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Posted by Dean A. Markley on March 24, 2023, 6:32:57, in reply to "Polly Scale Substitutes"
Excellent summary! Thanks Bill! 
Previous Message
No chart but keep in mind I used the S&S paint chips, a number of ColourCoats tins, Alan Raven’s article from Plastic Ship Modeler 1997 third quarter and finally Randy Short‘s paint mixing guide at the end of Alan’s article for reference . Oh and many many years of searching and testing on my own.
Railroad Road Colors
Enchantment Blue for 5N
B&O Royal Blue for 20B also for early war (1942) flight deck stain and late war 1944-1945 . Per Alan Raven.
These are flat paints and appear as newly applied. I weather the 5N with light gray streaks and smudges. Other pigments that I use are oily black, flat aluminum, rust. For flight decks I use light gray, oily black, night black and deck tan.
I use Polly Scale 50 and 5H straight from the bottle and I will weather with colors above. I use 50 for 1943 flight deck stain. If you can’t find 50 or 5H in Polly Scale look at Polly Scale French Dark Blue Gray for 50 and French Light Blue Gray for 5H. Floquil was noted for creating same pigment different names.
I never found Polly Scale matches for 5P and 5L so I use the Testors Marine colors of the 4200 series. It was the only two colors Testors got right. So much for the efforts of S&S.
As for Modern USN Haze Gray I use Polly Scale Railroad Color CP Gray and either UP Dark Gray or Guilford Gray for anti-skid. Beautiful almost black gray when dry that enhance any other deck colors.
For Hull Red I use Oxide Red or Box Car Red ( it is pushing it a bit but it works)
You can still find many of these colors on the evil site and pay a fortune for 1/2 oz or 1 oz but for me it was worth it. Many of the bottles were brand new. If you open a 30 year old bottle and don’t have Testors Acrylic Thinner just add a couple of drops of water(never alcohol) and stir and stir and stir. Or go to micro-mark and buy the battery operated hand held mixer. 2-3 seconds and any paint is well mixed.
If you are brush painter remember the rule. Use Right Brush for the Right Job.
Hope that helps Previous Message
Bill, do you have a chart correlating Polly Scale paints with naval colors?
Dean Previous Message
For years I painted what I thought was right and then the paint wars broke out on this board. At time I had migrated over to Polly Scale acrylic naval colors. Then S&S dropped a nuclear weapon with their USN paint chip cards.
Overnight I was painting with the wrong colors. And so the quest to match chip cards began.
Plan A Testors claimed to match S&S chip cards so I swallowed the hook and laid in an expensive amount of stock. I am saved! That was simple!
Lo and behold they lied. Their 5N was too light, the flight deck stains all wrong. I found only their 5L and 5P matched S&S chip card. S&S said I could use Polly Scale 5H, 5O and 5N (to be used as 20B) as they matched. I searched the nation buying stock where ever I can find it, slowly building a quantity to build my fleet but I was missing 5N, a real 20B pigment, Modern Haze Gray and Anti-Skid
Ok Plan B, so I try other manufacturers’ paint only to learn they are for the airbrush not brush. Damn **&@!
Plan C but by this time Polly Scale has bit the dust and Testors is following down the drain with their gunky acrylics. I turn to Polly Scale RR colors (which people laughed at me on this board) which were still being produced. I found Utopia and my very expensive quests had come to an end. Who knew that RR companies would paint their rolling stock the same as USN naval ships!
So my ship paint collection is secure just in case the world comes to an end. Then I realize I maybe painting in wrong color my 1/700 USN, USMC and USAAF aircraft . Darn! But thankfully 1/700 aircraft are heck of lot smaller than ships. Previous Message
The wingnuts and tread heads are much more anal about color than ship modelers. The color standard was ANA but for the most part they were only suggestions. Different paint manufacturers produced colors to their own match. Factory paint on Monday differed from Wednesday. Heaven forbid you’re matching a field application. What was it thinned with; Varsol, gasoline, diesel, water?
Take your choice, go with one of the recognized paint brands; Mission, Vallejo, AK, etc. and enjoy it. Stay away from color chips printed in books. They are subject to printing variations.
Want to start a Pearl Harbor-type discussion? Go to an aircraft centric board and ask what color was on a P40 under the glass behind the cockpit.
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