Kato paint colors

[mvaron]

Hello all! Does anyone have recommendations on paint colors for the most common colors on the electric engines? Like the blue (EF64-1000) or the cream color (EF60-500)? It's for touch ups, so doesn't have to match exactly, but would be nice 🙂

 

Thank you

[Kamome]

The only Japanese railway related colours I’ve come across are the Greenmax range of paints for their kits. I’ve not used myself so couldn’t comment on the quality of the paint.

 

http://www.greenmax.co.jp/Catalog/GMcolor.shtml

 

Otherwise it’ll be a case of trying to get the closest colour from the usual paint suppliers. I’ve certainly not seen anything quite right from Tamiya as they tend to cater better for the military modelers.

[mvaron]

2 hours ago, Kamome said:

The only Japanese railway related colours I’ve come across are the Greenmax range of paints for their kits. I’ve not used myself so couldn’t comment on the quality of the paint.

 

http://www.greenmax.co.jp/Catalog/GMcolor.shtml

 

Otherwise it’ll be a case of trying to get the closest colour from the usual paint suppliers. I’ve certainly not seen anything quite right from Tamiya as they tend to cater better for the military modelers.

 

Those are great thanks for the link! I'll need to try one to see how close and what quality. I have the Tamiya catalog but they don't have a cream color, there is one blue that might work, but I haven't tried it.

[cteno4]

Also for touch up you can just try the painters palette and blend some of you own as you just need a few dabs. Paint a bit on a thin cardstock strip and hit with the hair dryer to dry and see if you can get close. Unfortunately this does not store well at small volumes, but for a quick touch up. Lots of YouTube videos on how to do quick blends from a few basic colors to get to what you want. If you do want it for longer you can mix up a batch in a small vial (as little air as possible) and store. These are great little sealable vials

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/15X-1-5ml-5ml-10ml-Plastic-Test-Tubes-Vial-Screw-Seal-Cap-Pack-Container-TW/131764784828?hash=item1eadcb0ebc:m:mCc9df9KGv8MT7LeylCjaDg

 

jeff

[mvaron]

13 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Also for touch up you can just try the painters palette and blend some of you own as you just need a few dabs. Paint a bit on a thin cardstock strip and hit with the hair dryer to dry and see if you can get close. Unfortunately this does not store well at small volumes, but for a quick touch up. Lots of YouTube videos on how to do quick blends from a few basic colors to get to what you want. If you do want it for longer you can mix up a batch in a small vial (as little air as possible) and store. These are great little sealable vials

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/15X-1-5ml-5ml-10ml-Plastic-Test-Tubes-Vial-Screw-Seal-Cap-Pack-Container-TW/131764784828?hash=item1eadcb0ebc:m:mCc9df9KGv8MT7LeylCjaDg

 

jeff

 

Thanks Jeff! I was having a hard time finding the Greenmax paints 😕 so secretly I was going to try to get colors close to what I needed at Hobby Lobby or Michael's. Here are the (2) shells that need attention (it looks worse than it is because of the zoom the camera has) like I said, just touch up. I may have to redo the whole strip so that it doesn't look patched.

Edited August 4, 2019 by mvaron

[cteno4]

Might try the hobby shop and get some Tamaya flat colors as most of the acrylics at craft stores are going to be much thicker and larger grained pigments and may not blend well. Do you have an air brush? You can usually blend much better around a ding with an airbrush than a paint brush. If you have one and haven’t done a lot of fine brushing try putting a good coat down on some styrene, make some dings and practice on em.

 

If you do use a paint brush thin the paint a tad so you don’t get the big blob effect and just do a few very light touches in the mark itself to fill even and last coat try to blend the edges flat. Again try a practice run on some painted styrene. Sometimes a clear spray dull coat afterwards can help blend it all in better.

 

Also check the inside of the shell as there is usually some overspray on the inside that you can test on for color and practice bending the edges as flat as possible. Burnish your masking tape (the tamaya tape works well) along the paint edge with a rounded tip to help prevent bleed.

 

sorry if you know all these things, just a dump of all the tricks I’ve done over the years.

 

the color blending videos are great as im always forgetting the tricks to match colors.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Ochanomizu]

Hello,

 

On Japan Wikipedia please find a comprehensive list of JNR colours, including Munsell, hexadecimal, and RGB values.

 

Here: JNR Colours

 

 

[mvaron]

21 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Might try the hobby shop and get some Tamaya flat colors as most of the acrylics at craft stores are going to be much thicker and larger grained pigments and may not blend well. Do you have an air brush? You can usually blend much better around a ding with an airbrush than a paint brush. If you have one and haven’t done a lot of fine brushing try putting a good coat down on some styrene, make some dings and practice on em.

