I saw a 33 Plymouth at a car show and want to match the color for my car. He showed me the old paint can. Can a shop use this code to make paint with the new base colors?
The "Tints" "Dies" and "Toners" for paints continually change and evolve. They are not the same "color" from brand to brand and truly have changed over there years since Dulux was sprayed. I'm sure you have heard all this.. But 2 your dilemma. You have a few options. 1st is a local Body shop and or Automotive Supply shop that has a "Color " cameras (or Color Scanner). Just remember these "Cameras" are just used to "read" your color and try to match your color to a color formula that in stored in the computer "library" for that Paint Company. Not all are Dead-on" matches. Some of the better systems can actually tell you how close a match it is % wise. Next If you can find access to Color Chip Books you might be able to find a color from another brand and that you can use that is the same or close enough. Akzo/Noble Sikken (European Paint Co.) has a Color chip book called a Color Map (they are a little hard 2 find, but they are out there) for both Metallic Colors and Non-Metallic Colors. I bet your color is non-metallic. This Color Map has every Color from Sikken Solvent Based colors arranged like an old road map A,B,C, on the top 1-2-3 down the side. Colors are then arranged on a page from Dark to light. Meaning you could have a page of all Blues from dark to light arranged for you to see. So on lets say on page 502 color D 7 is a match for your color. You can look that up on a Sikken Mixing computer as see that this color was also used on a 72 SAAB and can go from there. I know that was a big explanation (sorry). Lastly a Real painter can "tint to match". The problem with that is most Painters can't Tint properly, and I hate to say it but most customers won't pay for the time=$$ and materials to match.
daaaa as often the case my brain doesn't work.. Now to correctly and directly answer the question posed. Yes back in the day there were some charts that crossed over colors Codes from some brands to another. The last chart I saw was from the 1950's colors and I saw it in the 1980's.. Now an older Body Supply co. might have 1 of these charts laying around ?? But that is still a formula of paint products (tints dies tonners) that are not around much if at all. If there is any paint in that old can it might be used to be "scanned" to find a match. (see above) There was a guy at Hershey in 2022 that said he could mix any color from any paint code. I had a code for a '61 chevy and then he said hey didn't have the tints/flake (b.s.). So I took the Gas Door to a Body Shop Supply Store I have use for years. Had them scan-it, mix-it. Put a drop of color on the back side of the gas door. It looked close. I sprayed the car. It was off....way off. too much Fine Metallic Flake. I went back to the store and asked if we could mix another Qt. with 75 grams less fine Metallic. They said it would change the "hue" (it didn't). Sanded off the 1st color. re sprayed the 2nd color. The second mix was "balls-on accurate"... it was a lot of time and effort.
Unless you're totally freaky about matching the color exactly, going to a quality auto paint store, like Axalta or someone along those lines, and having it scanned by one of their quality scanner cameras is the way to fly. I tried to match a color exactly from a '55 foreign car, no way, but did the above and it came out super close and actually was a little better than the original.
all you guys suggesting he have the paint scanned, This is a car he saw at a car show, he does not have the car to get it scanned....
Use the photo. A digital format uses RGB data to form the colour. You can use this to create a colour code. Just pic an area of the photo that matches the colour you want.
here is a listing of factory 33 Plymouth color codes along with modern paint numbers http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?model=Plymouth&year=1933&con=yo
yes, that is the problem, I don't have a sample. Just a photo of the car and the original paint the guy said it was based on.
I Googled "1933 Plymouth Radio Blue" and found a place that mixes up a rattle can for you so I ordered one. It looks to be what I was looking for since it will be a total new paint job and doesn't need to be 100% exact.
The Jalopy Journal
