and are only marked "Mix1", "Mat1" etc. I don't know who actually makes them, but I know for a fact that Jeep Mons in Belgium sells them. I used Mix1 for my parabike because I had a few cans in the garage and because Normandy was coming up quickly. I was actually very happy with the colour in the end, although I have to admit that I used an extra coat of matt varnish, which is actually somewhere in between matt and satin.
Anyway, apart from the Olive Drab-ish paint, there also is a tan and one or more tones of brown. Does anyone know if any of these paints come close to SCC 2? and what about Khaki green 3? anyone used these paints on a British or Canadian MV?
The reason I ask is because you can obtain these paints quite easily and they are reasonably priced.
Don't get me wrong, I want the " right" colour for my C8, but it just makes it a lot easier if you don't have to go to the paint shop over and over again until they got the correct satin-matt finish, the right colour or if you didn't order the correct amount. Believe me, I have had both very good and very bad experience with paint shops and colour matched spraycans in particular.



Alex

G'day Alex and Hanno plus others who contribute to this thread. I would like to ask a question concerning paint. On the identification plate of my Chevrolet Holden assembled truck it notes the colour as Khaki. Apparently from information off this and other threads on MLU there are differnt forms of Khaki. Does any one have the mixing instructions - proportions of colours which I could take into a panel beater or paint supply and ask them to mix up the right colour for me. Also could any one let me know what type of Khaki my truck was painted? I know the painting stage is a way off at the moment however this would be good information to have now. A photo of my truck is attached - well hopefully

Kind Regards
Lionel

[cliff]

It was Australian Service Green - pre 1942. I have the mixing instructions here to mix the colour using Humbrol model paints which you could then use as a sample for a paint shop to mix you some. I'll email it to you when I find it. It is on a thread here somewhere but where is the problem.

You have to start remembering your truck is an Australian one and not British or Canadian so it was painted differently.

[Bob McNeill]

is this the colour you,r after ??

[Tony Smith]

I LOVE that tin of yours Bob, 'cos it shows exactly the correct colour and settles arguments once and for all about the precise wartime shade.

[cliff]

Originally Posted by Tony Smith

I LOVE that tin of yours Bob, 'cos it shows exactly the correct colour and settles arguments once and for all about the precise wartime shade.

That is the post 1942 colour but Lionel has the choice of it or the bronze coloured paint of pre 1942 as his truck is a 1940 model.

Below are two 1/35 scale models I made and painted using the paint formula worked out by Mike Cecil at the AWM. The Chev fuel tanker is painted PRE-1942 Service Green the CMP Ambulance is painted POST-1942 Service Green which is the colour your cans of paint are.

[Bob McNeill]

Cliff
You are spot on, the paper seal on the lid said 1944. Lots of lead in the tin , took ages to get it mix properly, a real mongrel to spray it settled quickly

[cletrac (RIP)]

Alex, if you look in the C8 parts list, the only colours mentioned are "matte green" and "light stone". In the 1A2 parts list there's no choice of colours for the canvas cover so it was likely just offered in khaki.These would be the colours the trucks were painted at the factory and the SCC2 brown would have been applied in Europe. Chances are the frame on your truck never got the brown paint. My HUP got repainted blue by the RCAF but they just closed the doors and painted it. The chassis and interior remained khaki. When you take all this into consideration a brown Cab 11 would be something like this:
Frame and chassis and engine compartment khaki.
Engine and tranny Chev engine grey or possibly khaki if a military rebuild.
Interior khaki or SCC2 on some repaint jobs.
Seats khaki.
Window canvas khaki with outside painted brown.
Outside of body brown.
Inside of box khaki or brown on some repaint jobs.
Rear seats brown leatherette.
Tilt canvas khaki with outside painted brown.
Radio equipment khaki.
Camouflage pattern in that almost black colour.
If the truck made it to Europe through North Africa you can replace all the khaki with light stone except for the radio equipment and inside of the tilt canvas.
Having said all this, you never see a restored truck painted like this. They always seem to think that a brown truck was all brown.
The picture is a couple of North Africa trucks getting their SCC2 makeover getting ready for Italy. You can tell that they never touched the undercarriage or the interior.

