Paint Forumlas and Tips

Frisco Paint Formulae

Paint Formulae
(Using Floquil, PolyScale, Scalecoat, etc)

Steam (Freight) Smokebox:

• 5 parts Reefer Gray
• 3 parts Silver
• 2 parts Engine Black
• 1 part Boxcar Red

Passenger locomotives 1945 Frisco Equipment Chart from the Mechanical Department

Light Gray Graphite finish Freight Locomotives 1945 Frisco Equipment Chart from the Mechanical Department

Smokebox, Black. Passenger Locomotives-4500 Class 1945 Frisco Equipment Chart from the Mechanical Department

Smokebox, Light Gray Graphite finish Cab Roof: Boiler Jacket: Engine Black

Steam (Passenger) Smokebox:

• 5 parts Reefer Gray
• 3 parts Silver
• 2 parts Engine Black
• 1 part Boxcar Red

Cab Roof: Tuscan, Oxide Red As for the red roofs, according to Lee Buffington, for a time the Frisco did paint the roof of the cab with an oxide red paint. The practice was short lived as the red roof became black fairly quickly. Even a railroad that was known for keeping their steam engines clean couldn't reach the roof of the cab easily. Besides that, hardly anyone could see the roof from the ground. Boiler Jacket: Engine Black "Little known---the 183 class 4-4-0s, the 1100 class 4-6-0s (most), 1500s (many) were painted pullman green with dark silver smokeboxes and smokebox fronts, and chrome-plated cylinder heads. Lettering was bronze gold, as was the number on tender side and back and the doric striping on the tenders."

Accoding to Lee Buffington, only two of the 183 class units were painted green. I won't dispute the others because I wasn't there. The green was supposedly not Pullman Green, but somewhere between a Southern green and Pullman Green. But definitely brighter than Pullmand green when fresh from the paint shop.

I think I had located the correct formula for this green, however, I could not verify it use because it was a pre-existing paint and therefore not labeled for the Frisco.

Diesel (Freight) F Unit Black "Stripes and trim and lettering on the black locos including the 5000s and 5200s and switchers and geeps (GP-7, GP-35 700s) was dulux gold."

I will disagree with this. They were painted with a yellow paint. DuPont, I believe. Twenty years ago DuPont still had the formula for the paint in their records. Both the original color used and later the lighter creamer version. To keep from getting into a dispute over this matter, I do have a picture in my collection showing the first F A unit painted with the lighter color coupled nose to nose with a freshly painted F A unit painted in the original color. There was a difference that could be distinguished when two freshly painted units were coupled together. However, the original yellow paint faded to a creamy yellow. That was the main reason fo shifting to a lighter creamier version of the paint.

Geeps were on the other hand painted a straight black and striped using gold scotchlite tape. Not Dulux gold, but Scotchlite gold. Again, I still have some samples of this tape that I got from the painters in the diesel shop almost thirty years ago.

F Unit Yellow from Floquil paint, but should work for other brands

• 5 parts Reefer Yellow
• 3 parts Reefer White (add more to lighten)
• 2 parts Boxcar Red (add more to darken)
• 1 part Roof Brown

Modern Mandarin Red Scalecoat #31 SP Daylight Red

"Later the red used on the diesel red/white scheme which turned out to be 99.5% exactly like the SP's Daylight red. I still have glass that the paint shop painted for me as a real "drift card." All of this bull about "mandarin Orange or Mandarin Red" is just that. The red paint was a standard and it was only some years later that some railfan decided to term it "mandarin" in nature. There was nothing mandarin about it." Yes, the so called Mandarin Orange was a standard color. What we use to call Chevy engine block red. It makes sense if you think about it, EMD and Chevrolet both GM companies. A coinsidense? I think not!!!!! "Some of the 3M reflective safety striping (brod stripes on very front) on the noses faded to an orange--yeah, even deep yellow--stripes as they faced due to UV rays." The safety striping was red/orange. More orange than red. No question about it. I still have some of it. It did fade rather quickly. First to a off-yellow then almost white.

