What gives? I have a set of undecorated Roundhouse Pullman Palace cars which I wanted to paint Pullman Green. I wanted the roof left black so I masked that off and applied a coat of light grey primer. I then added a coat of the Scalecoat Pullman Green. It looked fairly dark in the spray booth but that didn’t concern me much. When it had dried and I put it under my layout lighting, it was virtually black. I removed the masking tape from the black roof and it is indistinguishable from the Pullman Green body. If you looked really close, you could see it was a slightly different shade of black, but it was still black. I sprayed a spot on a scrap piece of styrene, an you could see a slight greenish tint on the edges of the spot but in the center, it was that same nearly black shade.
Is this an accurate representation of Pullman Green? All of the color photos I’ve seen of the heavyweight cars in the Pullman era show a dark green, but it is still green, very close to the shade of most of the RTR cars from various manufacturers. Can anyone explain why the Scalecoat paint would be nearly black?
I don’t have an answer, just another data point to add to the ‘anecdata’: I ordered Scalecoat II Pullman Green from Walthers middle of last year - the color was indeed (to my eyes) black w/ a tinge of green (close to the legendary PRR Brunswick Green) - I expected a dark green, but more of a forest green, not what looked like black.
I just put the bottle aside, used another dark green more to my liking, and forgot about it until now…
Pullman green is a dark green, a little more brown in it than forest green would have, but it is green. The green used by BNSF up until the recent change to black was based on Great Northern’s dark green, and I think GN referred to that color as being Pullman green. See the cover and interior pics of restored GN “Hustle Muscle” 400 in the Oct 2009 Railfan & Railroad.
It might be Scalecoat has it too dark, or maybe the paint wasn’t stirred/shaken enough or something before spraying?? I guess you could try adding a little white or yellow and try again. FWIW I find Accuflex (Badger) Pullman green looks the most accurate to my eye. Most other “Pullman green” paints I’ve seen are actually too bright, not too dark.
This is an interesting question. A friend of mine brought over some steam engine shells he wanted me to paint and had a (new) jar of Scalecoat Brunswick green. As far as I’m concerned you might as well call Brunswick green black, but I’m not a Pennsy guy. Anyway, after the paint dried his complaint was that the color was too green (or not black enough), just the opposite of what you describe.
He had used Scalecoat before and was satisfied, so we’re not sure what the problem is. Maybe Scalecoat is changing the paint formulation.
It might be worth it for you to call them and tell them your concern, just in case they have an issue they’re not aware of.
I’ve used Scalecoat a lot and have always liked the color it dries to, although I’ve never used Scalecoat Pullman Green myself. I’ve used Floquil Pullman Green. I really like Floquil’s interpretation of Pullman Green. The main photo on my website shows G scale cars painted with Floquil Pullman green.
You did use Scalecoat II paint for plastics right? If you used Scalecoat I, which is only intended for metals and wood, then perhaps the paint didn’t agree much with the roundhouse plastic causing the darker then normal color.
Scalecoat does not have a color chart on their website (you can buy one from them). However I did find these online that show their color charts. Their Pullman green looks very dark, sort of a dark gray green:
Well, I used Scalecoat II, since I was working with plastics - however, looking at that color chart you linked to, it was fairly close in color to the ‘swatch’ images on that color char - albiet a bit darker (allowing for differences in computer monitors - I think LCDs can run a bit darker).
On my monitor, the Pullman Green and the Brunswick Greens are very dark, just a shade lighter than black (Pullman green a wee bit lighter - very little). - and that seems to agree with the color I saw when I painted some details (had to strip them since they looked so black to me).
Interesting interperation Scalecoat has of Pullman Green - I’d say their ‘Reading’ Green is a better match, but again that’s to my eyes, and comparing to photos of the prototype and actual models
The Pullman Green I like is Floquil, solvent based. Some would say this is a little light for Pullman Green. Pullman Green is more olive green rather than forest green.
Reading “New” Green is more of a forest green, like John Deere Green. Early Reading diesel road switchers and yard switchers were in fact painted Pullman Green, just to add some confusion.
PRR Brunswick Green is not Pullman Green, some Pennsy guy’s will say it is “five parts black and one part green”. The formula may have changed from shop to shop. I have seen PRR and PRSL diesel photos painted in what looked like a lighter green than Brunswick Green, I can not explain these.
The Seaboard Air Line Railroad painted their diesels Pullman Green with a cream stripe. In all of my research photos, I thought the color was almost black. In fact, for a while I thought the SAL locos were black & cream. I just recently purchaed my first SAL locos from Atlas and Walthers, and their versions of Pullman Green are much lighter than I expected. They still look great and are very dark, but nowhere close to black. Jamie
There are several factors that need to be appreciated to fully understand what’s probably going on here.
Firstly, each hobby paint manufacturer has a slightly different interpretation of exactly what Pullman Green was (this point has been argued about in the hobby for decades!) and this hue can often vary noticeably from one company’s paint to the next. In reality, I think most here will agree that Pullman Green should be a rather dark green with a slightly brownish tinge to it.
Scalecoat’s colors are usually pretty accurate renditions of the various RR’s paints but consider that even if the color is a perfect match to the prototype, you are painting it on a small model with very little surface area and that will be usually viewed in room lighting. The huge prototype will have broad panels of the color and be seen out-of-doors in bright sunlight/daytime illumination. The combination of these two will tend to make the model seem significantly darker than the prototype.
