When is Floquil Reefer Yellow not Reefer Yellow?

[SkipGear]

Testors replied to my inquiry Friday afternoon......

I have attached a brush out from our lab of F110031 Reefer Yellow for you.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely,
Beth

The Testor Corporation
Consumer Affairs Department
1-800-837-8677 (1-800-testors)
M-F 8:00 A.M - 4:00 PM CST

The brushout sample scanned and sent in the e-mail looks exactly like Reefer yellow should look. They just need to fix the website with these actual brushouts instead of some graphicy (sp?) color blob.

[robert3985]

The brushout sample scanned and sent in the e-mail looks exactly like Reefer yellow should look. They just need to fix the website with these actual brushouts instead of some graphicy (sp?) color blob.

Tony, gotta tell ya, that ain't gonna happen.  Basically because without a calibrated monitor, and/or a calibrated printer, and expensive software (I can go on and on) there's no way to get a paint example on your monitor or printer that's close to a real chip.  The way to tell if what Testors sent you is close to the actual color is to compare what your email's "brushout sample" looks like on your monitor vs an actual paint chip.

You may be happy with your email, but only comparing an actual paint chip against what your monitor shows you will confirm the veracity of their "brushout sample". 

If they did not send you information on how to basically calibrate your monitor and what software to use, then...I'm afraid it would simply be dumb luck if it actually matched a real paint chip.

But, if you're happy, then I suppose it did its job!

[GaryHinshaw]

Tony covered that issue on page one Robert.  This was a case of a yellow being rendered as a green, which is beyond the range of acceptable calibration errors.

[robert3985]

Tony covered that issue on page one Robert.  This was a case of a yellow being rendered as a green, which is beyond the range of acceptable calibration errors.

Okey dokey.  I was responding to Tony's last entry...not his first...and "that issue" (inaccurate digital color online) was covered on page two also. However, my main point to Tony (which was not covered on any other page) is that Testors is probably not going to expend a lot of time and/or money to get the color blobs on their website more correct, and that the brushout sample from their lab (which was not covered on either page) is also inaccurate.

However, Testors customer relations did a commendable job, and Tony is happy.  That's really all that counts in my opinion (which was also not covered on any other pages).

The last point was that only painting something with the paint you've purchased, then comparing it directly with what is on your monitor will tell you how inaccurate the "brushout sample" is.  That point was also not covered anywhere else.

An additional point is that the only way to know if any actual paint color is "correct" is to paint something with it, then compare it against an actual prototype paint chip or painted surface.  Believe me, having painted a lot of U.P. and S.P. engines and cars, not all paints are created equal.  Some are pretty close, some are not even in the same ballpark and some are exactly right.  Experimentation is the only way to know...or ask someone who has already done it to save time.

I find myself attempting to match Kato or Atlas or Athearn colors more than the prototype's nowadays...simply because I don't want to strip and repaint the whole engine or car.  Since there is variation in the prototype's tone and tint due to aging and accumulated grime, I'm becoming more and more a proponent of "close enough" since even the prototypes are different shades.

[SkipGear]

Bob, do you take everything to the N'th degree???

I think everybody pretty much understands that their monitor is not going to be calibrated to the exact pantone color which is a perfect match the last batch of paint that shipped to their shop. I don't expect that, paint varies from batch to batch. Humidity, temperature, lighting all have slight effects on the apparent color that the paint dries. There are a thousand variables to deal with, we get that. What would be nice is that the sample they show on their site is somewhat close to what you should expect coming from the bottle. I have painted professionally for over 10 years, the only colors that I have seen come out of the bottle exactly the same shade every time are black and white.

Read the whole topic before you start spouting off the world acording to Bob. This is model railroading, and its supposed to be fun. Sometimes you just have to accept that things are a little off and deal with it.

[peteski]

...
They just need to fix the website with these actual brushouts instead of some graphicy (sp?) color blob.

Um, whose monitor (and video card)?

 Yours, mine, Bob's, Dick's or Harry's?  Or some millionth guy (in Zimbabwe) who brings up that web page?  What they should really do is put a disclaimer (which I have seen in the past) which states something like "color sample is for representational purpose only. It does not depict the real paint color".  That way people like you would not be so upset about the obviously wrong color representation. 

[SkipGear]

For those of you who find it too inconvenient to look at Testors site and see what we are talking about....



This is not a monitor calibration issue. I don't think I could jack the settings on my monitor enough to make the blob on the left look anything close to yellow.

[peteski]

I did go to the Testors website couple of days ago (when you first posted the direct link).  I saw the supposedly "reefer yellow" light tan color swatch and I just shrugged my shoulders.  You're right that the color is totally wrong but to me it was just like "whatever".  But you're right, if they were to make the color swatches more accurate of their website, that would be a good thing.

[bill pearce]

Things the kid at BestBuy doesn't tell you: Monitor manufacturers don't care if the color is accurate, they want flashy, pretty colors. People won't like what they see on a calibrated monitor, as it tends to be flat and lacks saturation. To properly calibrate a monitor takes some software and a thing you dangle in front of the screen, and that costs anywhere from a little over $100 to much more, and unless you live in a very very big city, you will have to mail order it, and anyway, who will spend that? And anyway, when that kid sells you a printer, he doesn't tell you that your prints will be off color and too dark.

[robert3985]

Bob, do you take everything to the N'th degree???

I think everybody pretty much understands that their monitor is not going to be calibrated to the exact pantone color which is a perfect match the last batch of paint that shipped to their shop. I don't expect that, paint varies from batch to batch. Humidity, temperature, lighting all have slight effects on the apparent color that the paint dries. There are a thousand variables to deal with, we get that. What would be nice is that the sample they show on their site is somewhat close to what you should expect coming from the bottle. I have painted professionally for over 10 years, the only colors that I have seen come out of the bottle exactly the same shade every time are black and white.

