The SteelNavy.Com Message Board: Re: USN 1945 #27 neutral "haze gray" is not postwar haze gray

No, Michael, sorry.

I researched long and hard, and keep this bookmarked for just this sort of argument.

This is an actual Military Standard specification for the actual paint:

https://milspec24635.com/

If you bother to go scrolling through this, you will come across the following:

"3.5.16 Color. Immediately after mixing, the color of the coating shall match the following as specified:

a. Colors defined by tristimulus values shall match the following:

Colors defined by tristimulus values LAB Navy Haze Gray No. 27 (26270)+56.0-1.83-1.37

b. All other colors, when used, shall match the FED-STD-595 number specified in table IV."

First of all note that modern Haze Gray is still referred to in this spec as #27 Haze Gray. Also note the LAB values given (CIELAB, actually.) If you go learn the CIELAB system, it is very precise. Those values describe a near perfect neutral gray, with almost no blue in it. It is an even more neutral gray than the Austrailian Haze Gray, in fact, and that also uses a 26270 number from our system.

So, whatever your eyes are telling you, and whatever friendly folks at copy stores are telling you, the ACTUAL SPEC tells me that modern Haze Gray is # 27 Haze Gray, and is a neutral gray. That it is now made without carbon soot has no bearing on what the color spec still remains. Paint compositions have changed drastically over the years, but the color specification has remained constant, and--with the advent of CLAB--been so precisely detailed as to be unambiguous.

Your eyes are lying to you. Sorry. This specification is not debatable.

Previous Message

Ralph, in the Snyder-Short chart #2 at your link, the paint chip for USN 1945 #27 neutral "haze gray" is instead postwar haze gray, FS 26270 (usually cited as FS 36270...?).

The USN memo at this link Camouflage Gray Paints - Change in Specifications for > specifies late-war neutral grays as white paint tinted with carbon soot. White Ensign Models ColourCoats product US28 accurately represents 1945 #27 neutral haze gray. It is accurate for USN camouflage measure 22 for the upperworks of USS Indianapolis on her final voyage and USS Missouri at Tokyo Bay. The last I knew, US28 was available in the US from Tom's Model Works, managed by our frequent correspondent Richard Harden.

Postwar haze gray has a blue tint that is impossible to produce by blending soot and white paint.

Simultaneously with US28, the WEM ColourCoats product for postwar haze gray erroneously continued #27 neutral haze gray, instead of implementing the FS color. ColourCoats is under another owner. I know neither the accuracy nor the availability in the US of the current product line.

Previous Message

Sure sounds like a simple question. But...

First off, which Haze Gray? The purple-blue based one of most of WWII, or the late war/modern neutral gray?

Next, I must make the "standard disclaimer" that I am looking at everything on a monitor, so am not seeing actual colors.

I got ebay entries for the two colors you mention. The back of the bottle states that Pale Blue Gray is wartime 5-P. Thus, it is not wartime 5-H, and an online comparison of the two with images of the S&S chip set show it is lighter than 5-H. Compared to modern Haze Gray, it is too blue, and too light.

As for Light Sea Gray, an ebay image of the back of a bottle says it is FS 36307. Modern Haze Gray is FS 26270 making it much darker. Light Sea Gray is also not dark enough, nor blue enough to be wartime 5-H.

Neither is much of a match, but based on what I am seeing, you are better off with the Pale Blue Gray if you have absolutely no other options. It would need to be darkened some to match wartime 5-H, and will just be too blue for the modern color, but I do not know how you would change that. You would just have to live with it.

FWIW, here are the S&S chips online (and therefore only for general reference, not great accuracy since monitors distort colors.) The neutral grays of the late war equate to modern colors:

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/books-plans/snyder-short/usn-1/usn-1.html

http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/books-plans/snyder-short/usn-2/usn-2.html

HTH some

Previous Message

Model Master Light Sea Gray or Pale Blue Gray to Haze Gray. What is closer. Thanks....Sam