Modern White U25b HiNose 800-807 Road Numbers 800-807 (The high nosed U25b)

• Interior, Main Cab Green Dulux 88-055
• Interior, Equipment Cabs Grey Dulux 88-503
• Body from bottom of side Black Duco 254-2234 sill up
• Letter's, Numbers (Engine Yellow Duco 254-3404 Cab & Main Cab) Side Steps, End Steps, and Diagonal Stripes (ends)
• Handrails & Grab Handles Target Yellow Acorn #600
• Trucks, Underframe, Fuel Tank, Reservoirs, etc. Black Dulux 88-762
• Striping on side sills & Gold Scotchlite #3273 Flat Top where indicated on ends Reflecting Tape

(Bill's note re: Scotchlite: The flat part only of the front top diagonal stripe and the 8" Scotchlite square turned diagonally (into a diamond) are Scotchlite. The diamond is placed on the center of the nose even with the middle of the glass cab windows. The rest of the top diagonal strip that extends around the corner and the second and the larger lower diagonal stripe were painted. The frame stripes were also Scotchlite, see low nose U25b below for size and placement)

9" Letters "FRISCO" 12" Numerals 4" Letter "F" 2" Letters "Be Careful"

Road Numbers 808-815 (low nose U25-b with single center glass in cab front)

• Interior-Main Cab Green Dulux 88-055
• Interior-Equipment Cabs Gray Dulux 88-503
• Body from bottom side sill Black Dulux 88-762 up, Pilot, Platform top
• Letters, Numbers, End Steps, Side Steps, Diagonal Stripes on ends Yellow Duco 254-3404
• Handrails and Grab Handles Target Yellow Acorn #600
• Trucks, Underframe, Fuel Tank, Reservoirs, etc. Black Duco 254-2234
• Striping on Side Sills, & where Gold Scotchlite #3273 Flat Top indicated on ends Reflecting Tape
• 12" Letters "FRISCO" 12" Numerals 4 " Letter "F" 2" Letters "Be Careful"
• (Bill's Note: Diagonal Stripe Placement (on long hood end it is the same as the high nose version) 2 Diagonal Stripes at a 45 degree angle 6" long with 6" spaces in between and then another 6" space and a longer diagonal stripe from the side of the hood to the floor. On the low nose version there is also the 8" Scotchlite square placed diagonally in the center of the hood end. The center of the diagonal is 5' from the walkway. This (5') also corresponds with the top inside tip of the upper 6" diagonal stripe. The center diamond and the upper 6" stripe are Scotchlite and the rest are painted. There are also 8 1/2 " wide x 6" tall Scotchlite diagonal stripes at a 45 Degree angle all along the lower frame above the fuel tank/trucks and below the walkway. These are placed at 33 1/2" from the front lower tip of the first stripe to the front lower tip of the next.)

816-823 Road Numbers 816-823 (P.O. 1439) and Road Numbers 824-831 (P.O. 1459) (Low nose U25b)

• Body Red Dupont #890-960 Acrylic
• Stripe and Handrails White Dupont #890-959 Acrylic
• Trucks, etc. Black Dupont #83-8450 Dulux
• Interior Equipment Cabs Grey G.E. #CE-491
• Interior Main Cab Green Dupont #88-055
• 18" Letters 12" Numerals 2" Letters "Be Careful" 4" Letter "F" 1" Paint Info

Road Numbers 832-835 Road Numbers 836-843 Road Numbers 844-853 (U30b)

• Red (Acrylic) Dupont #939-960
• White (Acrylic) Dupont #939-959
• Gray Glidden #447-E-01100
• Green Dupont #88-055
• Black Glidden #67842
• 18" Letters 12" Numerals 4" Letter "F" 2" Letters "Be Careful" 1" Paint Info

Diesel (Passenger) E-Units Red 1949 DuPont Duco 254-30199

• 10 parts R-135 SP Daylight Red
• 2 parts R-134 SP Daylight Orange
• 1 part R-65 Signal Red

E-Units White 1949

• R11 Reefer White

E-Units Aluminum 1949 DuPont Dulux 166-220

• 10 parts R-100 Old Silver
• 4 parts R-144 Platinum Mist
• 1 part R-11 Reefer White

​

 

Frisco Paint Formulae

Modern Mandarin Red

Scalecoat #31 SP Daylight Red. Later the red used on the
diesel red/white scheme which turned out to be 99.5% exactly like the SP's Daylight red. I still have glass that the paint shop painted for me as a real drift card. All of this bull about "Mandarin Orange or Mandarin Red" is just that. The red paint was a standard and it was only some years later that some railfan decided to term it "mandarin" in nature. There was nothing mandarin about it. Yes, the so called Mandarin Orange was a standard color. What we use to call Chevy
engine block red.

