Info needed: correct colours for WWII Aust vehicles

Mike K · #1 03-12-15, 10:57

I have mentioned this before, a good prospect for finding matt paint is modern external house paint , it is usually water based and it's freely available in hardware stores .

Haymes make a matt external house paint that may be of use for that authentic patina look on a military vehicle . It's called solarshield or similar and they guarantee it for 20 years on a house . It can be applied directly onto galvanized iron , it' s self priming . They have it available in four grades of sheen from dead flat to shiny . Mike

Tony Wheeler · #2 03-12-15, 13:42

Nowadays Mike the professionals use portable handheld spectrometers. As Gina mentioned a while back: "Florite paints have provided all the spectrographic analysis and colour matching , even visiting the Tank with their electronic equipment to ensure we had it right."

The advantage of spectrometry, obviously enough, is that it doesn't rely on human eyesight and lighting conditions. As opposed to our Senior Curator wandering the dimly lit bowels of AWM storage clutching his 1905 Munsell Book of Colours. Of course, in this particular case the artifact can be removed into daylight, where an acceptable colour match for our purposes may indeed be possible.

Gina, you mentioned back in September: "spectrographs of the AWM and AA chip sets remains a high priority for me." Is it possible to get Florite in to spectro the AWM chips? If it's a question of costs I'm happy to contribute.

Jacques Reed · #3 04-12-15, 01:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

I have mentioned this before, a good prospect for finding matt paint is modern external house paint , it is usually water based and it's freely available in hardware stores .

Here is another option for solvent based enamels:

I was supplied the following tin of Viponds matting agent by my famous "We thought it was a once off tint so we did not bother to write down the tint formula". paint supplier for KG-J.
At least they seem to have gotten one thing right.

Viponds is an Australian product made in Melbourne and should be readily available.

I had good success with it even if I did not have success with the paint formula being reproducible.

The Wattyl Agricultural enamel only comes in gloss so they suggested the Viponds agent would be the way to make it Semi-gloss or eggshell.

As shown below the left chip is gloss Wattyl enamel as tinted and the right one is 1:8 ratio of tint to paint to get a "satin finish" as per their instructions.
It can be used as high as 1:4 ratio to get a "low sheen finish".

Cheers

Mrs Vampire · #4 05-04-16, 13:22

sorting through the paint samples I note here some anomalies.

The Canberra set of seventeen plates are somewhat different to both the Australian standard and the Berger colour chart.

The Australian standard has fifteen colours and include O warm sand ( which appears to be close to the British desert colour and R red .

The Berger sheet has only 11 colours J.K,L,M,N,P,Q,R,S,T, U,...missing O Warm sand

None of the colour charts have Tarmac save for the sample in the archive in Melbourne it is no where else and W light Earth also only in the archive in Melbourne.
R red is in both the the Australian standard and the Berger chart.

The RAAF colours as depicted in the spartan chart are both very different to the army colours and have a quite different range. RAAF foliage Green for instance bears little resemblance to the Army Foliage green.

I have yet to examine Dakins discourse with they RAAF however it seems clear at the moment they were on a very different trajectory. Dakin does say he had a very good relationship with the RAAF and they were keen to take his advice.

If I can get my hands on a Spartan chart I will add it to the book and hunt down the colours history. Without a chart there is little point in pursuing it.

I will take a gander at the Canberra chips in a few weeks but the samples in Melbourne I feel are the best given their lack of exposure to light over time.

I will also do a set of trial chips and send them of to Mike.... well both Mikes ....Cecil and Starmers. the latter mainly as a help to his work and an opinion on our KG3 and warm sand O

Here are the samples of the first eleven

Mrs Vampire · #5 05-04-16, 13:33

Hi Jacques

your post is consistent with the advice I have to hand.Matting agents will not Matt down to 5% and your samples show that.

Eggshell is around 3% and flat is less than 1

Mike K · #6 05-04-16, 13:55

I painted my C8 with Wattyl flat Olive Drab enamel . Wattyl had the Defence Dept. contract for some years . In the 90's You could buy it in 4 litre cans from Wattyl outlets, they never asked what I was using it for . Out of the can, it's the colour the Army Land Rovers were finished in at that time. It's about as flat as you can get paint , it has a heavy flattening agent suspended in the paint that tends to sink to the bottom of the can over time . The cans were plain , without any paper labels but instead, a stencilled description on the can.

I wasn't happy with the colour out of the can , I got hold of some tinting agents and I tried to get it to a more appropriate shade . I was never happy with the result but went ahead anyway.

The Wattyl product has proven to be long lasting , it does mark easily but you have to expect that with flat paint . I am pretty sure it isn't available these days.

BTW it is easy to mix up various shades of Olive green from a yellow base , you use Black and Red as tinters .

Jacques Reed · #7 06-04-16, 01:12

Hi Mike,

Ah yes! Remember well a few trips to the Wattyl trade depot at Moorrabbin 20 years ago to get the current ADF paint. The Internet was new then so not a lot of info out there. Even if it was, monochrome screens and dot matrix printers would not be of much use. If it was Army Green/Olive Drab/Khaki that was good enough to put on anything other than a Jeep in light of any other information.
Most military vehicle restorers only restored Jeeps then of which their correct colour paint was easier to obtain. I think even the VMVC was just called the Victorian Jeep Club originally.
No one restored CMP trucks and on more than one occasion back then I was told I must be crazy to be doing it. I too, was never really happy with the colour but it sufficed until some better information came to hand.

Anyway 20 years on I bit the bullet and have started the repaint job beginning with the spare set of wheels. They have already had the POR15 treatment inside after a few hours on the flap disks smoothing out as much pitting as possible.

Note the difference in the colours between the current ADF Olive Drab and the recently acquired KG3 on both the wheels and the test patches.

Jacques Reed · #8 06-04-16, 01:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

I painted my C8 with Wattyl flat Olive Drab enamel . Wattyl had the Defence Dept. contract for some years . In the 90's You could buy it in 4 litre cans from Wattyl outlets,
The Wattyl product has proven to be long lasting , it does mark easily but you have to expect that with flat paint . I am pretty sure it isn't available these days.

Hi Mike,

I bought a 20 litre can of it in Jan 2010 from the Wattyl Trade Depot at Chelsea Heights Vic. Note it was semi-gloss however.
They told me it was no longer available in 4 litre cans.
I won't need it now but if anyone is repainting an Australian Leopard Tank and needs 20 litres that's the place to go.
Handy hint too: Decant it into 4 litre cans after purchase. When I opened it a couple of months after the previous use there was a one inch thick skin on it despite a good seal and having a clamping band on the lid. Never saw paint develop such a thick skin so quickly.

Cheers,

Mike K · #9 06-04-16, 11:42

Hi Jacques

Yes I used to get the lusterless olive drab enamel from the Moorabbin depot. I recall , back in the 1990's driving all the way there, only to find it closed, the staff were on strike

I've never seen the semi gloss version that you have .

Where did you get your KG3 mixed ?

Tony Wheeler · #10 11-04-16, 12:23

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