Colourcoats 1939-1943 Home Fleet Grey - AP 507A/B - 13% RF

[SovereignHobbies]

Our brand new 1936-1943 Home Fleet Grey 13% RF (aka Admiralty Pattern 507A and 507B) is now available. I believe this is THE best model paint on the market bar none for Home Fleet Grey.

This is the first in our renumbering to distinguish our suite of new-research based Royal Navy paints from previous work. All new Royal Navy paints will be prefixed with a NARN product code.

https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/coll ... -grey-507b

[Dan Banks]

Exciting news, two questions, is this shade the flat of A or the semigloss of B, and could you post a color swatch? Thanks Dan

[SovereignHobbies]

Hi Dan,

It's a matt finish paint as per the other Colourcoats Sea products, as many modellers follow up their builds with a clear coat to hide errand tell-tales of CA glue under photoetch railings and the like. The shade is as per the 13% render as contained in here: https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/pag ... 10-and-g45
It seems to have been received with a degree of indifference here, but obviously this isn't the only place I've posted it and there has been more discussion elsewhere. John Snyder has also seen it

The RGB render looks deceptively dark on its own against a white forum background (as indeed does the 2" square matching samples I made, also stuck to white cards):


If you saw the thread in the Camouflage section of this forum you will likewise have seen the following images posted just after the link to the paper. As with all paints and colours generally, human eyes are hugely unreliable and context is everything. Did you know your cones change shape across your eyeballs, changing how colour is perceived at the centre of our vision as compared to at wider angles? Viewing a swatch always results in a darker perceived shade than looking at a larger object sending reflected light at more of the cones in our eyeballs.

Take that little 2" square swatch which is viewed at the centre of our eyes, and apply it to a slightly larger surface (a full size ship is not necessary - just a piece of scrap MDF we can stand a few yards back from and observe will serve the purpose well) and view it in natural light. With a black stripe painted to mimic a boot topping and giving us something to perceive a familiar contrast against and it all clicks in to place.

[Dan Banks]

Thanks for your response, James, nice house by the way. I�ll be ordering some of this color soon. I have a few others I�ll be ordering, what is your minimum order to the USA?

[Bill Livingston]

Hi James,

I dont know how I missed this...!

I'm glad this is now available... before I order, you mentioned the possibility of larger bottles... have you thought more about that, and if so, what size are they/are you proposing and what is the cost?

I'm still working my way through 200 scale Hood... converting it to waterline and re-doing all the armour... having finished the 'distraction' of the main armament some time ago. I am about halfway through the hull finishing process at the moment... it has taken ages... this is a big hull, even when converted to waterline. So a LOT of work.

I have probably got another month of hull work to do before I will need some paint... so if the larger bottles are some way off, its not the end of the world...

I would like to order them though...

[greenglade]

Hi James

Am I right in thinking that you have produced a new shade of 507B, if so will you continue making the older shade for those of us having started models in the older colour?

regards

Pete

[SovereignHobbies]

Hi Pete,

As a general rule, no, we will not run parallel ranges once the inventory is gone.

For RN02 specifically though, it will continue to be available as NARN24 1940-1941 Emergency Mix Medium Grey. I expect (and hope) that volumes of this will slow down though and that NARN20 and 21 are chosen by modellers for the common uses. I'll carefully draw a distinction that I am not claiming that Snyder & Short's (and by extension Alan Raven's) sample identified by Raven as 507B was actually an emergency mix, only that the results of mixing a corrected 507A and 507C in equal parts as per the CAFO1112/42 instructions for emergency use dark-medium tones results in a shade very much like Snyder & Short's 507B. A happy coincidence, if you will, which allows modellers already committed to RN02 to finish part-built models.

[Bill Livingston]

And the larger bottles, James.

Availability and price?

[EJFoeth]

And the new AP507C? I need to paint one mushroom vent AP507C...

[SovereignHobbies]

WE'll be about 6 weeks away yet.

Bill, apologies I overlooked that. What sort of size do you want? We won't be generally stocking bigger sizes because we're just out of room, but we will be able to bleed off a few from each batch as they're made. I'd need to source suitable containers and would prefer to remove some of the guess work - too many options is a very bad thing for us!

[Bill Livingston]

I understand James.

Not really sure. I was thinking of about 250 - 300ml in a plastic bottle so its easy to pour/decant - and perhaps a similar size bottle of Colourcoats thinners?

What ratio works best? I have tended to go about 50/50, or 60/40 (thinners/paint).

I'm airbrushing at around 15psi

[SovereignHobbies]

Hmm. I could probably just use our new 250ml Colourcoats Thinners aluminium bottles with screw lids. They look rather swish and we wouldn't need to buy anything new.

I think I've pricing already worked out for 250s as well. I'll check when I'm home...

For spraying I usually go around 60% thinners to 40% paint (it's not critical, but I prefer thin to thick) and somewhere around 12-15psi, through a 0.3mm nozzle for general coverage work. That's suction fed by the way (Badger 150 with bottle). If gravity fed, pressure can be reduced a bit further.

The lower the pressure the better really so long as it flows. High pressure puts too much energy into the spray causing overspray and rough surfaces to form where overspray dries on contact without time to level. If up past 25psi, you can start blowing off pieces of photoetch etc as you will no doubt know! There should be no need ever, IMHO, to go over around 17psi to paint a model.

[Bill Livingston]

Excellent... agree on pressure. I use several Iwata airbrushes and they are all gravity feed. 15psi is about as high as I ever go... and like you, I prefer thinner paint, lower pressure and several passes. Seems I am about right on thinner ratio too... So back to Colourcoats for the future then

Of course, it means the surface needs to be very good, which is why I use Mr Leveller thinner and Mr Surfacer 1000 as a primer.

I will need at least one of each, Colourcoats Home Fleet Grey and Colourcoats thinner) so 250ml of both thinner and paint please

Let me know when they will be available and what the price is and I'll order them immediately.

If you are not putting them on your website, can I order here via PM?

Thanks