[Lionelgee]

Originally Posted by cliff

That is the post 1942 colour but Lionel has the choice of it or the bronze coloured paint of pre 1942 as his truck is a 1940 model.

Below are two 1/35 scale models I made and painted using the paint formula worked out by Mike Cecil at the AWM. The Chev fuel tanker is painted PRE-1942 Service Green the CMP Ambulance is painted POST-1942 Service Green which is the colour your cans of paint are.

G'day Cliff,

Its a great model Cliff - I never realised how much work goes into them.

Yep that colour on the 1941-7 Chevy model you posted a photo of is the same one that my 1940 is wearing. I noticed that the roof on the model has a roof hatch and some other bits and pieces. I think one is a grab rail - what are the other bits?

My truck has an intact roof with no sign of a hatch ever being installed. The only difference I can see in my truck and one a bloke owns who lives down the road from me is that mine had the hinged windscreen, a flap on the floor of the cab near the driver's feet that lifts up to access the battery and a bracket for a fire extinguisher on the wall of the passenger's side cab wall. No gun hooks are evident. The other bloke’s truck was bought new and spent its working life on the sugar cane farm so it never saw any military service. I would be going around and asking him lots of questions all the time except that his wife has recently been diagnosed with cancer so I do not wish to annoy them.

Kind Regards
Lionel

[cliff]

Originally Posted by Lionelgee

G'day Cliff,

Its a great model Cliff - I never realised how much work goes into them.

Yep that colour on the 1941-7 Chevy model you posted a photo of is the same one that my 1940 is wearing. I noticed that the roof on the model has a roof hatch and some other bits and pieces. I think one is a grab rail - what are the other bits?

My truck has an intact roof with no sign of a hatch ever being installed. Kind Regards
Lionel

Lionel below is 2 photos. The first is a 1940 Chev in the Northern Territories and the 2nd an AWM photo of the trucks in Malaya before the Japanese took over. The NT truck is a standard Civilian vehicle with an army GS body on it. No guard cut outs, no roof hatch and standard civy wheels. The Malaya truck has the cut out guards and 18inch combat split rims but again has no roof hatch and is basicly a civilian truck with GS military body fitted. So you can see a lot of this model did not have the access hatch in the roof whereas a larger proportion of the 1941 model had them as they were fitted at the Holden factory during assembly.

The model was built using AWM photos of fuel tankers in the Atherton Tablelands during WW2 and is accurate to the photos. There is the roof hatch with hand grabs in front of it and a clip that the hatch attaches too when open.

[Alex van de Wetering]

is this the colour you,r after ??

Bob, I will send you my postal address by PM

What a great find! The colour I am after is SCC2, but it is interesting to see that G3 was used a lot longer in Aussie service than with the Brits here in North-West Europe.

Alex, if you look in the C8 parts list, the only colours mentioned are "matte green" and "light stone".

Dave, good point. I see what you mean. I am going after SCC2, because I want to dress my C8 up as a vehicle as it would have appeared in the UK/NWE in 1943/44, but I agree.....my truck would never have had this colour from the factory.
You have seen my truck, it's rust allover, but there are traces of G3 on the cab rear wall and traces of both G3 and SCC2 on the dash. There is another green colour on the windscreen frame (outside) and traces of a dark colour (maybe camouflage) on the inside as well as the outside, which looks blue-ish.
I still have to make some time to study the paint traces properly, but as I wrote above the idea is to paint the truck SCC2. I do fancy your conclusion you wrote down in the list and I might even be tempted to go for a partically G3 truck with SCC2 on the easily accesible places.
But, there will always be a certain deviation from reality because most of us like to spraypaint parts the best we can, in stead of using a big old brush covered in paint, dust, sand, grease like it was sometimes done in WW2.

You know I have come from scale modeling and in modeling we fancy some variation in colours. So, it's more likely to see the colour variations you mention on a scale model rather than on a restored vehicle. Although I do have to say that the desert rats F8 (Clifton Lang?) in the UK is green on the inside!

Alex