Accucraft Caledonia in Blue

[dunnyrail]

I can well believe that smaller batches will be less accurate, I have used BnQ mixing to get some green paint for my shed. When you watch them make the pot up the main colour was white with the tiniest amounts of other colours to get even a quite dark shade.

 

[Northsider]

I've had a look through the reference section of the IOM15mil Group website which includes details of liveries and paint suppliers, but there is nothing for a blue Cale, unfortunately. If Accucraft can't remember what they used then you will have to resort to some of the measures suggested above, I fear. I think Accucraft have used car colours in the past, so a visit to Halfords or similar might be worth trying. I have (very) limited experience of using rattle can paints on live steam locos, having repainted the smokebox on my Accucraft Peveril a couple of times. Halfords paints seem to endure the heat successfully, while other makes (and I'm afraid I can't remember which ones) go soft when hot -hence the need to do the job twice!

Neil Robinson, who posts occasionally on here, turned out a previously blue Cale in BR-style lined black. I can't recall if he did a build log of the project, but it would obviously be quite an involved process.

Sorry not to be any more helpful.

 

[Paul M]

. I have (very) limited experience of using rattle can paints on live steam locos, having repainted the smokebox on my Accucraft Peveril a couple of times.

Normal paints don't last long, the locos are usually powder coated and baked for hardness.

 

[tac foley]

I've worked with colour analysis algorithms and it is not a simple thing to do. In fact, no one has worked out a formula to do this perfectly due to the human eye and it's sensitivity to different colours of the light spectrum among other things.
Large companies that work in this field who develop colour spectrometers, I suspect have large look up tables of real world results along with closely guarded proprietary algorithms to find a close match. Therefore don't expect these machines to be perfect. A well trained eye will often do a lot better with subsequent tests along side the item to be matched. The other problem is that most stores are mixing up larger quantities for automotive use etc. The smaller the batch, the less accurate the mix will be.

This company I mentioned is quite capable of providing anything you care to dream up, and far from being a couple of people with a few colours mixing it all up in a bucket housed in a tin hut somewhere in the wilds of Wales, they are a long-established and highly regarded supplier to the automotive and railway industry - large and small - and can make you enough to paint a ship or your front door.

I appreciate your comments, which are based on scientific facts, but many years of providing colour matches for some of the crazy colours/hues/tints dreamt up by the automotive industry has given them the expertise to do what they do.

As for closely-guarded algorithms, few are less-guarded than those used by tractor manufacturers - John Deere green and yellow - New Holland blue, Caterpillar yellow and others, who charge gigantic licence fees to bodyshops carrying out repairs to the bodywork of their £1/4million muck-spreaders. I remember an acquaintance of mine holding a rattle can of JD green in one hand, and HIS version in the other. The JD can was £90 - his version was just £8. They were utterly indistinguishable.