Boxcar red paint


V

Vince-RA

Well-Known Member
I bought a bunch of Polly Scale in the early 2010s before it was discontinued. I'm working through what I have left pretty quickly alas, especially the Boxcar Red. Supposedly the Microlux paints from Micromark are blended to match the Polly S colors, but as you can tell from the pic below it's not even close, alas. Yeah yeah, I know taking pictures of colors and expecting fidelity across machines and monitors is fraught, but you can pretty easily tell it's off. Not enough red in the Microlux to my eye - I may try to mix in a little bit to see if it helps.

Just for the heck of it I compared a few other colors I had on hand, two coats with a brush for all of them. In case you can't read my chicken scratch, the colors are (from left to right)
  1. Microlux Boxcar Red #29015
  2. Tamiya Hull Red
  3. Microlux Roof Red
  4. Polly Scale Mineral Red (this is actually my favorite)
  5. Polly Scale Boxcar Red
Any recommendations from folks for a good boxcar red? I don't mind slight differences from car to car but I like the look of the Polly Scales much better than the Microlux.


P1020844.JPG
 
Any of those will work. There is no prototype "boxcar red". Every railroad had their own mix for the reddish brown paint used on their cars. The mixes varied over time and could vary between which company supplied the paint and which plant made the paint. The newly painted cars were the same color for about the first month, then sunlight, dirt and grime would start changing the color until 10 years later, 5 boxcars all painted the same might have very different colors. If you go back prior to WW1 each shop might mix it's own paint so even the same shop might have slightly different shades of reddish brown depend on how big a scoop of which pigments they dumped into the linseed oil.

Bottom line, just pick something close. If it's slightly off, a little weathering and it will look fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top