Trying to figure out just how close is the yellow color of the C19 bumble bee to the yellow color of their current cars Grizley Flats or Palasade? Or prior passenger car releases.
Mickey, let me first assure you I am not making fun of your query, quite the opposite. Matching paint color is quite an art that even the machines at the paint stores don’t have quite perfect.
What time of day are you making the comparison? What is the angle of the sun and what time of year is it? Is there snow on the ground around where you are making the comparison? All of these things affect what the color ‘looks like’.
Then there is the paint chemistry. All paint starts out with a Titanium white, then tints are added to get the color desired. There is a military standard (MIL-STD-595) that defines the colors and shades so they match, complete with formula to accompany. You can order the same Mil Spec paint number from different sources at different times and get visibly different shades. This is caused by the purity of the Titanium used in the base white. Different batches of white even by the same manufacturer will be different, but not necessarily to the naked eye, but can result in significantly different shades after mix. My best recommendation is take the item with the color you wish to match with you and ‘eyeball it’.
Some here may have a suggestions based on their experiences, but i would not count on a guaranteed or perfect match.
Good luck.
Mickey are you asking from the point of view of finding RTR product to buy that is compatible in colour to your BB liveried C-19 or to refinish product to match ? Accucraft made versions of their J&S cars, in Fn3 scale like the C-19, in the yellow/black BB livery. If those makers have standardised colour specs on this established livery then those should look ok together.
Sometimes a number of manufacturers, if only for the sake of sales, will agree on a recognised colour standard for an established livery but that is no guarantee of an exact match between all products. My USAT and Aristo’ SP “Daylight” stock were all a good uniform match to my eye though. Then again paint in real life weathers and ages so you can have the same cars in a rake and there will be slight differences between them because they never came out the works at all the same time and stored in exactly the same conditions.
With regards to my above comment about colour standardisation - I used to produce a range of model racing cars and all us “artisan” makers would settle on specific auto refinishing paint spec’s and base coats so that the many established team liveries matched from model maker to model maker. Most local specialist auto paint suppliers, and some accessory stores, can reproduce from a colour sample. Even as ready mixed in spray cans not just big pots of paint.
My question was how close are the yellows. Not necessarily exact match, but relatively close. Some yellows are close and some are not. Since I don’t have any of the coaches, my only comparisons are computer pics. So I was hoping someone else who might have both the C19 and these other cars has a real life comparison. There aren’t any dealers close with them, so it would end up being an Internet or eBay thing.
Hope this helps. That’s an older version Bachmann Coach.
Jason
Mickey Kelley said:
My question was how close are the yellows. Not necessarily exact match, but relatively close. Some yellows are close and some are not. Since I don’t have any of the coaches, my only comparisons are computer pics. So I was hoping someone else who might have both the C19 and these other cars has a real life comparison. There aren’t any dealers close with them, so it would end up being an Internet or eBay thing.
Echoing the earlier comment about paint formulation it is very inadvisable to make any comparison of colours from a computer/video screen or even any printed material - like a catalogue. Which you obviously understand as you are asking the question (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)Video screens of different types are all calibrated for colour in different ways, there is no standardized way to represent “colour” on a screen. And then individual users overlay their own viewing preferences and enhance the colour or alter on pictures to suit their application or personal tastes. Likewise even printed pictures will not give a uniform representation of printed colours. Different image capturing, print methods and viewing platforms will represent colours in subtle (and not so subtle) different ways and ranges, known as “colour gamuts”. As the old expression goes, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.
I had a guy who bought a model race car off me on Ebay and when he received it claimed the colour wasn’t correct and didn’t match what he was looking at on the listing. I was able to prove to him the color was most certainly the industry accepted standard, that all the other of this maker’s products had been finished in, and the only issue was the multiple stages from photographing to him viewing on screen the image had gone through.
As said previously the only way to be sure you have an acceptable match, to you, is to “eyeball” it. Or hope that as the Bumble Bee livery is a well known and established one the different makers producing stock in that livery or mimicking it will be agreed on what tints they are using to achieve what the customer expects. Try contacting the manufacturer and see what they used. Some will have the data or have reused a colour in different liveries - e.g. “Grizzly Flats” yellow and the yellow they used to produce the Big Hauler “Bumble Bee” based cars. Or refinish yourself in a colour the modelling community widely accepts as “right”.
Former life - Ex Canon colour print/copier sales specialist for many years. I spent a lot of time around printers, print specialists and publishers trying to assess and use colour output from mixed technologies to produce an acceptable end product. It’s always a compromise and the assessment subjective.
Jason V. said:
Hope this helps. That’s an older version Bachmann Coach.
Jason
Ah! Someone who actually answered the question. Thank you (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
David Marconi,FOGCH said:
Jason V. said:
Hope this helps. That’s an older version Bachmann Coach.
Jason
Ah! Someone who actually answered the question. Thank you (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Does it ? The question was about two other liveries matching the Bumble Bee yellow on the C-19 not the actual “Big Hauler” Bumble Bee cars themselves shown. OK, I’m just being pedantic here. All I’m trying to do is offer some alternatives to get the OP a satisfactory result and, like Bob, pointing out some of the common pitfalls when trying to seek a colour match - Something that might be of use to other forum users and not just the OP. I hope I’m not being oversensitive here.
Anyhow, the posting of the image is welcome and beneficial and shows Bachmann make a Bumble Bee liveried set too, and shows the colour match to be near - depending on what device you are looking at the picture on. But by how much and how adequate in the eyes of the OP in real life it will be is impossible to tell for the reasons I have stated. So David please do not seemingly imply that anything other than a reply to the original question as exactly as posed is not offering usable information in this instance. That’s up to the OP to decide. While I’m here, are you aware Mickey that the Bachmann Big Hauler range J&S cars are scaled at around 1:24 not the Spectrum range C-19’s 1:20.3. Something other than colour that may be important to you.
I would suggest that any yellow will look prototypical. Out in the sun and rain the railroad cars regularly changed color - darker as they got dirty, lighter as they got bleached by the sun. On the East Broad Top there are photos of the dark green cars looking pale blue.
I was giving a basic, if wanted bumble bee comparison. I do not have the others. But as far as I can see by the side by side I have…the engine is off from the grizzly flats or the palasade. Like Pete said they change by the weather and sun. So it depends on how close you want it to match at first. In the real world R.R. nothing matches color.
Jason
Jason V. said:
Hope this helps. That’s an older version Bachmann Coach.
Jason
Thanks this is what I was looking for. Pic is worth a thousand words.
Max Winter said:
Former life - Ex Canon colour print/copier sales specialist for many years. I spent a lot of time around printers, print specialists and publishers trying to assess and use colour output from mixed technologies to produce an acceptable end product. It’s always a compromise and the assessment subjective.
I have had to explain that to many customers. So many expect the print on paper (that isn’t always bright white) to match what they see on the computer monitor.
Mikey, I have an LGB Mogul, with a Bachmann tender, and a trio of Heartland cars that I run. Up close the yellows don’t exactly match, but at a distance, outside, they look good together.