Finally, remember that any color photos of the prototype will most likely be of in-service equipment, rather than units fresh out of the paintshop. Thus, for most examples the paint will have aged and lightened from its original hue.
The difference between room lighting and sunlight had occured to me but until late afternoon, it was a very soggy day here in Ohio so I didn’t have much chance to test that possibility. Still, I can’t see that making much of a difference. As far as I’m concerned, this is black paint with just the faintest hint of green in it. As I said in the original post, it was virtually indistinguishable from the unpainted black roof.
To answer another responder, this was Scalecoat and not Scalecoat II for plastics which is why I elected to spray it with a primer first. I painted just one car and if I put it down next to one of the unpainted cars which are molded i
You will find that the size of the surface area being viewed and particularly the nature of the lighting under which that surface is seen (many times even the angle at which it’s viewed), can create a dramatic difference in a color’s appearance. Experienced custom painters understand this and typically will lighten the color of any paint so as to make it appear more prototypical under layoutroom lighting.
Incidentally, most manufacturers understand this too and commonly paint their models lighter hues than prototypically correct as well, so that the colors show up better in room lighting (ever notice that you can rarely match a good RTR model’s paint with something straight out of a paint jar?) .
Arthur Dubin’s book Pullman Paint and Lettering Notebook is a great source for Pullman painting practice, as it is based on the notes and sketches of a master Pullman painter. It contains swatches of most of the colors used, including the standard 70-10 Pullman Green.
I use military colors for flattened, weathered Pullman green; government designated, “Olive Drab” ANA 613, US Army 319, and FS-33070 are good matches. Various model paint manufacturers make these colors. Post WWII US Army Olive Drab (FS-34087) is a little too brown, but could be used for variation, or for the special New Haven Pullman Green #13 (used on their electrics and early diesels). FS 24087 is closest due to its gloss (the first digit says it is flat if 3, semigloss if 2, gloss if 1). In the model shop, you can overspray with clear to get the gloss you want for decalling and final finish.
The military connection is somewhat undocumented, but there is reason to believe that a commercially available form of Pullman Green was adopted by the US Army in 1942 for their standard Olive Drab used on ground vehicles. That color was called “Panama Pullman Green.” I have not been able to trace this any further. In any case, that color was superceded by the browner 34087 around 1950.
I have found that Accu-flex 16-65 GN Green is a great match for fresh Pullman Green. It is not lightened for so-called layout lighting, and dries to a good gloss for decalling. I have no idea if it is currently being produced. The concept of lightening paints for “layout lighting” breaks down if you look at your models in actual sunlight. But if you choose to lighten the paint, you can also buy FS-34088, a lighter OD that can depict Pullman Green under dimmer lights.
Pullmans were supposedly repainted every 2 years, in the pre-WWII years, so weathering would be limited to dirt and possibly fading. They were not maintained on schedule during WWII, and after '48,
I’ve been using Scalecoat I Brunswick green on my pennsy steamer (without primer) that is shot out of an airbrush directly onto cleaned brass. The paint definitely looks green to me. When it is baked it is dark but definitely not black (and very glossy BTW). If I decide to put a flat finish on the model the green will definitely lightened up. I think this has to do with the way light bounces off a glossy object as opposed to a flat (finish) object. The flat finish diffuses and spreads the light across the surface. In fact, when the scalecoat is oversprayed with dullcoat or whatever clear flat you choose, the engine is waaaayyy too green IMO. This ends up working out OK because after sooting it up and weathering it, it looks right.
I think I agree on the Scalecoat Pullman Green being too dark even for the car that I am building that is to look like it had just been shopped. I bought my Scalecoat II from Walthers over the summer. Maybe something got goofed up at the manufacturer?
I brushed on a sample of the Scalecoat II PG from a bottle and also airbrushed it thinned–still too dark. Now, mind you, I haven’t sprayed on any clear flat–perhaps that will make it greener. I held it under various shades of light including sunlight and it’s still black folks–no green.
I have compared different brands of Pullman Green model paint. I would only use Floquil Pullman Green if I was going to model a weathered car like that on a mixed train. It is too green in my opinion. (Ironically, I am building a Wabash mixed train combine for a retired railroader friend and he wants it to look like it came out of the shop but the Scalecoat is still too dark.)
I purchased some Scalecoat Coach Olive and will experiment mixing it in with the Scalecoat Pullman Green and see what I come up with. I’m not ready to paint right now but look forward to seeing what I come up with.
Since I began this thread, I have experimented with blending some inexpensive artist acryillics to get the shade I want. Being airbrush challenged, by choices are limited to stock spray can colors or customized acryillics that are brush painted. In attempting to replicate a shade close to the the Pullman Green of the various RTR Pullman cars in my fleet, I tried a number of different blends of green and black paints. One thing I have discovered is that black is so dominant it tends to overwhelm the green. I began with a fairly light shade of olive green and began adding just a few drops of black to it. It didn’t take more than a few drops to turn that light green shade very dark, darker than what I was trying for. The shade I got was better than the Scalecoat Pullman Green I got out of the spray can but still needs to be lighter to satisfy my eye. I’ll need to get some more jars of the light olive green and this time begin by adding just a single drop of black and see what that yields. I can keep adding a drop at a time until it looks right to me.
