Mix your own paint

[Tony Smith]

Don, I agree that during wartime shortages meant that sometimes "official" paint mixes were not available to refinish vehicles. However, (at the risk of identifying myself as a paint freak) that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to identify what those official finishes were, and apply them accordingly. If you are ordering paint from a manufacturer, it helps if you can speak their language and supply some sort of reference that they can use in preparing your order. If your were to place an order for 10 litres of "Army Green" with a bit of yellow and black in it, I think your chances of being dissapointed would be high, your chance of a refund low and your chances of replicating the colour later nil. However, if you have specified a particular shade and finish and the supplied product doesn't meet that, then I'd expect them to try again until they got it right (or at least get a huge discount!) While I don't dispute that a very effective colour might result, if you're going to the trouble of ordering paint, why not get it right? The correct shade is no harder to apply than the wrong one.

My theory is , WW2 camo paints were not a complicated mix of many tints . They kept it simple as possible , a dash of this and a bit of that and away we go .

Yes, Mike probably quite true, but they were different shades! You could probably get a representation of each by varying the proportions of black and yellow, but what suits which vehicles and when? Light Bronze Green and Deep Bronze Green are two different colours and apply to two separate and different time periods, just as US Olive Drab and Soviet Larch green might have been applied to the same vehicles but in different theatres.

Am I being pedantic? Maybe, maybe not. Different people have different perspectives on how they wish to present their vehicles and that is entirely their right. Some times total original accuracy is not the aim, or even possible to achieve. Other times a little consisency between several vehicles looks just great, and reflects well on the efforts of those who have gone to the trouble (and it certainly can be troublesome) to get the details right.