Read the whole topic before you start spouting off the world acording to Bob. This is model railroading, and its supposed to be fun. Sometimes you just have to accept that things are a little off and deal with it.

Wow Tony, chill out dude!

Actually it was me (and a lot of other posters here) who was telling you to "accept that things are a little off and deal with it".   

Yup, I do carry things to the Nth degree sometimes, and some people appreciate that.  Others don't.  Tough...that's me and I'm too old to change. Being detail oriented is a lot of fun for me, and I don't need anybody telling me how to have fun.

Having been a professional (award winning) industrial model builder, accomplished (award winning) artist, (award winning) photographer, offset press owner and successful author/illustrator since 1964 when, as a Jr. High kid I started painting portraits commercially....I know a bit about color, paint, and color matching.

I'm not going to enumerate the various posted comments here, except I agree with Peteski and I don't expect any of the paint manufacturers to be able to post accurate digital color representations on their websites...so I simply think...Eh, "whatever"...

However, I certainly meant no offense to you or anybody else here.  It is you Tony who personalized it all by telling me that I am "spouting off" which is most definitely a statement made by you that is fully intended to be personally offensive to me.

I choose to remain unoffended.

[OldEastRR]

So is Reefer Yellow the color of FGE reefers? Cause it looks a little yellower on the car. Old MR drawings of the car I'm doing call it "chromate yellow".

[peteski]

So is Reefer Yellow the color of FGE reefers? Cause it looks a little yellower on the car. Old MR drawings of the car I'm doing call it "chromate yellow".

Are you asking about new (fresh out of the paint shop) car, lightly weathered, heavily weathered or just faded from sun?    There is no generic "correct" color for any car as the color changed (even on the same car) over time. And if you are trying to match a color to a color photograph, things get even more tangled up!  Color matching is one of those topics . . . 

[robert3985]

Are you asking about new (fresh out of the paint shop) car, lightly weathered, heavily weathered or just faded from sun?    There is no generic "correct" color for any car as the color changed (even on the same car) over time. And if you are trying to match a color to a color photograph, things get even more tangled up!  Color matching is one of those topics . . . 

I agree.  Carrying this to the Nth degree, as I have been rightly accused of doing, I decided several decades ago to attempt to match commercially available colors for what I model with available prototypes and I started with Floquil Armour Yellow, which turned out to be nothing like the actual, freshly painted U.P. engine I managed to compare it with in the Ogden Yard on a sunny spring day.

After a few other attempts, I settled on Scalecoat II as the best U.P. colors available straight out of the bottle to represent new U.P. colors, because not only did they match new paint on U.P. engines, the colors were also glossy...which is what new paint is.

After I decided that I wanted some engines to not be "fresh", I discovered several well-used U.P. engines whose paint matched the Floquil colors almost exactly!...even being flat.  I felt badly that I had been badmouthing Floquil Armour Yellow for a couple of years.

Some publications actually carry color chips or corrected Pantone color samples of the engines or cars which are the subject of that particular publication.  Since the S.P. and U.P. regularly ran reefer blocks of various company's reefers...but mostly PFE reefers, I bought a fat book a couple of years ago all about PFE reefers (PFE Pacific Fruit Express by Thompson, Church and Jones) and discovered that many of the PFE reefers I had been painting were the wrong color due to the page of PFE colors included in the book.

This made for more work for me.

One of the books my son has about GS Class S.P. steam engines has a page showing corrected Pantone colors for Daylight passenger trains.

So...I'd suggest attempting to fine a publication about the car or engine you're wondering about.  It might have a page showing the actual color of the paint used if you want a really close "new" paint job, which would be a good base to start the weathering/aging process if you want some variation.

But, it is correct to not expect to be able to match colors from a color photo.  It's always a "best guess" proposition unless you've taken the photo yourself and included a white and 18% gray card in the photo, which will allow you to print out a correctly white balanced print of what you've taken a photo of.  There are also "color checker" cards available nowadays which include many colors, and may make color matching easier (I haven't used the color checker card yet, I'm still a gray card man).

[SkipGear]

Too all...

  The whole point of the topic originally posted by Randy was that the color sample on the website was nowhere close to the actual color and he was questioning it. This is not an issue of your monitor being a little off, a photo with horrible color ballance, or a factor of weathering. There were so many technical replies about how you should never trust web sites and photos for colors which really had nothing to do with the original post. If you looked at the color sample on the site, you would have realized that it in no way represented Reefer Yellow.

  I contacted Testors to let them know about the issue and they sent a sample of the brushout to give a better representation of the actual color. Randy just wanted to know what the actual color was because the sample on the site was so far off. I was just helping to solve the original question. If there were complaints about the shade of yellow presented on the site, these replies would have been just and perfectly acceptable. In this case the color on the website was not even in the same ballpark as the color it was supposed to represent. All that was noted was that the site was blatantly wrong, not a little off. There was no need to overcomplicate the topic with useless information about the photographic process and monitor calibration that did not pertain to the actual problem. I hope by now everybody on this forum understands that monitors do not display accurate colors and scans of color photographs shown on your monitor compound that issue even more. 
 
  I will never get into an argument about the correct shade of a color used on X,Y, or Z car because it is an impossible argument to win but when a car that should be a shade of yellow is dirt brown, then there is an issue.

End of topic for me.

[bill pearce]

This is model railroading, and its supposed to be fun.

I will never forgive MR for printing this on decades of magazine covers. When I see this statement used, and then the person's models, I realize that this is an excuse for poor craftsmanship and lack of prototype fidelity. Since when does  fine craftsmanship and prototypically accurate modeling  remove the fun from the hobby? That's the fun part for me.