 

If you do use a paint brush thin the paint a tad so you don’t get the big blob effect and just do a few very light touches in the mark itself to fill even and last coat try to blend the edges flat. Again try a practice run on some painted styrene. Sometimes a clear spray dull coat afterwards can help blend it all in better.

 

Also check the inside of the shell as there is usually some overspray on the inside that you can test on for color and practice bending the edges as flat as possible. Burnish your masking tape (the tamaya tape works well) along the paint edge with a rounded tip to help prevent bleed.

 

sorry if you know all these things, just a dump of all the tricks I’ve done over the years.

 

the color blending videos are great as im always forgetting the tricks to match colors.

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Really appreciate the information, not at all repeatative. Unfortunately I don't have an air brush, do you have any recommendations that aren't too expensive? I'd like to try that out.

[mvaron]

8 hours ago, Ochanomizu said:

Hello,

 

On Japan Wikipedia please find a comprehensive list of JNR colours, including Munsell, hexadecimal, and RGB values.

 

Here: JNR Colours

 

 

 

Thank you so much! This is a great resource 🙂

[cteno4]

Mvaron,

 

ive used from cheap to expensive airbrushes. Of course more expensive ones are usually better, I’ve had some $25 harbor freight ones that have held up well and got stuff done for the general stuff. Fine spray ones are nice but you need to clean them well as they can muck up easier. I have a expensive badger that has a fine spray but rarely use it as cleaning it out is a total pain. Also some of the finer brushes don’t do as well with non airbrush paints as airbrush paints tend to have the smallest pigment grains to keep drops small for the very light sprays. 

 

Two kinds, dual action and single action. Dual action has a trigger that lets you control the air flow as well as paint flow while you paint. This gives you flexibility as you paint to change paint flow (ie how thick a coat) while spraying. Single action jut let you turn the air on and off. The spray pattern and paint volume you preset on the brush. This means you have to stop painting and readjust if you want to go to painting a big area to painting a small detail lightly. But single action are easier to use (it’s just on/off like a spray can, not on/adjust the amount of paint/off) and usually easy to maintain and are cheaper. If you are just doing some little bits then a single action may be the fastest and cheapest to get going. If you get into it move up to a dual action.

 

another thing you will hear is internal vs external mix. Internal mix is where paint is drawn into the gun and mixed with the air to spray out the paint spray. This means paint is all inside the gun and has to be cleaned out well after use. External mix just spray air over a small nib in the top of thenpaint supply. This creates a suction for paint to be drawn up thru the nib and hit the air spray and creates the spray. Of course this is much more uncontrolled but no real cleaning to do except for the bottle and nibs and you can swap out bottles in a sec to change colors. These are great for scenery painting and rough applications but not for detail painting. They are also cheap like $10-20.

 

you also need an air source. Any air compressor will do with a good regulator to bring the pressure down. You can get air airbrush compressor that is usually always on but small and (usually) quiet. Or you can just buy little cans of compressed air for small bits. 

 

Airbrushing does need practice. Best to just play a long while and make up some practice projects first. Grabbing a few beat up old train cars at the train show is good to practice repairing dings and dents in paint (both with an airbrush or by brush). It’s a bit of an art to airbrushing but anyone can do the basics with just a bit of practice first.

 

youtube is your friend here as well as their a scad of videos on equipment and how to. We have a few threads on airbrushes and airbrushing but I don’t think a lot of recent action on them, maybe see what is there and post question there and the airbrushes will come out and answer!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

Very cool reference.  I'm totally a color geek.

[mvaron]

Jeff

Extremely informative read, thank you! I've definitely got a couple train cars that I can practice on but I'll see if I can get some more to really perfect my method. I'll post pics of the two cars once they're done.

 

- Mauricio

[cteno4]

Mauricio,

 

glad it helped! Airbrushing and touchup are mainly a lot of practice and experimenting to see what works in your hands the best. I’m a big fan of experimenting a lot before going at something on the final piece.

 

thinning the paints is another little variable you can play with for different needs, also the thinner used!

 

good luck!

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

For airbrushing, a good compressor is actually more important than the airbrush itself. You really want a compressor that can output a stable pressure, which in most cases you need one that has a little compressed air storage tank. If you get a compressor without that, it'll eventually drop below the recommended pressure for the airbrush, and the paint won't flow well anymore. 

 

Most paints will still need additional thinning, even if the paint says it's airbrush ready. I tend to thin paints with a thinner by the same manufacturer as the paints (which means I have 4 or 5 different brands of thinners by now ...) Never thin with just water for airbrushing, it doesn't work well.