winabbey wrote:
Lindsay - can you please explain to a novice the purpose of the data on the envelope and enclosed colour card?
How would someone get the correct colour mixed today using that information?
Is a mixing formula included or is it intended the colour swatch be scanned?
Are all the 1960's and 70's BMC/Leyland Australia colours in the system?
I recently found in our archives the original manufacturing standards from when Dulux (or Berger, balm) supplied most auto manufacturers in Australia.
These pictures are of these standards. The standard is the colour sample which would have been used to check each batch of paint before the paint was supplied to the manufacturer, in this case BMC.
We now match these colours on request for customers restoring cars in our current refinish products, usually 2k or basecoat. I think from memory we did the orient red already in basecoat and we have done marine blue and a white. Sorry can't remember which.
The information on the envelope is the manufacturer, colour name (though names can change from model to model) and the full product number. This number is in the following format, first three digits ar the paint type, I.e acrylic, nitrocellulose or enamel, then the rest of the numbers identifies the colour. I would have to look what the first three digits on the red standard are as we don't make the product anymore, it has been replaced by better technology.
We do not currently use spectrophotometers for colour matching, this is done by our colour matchers. I think this is what you are referring to when you say scan the colour?
No formula is included on these colour standards, and the tinkers are different now anyway so they would be of no use.
We have almost all colour standards available, however over the last near 60 years some have gone missing, in this case we have a very large collection of the original colour chips which paint stores used to have and we match these. I have checked the standards against these colour chips and I have found them to be very accurate.
For someone wanting to get accurate colour mixed they would hav to request the colour, either from a repair shop we supply or one of our distributors. For colours we have already matched the formula will be available, if it is waiting to be matched there is up to a four week lead time depending on our workload.
I also posted some information on colour matching here some time back, if you want I can add that to this post but I think I have written too much already. Let me know if you need any further information.