It makes sense if you think about it, EMD and Chevrolet both GM companies. A coincidence? I think not!!!!! "Some of the 3M reflective safety striping (broad stripes on very front) on the noses faded to an orange--yeah, even deep yellow--stripes as they faced due to UV rays The safety striping was red/orange. More orange than red. No question about it. I still have some of it. It did fade rather quickly. First to an off yellow, then almost white.

I also not only have paint samples, but I have a can of the paint. Chevy engine block red if not an exact match is pretty darn close. I even tried to paint a model with the prototype paint and it looked like @%#!. Then I tried to match the paint with Floquil. SP Scarlet was close but no match. But even the Floquil match looked bad. So I began to look closely at why.

In bright sunlight outside, the models looked pretty close to the prototype, but still a little too dark. Then I began to realize that while we are accustomed to scaling down a model to 1/87 the size of the prototype, the same is not done with the paint and I am not talking about thickness. What was happening was the shadow areas were not getting near as much light as the shadow areas of the prototype. Hence the red appeared darker than it did on the prototype.

Now go inside and look at the lighting on your layout. Is it incandescent lighting, or worse yet conventional fluorescent bulbs? Incandescent lighting is way warmer than sunlight and any color painted on the models will appear warmer or more red than normal. So models painted with a true prototype color will appear way, way too red under incandescent lighting. Your mind usually compensates for a lot of this, but because the lighting is not nearly as bright as the sunlight, the models will appear way, way too dark in addition to the too red.

Fluorescent lighting on the other hand is very blue. So if you paint your models with a true prototype color and place them under the blue fluorescent lighting, they will appear to muddy and dark (blue and red will give you a muddy brown). You can correct the color shift of course by buying the more expensive color balanced fluorescent tubes (highly recommended and worth the money.) but that does not address the problem of the layout lighting not being as bright as the outdoors.

The mind is a funny thing. Like I mentioned earlier, it will adjust for what it knows or thinks it knows. It doesn't see the warmness of the incandescent light or the blueness of the fluorescent lighting. It knows what the color is and tells you so. As I am writing this, I have a can of Coke sitting on my desk with a north light (cloudy day) coming the window from my right. Now I know that the can of coke has one color of red on it. And my mind is telling me that the can of Coke is one color of red. But, if I take the time to really look at the can, I see so many shade of red that I can not really tell you exactly which color is the correct one.

Taking all of this into consideration, when I was painting models (and a lot of them for other people), I used my own mix of Floquil paint which consisted of, if my memory is correct, two parts SP Scarlet, two parts Caboose Red and two parts of Reefer yellow. I used the two, two and two ratio because I am not sure about the Reefer Yellow. It could have been just one part and probably was. If you want to try this, mix it using two, two and one ratio and if you think it should be a little more orange then add another part of Reefer Yellow. The end result was that it looked right. It looked right under incandescent lighting. It looked right under fluorescent lighting. And it looked right outdoors. And nowhere was the color ever disputed as not being correct.

You may wish to add a little Reefer White to the mix for those older faded GP7's still running around depending on your era.

 

Terry, the paint I found is a very close match to Atlas and the new Athearns. It's Dupli Color Engine Enamel Chevrolet Orange-Red part #DE1607. And I haven't had any problems with it eating plastic so its safe to use.

 

Ethan,
What did you use to thin Dupli Color Engine Enamel Chevrolet Orange-Red #1607 and can it be used in an air brush? This paint is produced for Dupli Color by Sherwin-Williams, wonder if it can be purchased in something other than a spray can? Any help would be appreciated and thanks. Tom

 

Thank you for the steam information. I assume that Model Flex paints will give the same results or close.

Thanks again! Rated ****'s!

Manny