Hi,
I am adding ‘Full-Dome’ and ‘Skytop Lounge’ cars to my existing Rapido passenger train. It
is in the CN 1961 black & grey colour scheme.
What brand of paint and what colours do you suggest I get so that these cars will match the rest of the train?
I would look at Polly Scale and Model Flex to see if they have the pre-mixed colors. However, a pre-mixed color will not be spot on to what the manufacturer painted it, but might be close. You should paint the whole car and not try to touch up with it.
A brush will not work for getting a good job. An airbrush is a must.
If you don’t have an airbrush, Scale Coat paint in a spray can may have a pre-mixed color you are looking for and would be the next choice.
Why not simply contact Rapido?
Wayne
Hello Doc W, my fellow Londoner,
I contacted Rapido, and Jason replied
"You’ll have to mix and match. Our paints are formulated at the factory. We don’t use commercial hobby paints.
Start with white and add some greys until you get what you want."
So, I’m hoping that someone on this forum has tried this, and found the correct formulation.
To be serious about it, paint some scrap plastic with the paint you propose to use. When good and dry, check t he color match under layout lighting.
Hi,
I went thru the OP’s situation with Branchline kits when they first came out. The boxcar kits had oversize sprues attached to the door frames, and cutting them left you with the plastic color in a couple spots.
Branchline was totally unresponsive. I am a very persistant person and fought the fight for a few months, and finally gave up.
Some mfgs include the colors to match their models, but from what I can tell they are few and far between. I assume the typical mfg kind of blends their own, and they don’t buy commercial formulas that are used by Testors or Floquil or the like.
My solution is to match the best you can, and then weather over the patch and rest of the car.
I think that SMP offers the CN Grey in their Accupaint line, but production of any of their colours is very iffy: whenever I find their CNR Green #11 in the LHS, I buy whatever is on the shelf. [swg] Of course, there’s no guarantee that their version of the grey matches that on the Rapido cars.
I use my glass work surface on which to mix paint colours when trying to match an existing model: a brushload (or several in the case of light colours), then similar brushloads of the tint colour(s). This won’t give you accurate ratios, but it can point you in the right direction. Test each mixed colour on a piece of styrene (it will give you a better result if you’ve primed the test piece with the same primer you plan to use on the cars - I like Floquil’s Grey Primer).
Then, if you’re using water-based paints, use a syringe (minus the needle) to obtain accurate proportions of each colour to mix in a bottle, adjusting accordingly and keeping track of how much of each colour goes into the mix. You can use this method for lacquer-based paints, too, but may need several syringes, as the lacquer attacks the seal, quickly rendering the syringe inoperable.
I seem to have very good success at matching paint colours, but it’s still all trial-and-error.
Wayne
Hi,
In response to mobilman44, I wish to point out the following:
Jason Shron and the rest of the Rapido team have ALWAYS been at the fore-front on communication about its products, and ALL communication between them and myself has been quick and courteous.
When I asked about the paint colours, I knew that IF Rapido had that information, they would let me know. In regards to the answer, as Jason pointed out, Rapido has not compared the bulk paint colours they use in China to the small bottles of paint sold by many manufacturers sold in North America. And why should they? Lord knows that Rapido has all hands on deck getting out the products they’ve been working on so digitately. And here I am asking about how to paint another manufacturers product to match their colours. Simply asking for the colour comparison was a way to forego the tedious process of colour matching by trial and error.
Now it looks like that’s what I’m going to have to do.
The Chinese fabricators formulate their own paints and I think you would be hard pressed to relate many of the Chinese-based OEM paint colors to a PMS number.
Look at the new P2K War Bonnet F-units and compare the color with the Athearn Genesis versions. Big difference with the nod going to the latter.