Info needed: correct colours for WWII Aust vehicles

[Mrs Vampire]

I agree keith all of the vehicles I have seen ex factory are sprayed as were those ex the large Army overhaul units.

So far as type of paint I am unhappy with two pack because it is difficult to touch up and because it traps moisture in lap joints etc... Never liked it for restoration.

Acrylic ( Nitrocellulose replacement ) is too easily damaged, I like it for aeroplanes ( along with Butyl Nitrate) but not Military vehicles.

I recently used some Coulthard's Aklyd and it was the best enamel I have used. A little hardener I hope will resolve the chalky scraping problem...but I want a bit of that anyway. I want my vehicles to look used. .

If the paint is easy to apply a touch up every ten years or so shouldn't be a problem for me. ( I will be long gone by touch up number two, )

[Big D]

Gina – it certainly has got me thinking.

I’ve been playing around with this some more with 600 grit wet and dry. I didn’t have anything finer here so thought I would try that.

These photos were taken of the surface I’ve been working on, with the surface wet. I’ve taken some close-up photos as well and apologies; some aren’t that great. The armour feels reasonably smooth but the paint itself (all coats) strikes me as really thin.

The two areas I am examining are on the panel between the rear wheel and the commander’s door. According to every period scout car photo I’ve seen the two areas should show the contrast in the disruptive pattern. That is, one spot should be the khaki green, the other the light earth/light stone.

To add to my confusion however, I am seeing this reddish brown paint in both areas. I would describe as almost being clay-like in colour.

It doesn’t look like a primer to my untrained eye but I could be wrong. There are some spots where you can clearly see the darker green (post war?) so I am wondering if a lot of that was stripped back at some stage judging by the pieces that are left. That might explain why the paint appears very thin.

You can also see some darker areas again which are the rust spots.

I will persevere with this and I probably need to continue over a wider area to see if I can identify the places in the disruptive pattern (if there is one there) where the different colours meet.

At this stage I have a few theories:

* The reddish brown paint I am seeing is the original primer (bugger!)
* The reddish brown paint I am seeing is the light earth (Could it be? It doesn’t look like the light stone to me) and the vehicle was painted with that colour first and then the khaki green went over the top
* I have completely got the pattern wrong from photos and will need to sample another area

[Big D]

More photos:

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Big D

There are some spots where you can clearly see the darker green (post war?) so I am wondering if a lot of that was stripped back at some stage judging by the pieces that are left.

That's my conclusion too Darryl. The impression I get from your photos is a panel which has been stripped back to bare metal using paint stripper, with stubborn areas attacked with a paint scraper leaving the odd fragment here and there. I suspect these fragments are the only original paint we're seeing, and if you work very carefully on them you may find other paint layers underneath, including primer.

Having been stripped back to bare metal it appears to have been repainted without primer, causing extensive rust formation due to extremely thin coat of porous matt paint. I agree the reddish colour does not look like primer, and it's also contiguous with the darker rust patches. Rust forms a variety of compounds in a range of colours depending on oxygen concentration and the presence of other elements, including chemicals in paint stripper if not washed off immediately and thoroughly. I think rust is a more likely interpretation of this colour than red primer, and the proof will be change in colour now that it's fully exposed to air and moisture.

At some later stage the vehicle appears to have undergone a second repaint consisting of grey primer followed by olive drab of some kind.

If the vehicle has indeed been stripped back to bare metal as I suspect, then the key to identifying original paintwork lies entirely in the tiny surviving fragments. That's where I'd start looking myself, and provided there are enough of them sufficiently dispersed it should be possible to confirm camo if present. I'd also give serious thought to Mike's suggested technique in this case, as it requires only the tiniest fragment to provide full paint history. The difficulty of course will be chipping it off the granular armour plate surface, which I expect would provide far greater adhesion than sheet metal. It may be worth trying to soften with paint stripper first, allowing it plenty time to penetrate. Whatever technique is employed it's clear that a forensic approach is required here.

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