ics without changing the overall concentration of solids to solutes in the solution. (As a biology re- search technician, I can assure you that last sentence makes per- fect sense — to me.) Since I had already been using airbrush me- dium to thin Polly Scale, I had taken care of that part of the problem. I diluted some craft paint with
airbrush medium to a consistency I could actually spray, and the re- sults were good. However, some problems existed. Between uses, the paint totally separated from the airbrush medium, meaning I had to mix the bottle thorough- ly every time I wanted to use it. The paint sometimes produced a rough finish; sometimes it clogged the airbrush; and sometimes it wouldn’t lay nicely on the mod- el, beading up and drying with a “pimply” finish. Multiple coats de- veloped “cracks” on their surface. I tried adding some rubbing alco- hol — that didn’t really help. Then I tried Future Floor Polish. That didn’t help, either. What I need- ed was something to make the paint more “slippery” when go- ing through the airbrush tip while keeping the paint better dissolved in the airbrush medium. Poking around the Liquitex
website, I stumbled across Flow Aid — an emulsifier that also low- ers the surface tension of paint, making it flow better. I bought some, added that to
my mix, and voila! Now, I have a paint I can airbrush, apply with a brush, or use as a wash or stain.
What paint to buy First, you need craft paint, of
which there are many brands. I bought the ones shown (opposite page) at my local Michael’s in the past year; however, these are also available at art stores, and some local hobby shops. Of the vari- ous brands, I find the Americana brand to be the one I have pur- chased the most, and I must say it handles a bit better than some of the others. However, I have been
able to get good results with all the brands shown. The major problem with using
craft paint is matching it to a spe- cific model railroad color. If you are looking for something with which to paint structures or fig- ures, then any of the colors will do, and you can just buy whatever appeals to you. However, if you want something to match your prototype’s passenger car colors, for example, then you are going to have to do some work. My first step is to make color
cards by spraying or brushing out whatever Polly Scale color I want to match onto unruled white in- dex cards. I also write down the name of the color and its Polly Scale stock number. Next, I take the card to Michael’s and hold up bottles of paint until I find one that looks like a good match to my color card. At the bottom of page 40 is a photograph of a paint card for Polly Scale Italian Camo Brown 2 (from Polly Scale’s long- defunct military line) with a bot- tle of Americana Deep Burgundy. Note there is a printed label on the Americana bottle’s cap, which is what I used to match. If there isn’t a color “button,” then I just match to what I can see through the bottle. This color, incidentally, is my favorite for red brick. An al- ternative approach is shown be- low, where I used a paint chip of B&O gray to match Folk Art Ital- ian Sage. Other methods of paint match-
ing could include using pictures of equipment published in various color books over the last several years for specific railroads. You could also take the actual model whose paint you wish to match to the store. This process is lim- ited only by your imagination and
What’s in a Name? You would think that making a paint color match the same color
from a diff erent manufacturer would be simple, right? I mean, isn’t Boxcar Red, Boxcar Red? Unfortunately, the answer to that is no, and therein lies a tale or two. Many years ago, manufacturers made paint by mixing pigments
obtained from clay and other earths — colors such as burnt ocher and raw umber. Boxcar Red is a red oxide derived from clay and can vary from region to region. Years ago, a model railroad maga- zine printed a series of arti cles showing how the color of red oxide applied to new, post-WWII boxcars could vary quite a bit, depend- ing on what the purchasing railroad specifi ed. Prior to WWII, Bal- ti more & Ohio boxcars arrived in a brownish red that is best rep- resented by Polly Scale Boxcar Red. Aft er WWII, the boxcars wore a brighter, more orangish red best represented by Polly Scale Zinc Chromate Primer. I probably have half a dozen shades of boxcar red, red oxide, special red oxide, and so forth from Polly Scale — all shades of a color we modelers loosely refer to as “Boxcar Red.” Then there is “arti st’s colors” versus “designer colors.” The late
Julian Barnard introduced me to this concept — some colors, such as the burnt ocher or raw umber menti oned earlier, are fi xed. They are the same no matt er who makes them; they will match because they are a standard. Designer colors are those off ered in house paints, car colors, or railroad colors. Glidden Forest Green may be an enti rely diff erent color than Sherwin-Williams Forest Green. That brings us to the image at the top of this arti cle. It shows a kitbashed model of B&O class J-B cafe-club car 2001 sandwiched between a coach and a sleeper. Despite all three cars being paint- ed “B&O Royal Blue,” there is no way that 2001 can be said to match the other two cars. I painted the coach and sleeper using Polly Scale; I painted car 2001 using another name-brand model acrylic paint. How does this happen, you might ask? Well, that’s another tale.
Back at the turn of the 20th Century, B&O ran trains from Wash- ington to New York on what it called, “The Royal Blue Line” and, yes, the railroad painted the cars Royal Blue. Fast-forward to circa 1930, and B&O hired Ott o Kuhler to style its new Royal Blue train set. To make the new train disti ncti ve from the standard Pullman Green cars of other trains, Mr. Kuhler chose an extremely dark blue (not Royal Blue) dubbed “BANDO” blue. (Supposedly, the la- bel printer at DuPont couldn’t handle lowercase lett ers, thus BAN- DO rather than BandO.) The blue was so dark that it appeared black under train sheds. Thus, Mr. Kuhler added a gray stripe to force the eye to see the blue in Bando Blue even in low light. Now fast-forward to the Internet age, where, according to Wikipedia, a brighter blue was chosen as the web color “Royal Blue” when web colors were formulated as the X11 colors in 1987. (See htt p://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_blue for the full story.) The Polly Scale B&O Royal Blue may or may not be a match to actual Royal Blue, but it does match color chips of Bando Blue, and thus is my standard. Apparently, the company whose B&O Royal Blue I used on car
2001 matched the X11 Royal Blue, and not the original Royal Blue or Bando Blue, thus resulti ng in a color that has nothing to do with the color used by the prototype. (Sigh.)
JUNE 2015 39
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