Thinking about mixing my own paint...

Jeremy · June 18, 2012, 12:07:16 PM

I'm nowhere near being ready to paint the whole of my bus, but I am at the stage where I could do with painting some small areas now, in order to do some reassembly that will move me towards being able to paint everything else later (exactly as you might paint the doorshuts first when restoring a car for instance).

Since I will ultimately need much more paint than I've ever had to buy for any of my previous projects, I thought I should try to shop a bit smarter than just rolling up at the local trade counter in the usual way. The paint scheme I have planned for the bus is along similar lines to the photo of the orange and cream truck below, but the areas I need to paint *now* are just the cream colour, so it's that colour that I'm looking for at the moment.

Many suppliers offer a very limited range of standard colours in addition to the usual 'mix anything' service. For the type of paint I will buy these standard colours are typically only one-third or one-quarter of the price of the 'mix anything' shades. The standard ranges always include the obvious colours such as white, but I've only found one supplier that offers a cream paint in it's range of standard colours. That is a shade called Honeysuckle Beige, which is the colour that the Triumph is painted in the photo below. (Apparently is a popular colour for classic cars).

As you can see, the colour that I really want (the cream on the truck) is quite a bit lighter in shade than the Honeysuckle Beige colour....so to my question:- would it be a smart move, or a really, really dumb move, for me to buy a quantity of Honeysuckle Beige, and a quantity of white from the same supplier, and mix them together to get the shade I want? It would save me a lot of money and, if I was careful about recording the ratios when mixing, I should be able to reproduce the effect again in the future shouldn't I?

I don't think I'd try this on 'bolder' colours, but for some reason my mind tells me that it's likely to work quite well on a shade as simple as beige/cream.

Interested in people's thoughts...

Jeremy

Cary and Don · June 18, 2012, 06:35:41 PM

If you measure exactly, I would think you will be all right. The safest thing would be to buy equal amounts of each and mix them completely in a third container, then return it to the first two containers and then back to the third container again. This is called boxing. I do this sort of thing all the time with lacquer when finishing cabinets.

Cary

Don and Cary
1973 05 Eagle
GM 4107
Neoplan AN340

rgrauto · June 18, 2012, 06:59:20 PM

In the US Ford Motor Co. had a creamy- white paint they used on all trucks,cars,etc. it was called Wimbledon, White . This may be the color you seek and if you need a paint number I own several vehicles with this paint. HTH, Glen

boxcarOkie · June 18, 2012, 07:27:59 PM

The color on the Pete could be a Chrysler color they call "Cool Vanilla." A lot of them are painting it and then striping it out in Emerald Green.

BCO

chev49 · June 19, 2012, 07:57:04 AM

i use the cream colored paint from paintforcars.com. cause its cheaper than the industrial finishes paint store here.
and, as long as the base is the same, i mix any of the paints. after all, for a used car for resale, it doesnt matter.
my bus has the silver, the emrald blue and the cream all from the paintforcars website.
these guys paint has gone up only a bit in the last few years, my paint store has more than doubled the prices...

Uglydog56 · June 19, 2012, 11:33:51 AM

Are you spraying or rolling?

If roll and tipping, 4381 off-white might work:

http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=64#

I think this can be sprayed as well. Haven't done that research yet.

Jeremy · June 19, 2012, 12:14:25 PM

Quote from: Uglydog56 on June 19, 2012, 11:33:51 AM
Are you spraying or rolling?

If roll and tipping, 4381 off-white might work:

http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=64#

I think this can be sprayed as well. Haven't done that research yet.

No problem at all spraying that kind of paint, but it's much more expensive than automotive paint. I'll be using a 2 pack paint (because it's simple to use and very tough, and I've never liked using basecoat/lacquer systems), and spraying it.

I had a look at the paintforcars.com website (thanks chev49). I find it a little difficult looking at American stuff about paint though - not only are the prices and quantities in different units but the terms used to describe the different types of paint are different too. And because we have different laws here I'm not even sure whether the paints themselves are the same as what is sold here or not.

Regarding mixing my own colours, no-one has suggested that it's a bad idea yet, so that's still my preferred option at the moment I think

Thanks for all the replies

Jeremy

bobofthenorth · June 19, 2012, 07:12:08 PM

I'll be the contrary voice. I think it will be VERY difficult to duplicate a colour tone with subsequent mixes. Even the pros have difficulty doing this so what hope is there for amateurs such as us?

I'm in the middle of repainting the frenchy-bus right now so this is very topical for me. Light tones really show subtle differences in shading when you put them on great big flat surfaces like we do. Just my WAG but I don't think you'll be happy with the results unless you mix everything you need at once.

Personally my goal is to have the bus look acceptable at 60 MPH from 60 miles away. Your standards may be higher or lower than that.