Anybody have a recommendation for paint matching the UP trucks from the COLA sets? I am building a Mail Storage car using DPH 3-axle trucks and want the color close enough to blend in with the standard Kato cars. I would prefer using Model Master Acrylic, but any solutions would be welcome. Thanks!
I believe some were painted with silver aluminum paint like Santa Fe's, but generally have used good old Harbor Mist Grey. I can't remember the new name, but I always prefered Accu paint. Scalecoat II was my fallback. I doubt there is a model master color unless there's one that just happens to ome close.
Thanks for the info. My initial look at colors leads me to believe the Kato COLA trucks do not match older examples of Harbor Mist Gray, for example Floquil. However, I do not actually have any Floquil HMG for comparison. Here in Washington I won't be prowling any stores for a while. Any other suggestions would be welcome. When possible I will do some comparisons.
What year are you modeling? That could determine what color to use. Prototypically, the cars that KATO is replicating would have aluminum-colored trucks, although the KATO plastic looks more grey. However, this article in Utah Rails says that the Mail Storage and Express Baggage cars had the trucks delivered in Harbor Mist Grey, not Aluminum. https://utahrails.net/pass/pass-paint.php Scroll down to the ‘Aluminum Paint on Passenger Car Trucks’ section. If you are modeling the train when it was new, having Harbor Mist Grey trucks is actually correct. However, as the cars came into the shops, they were repainted.
Thank you! Let me share a more complete picture of what I am doing. I am modeling a consist for the UP City of Portland circa 1955. So yes, the passenger car trucks should be gray. Of the 13 cars in the consist, 9 will come from the recent Kato COLA sets with only minor changes such as numbers and names. The gray Kato trucks will be adapted to 3 more cars as appropriate to the car. So 12 of the 13 can use the Kato trucks in the molded gray as is. The remaining car will use Des Plaines Hobbies DPN1006 3-axle trucks which are molded in black. Being lazy, I would like to paint the DPH trucks to match the Kato trucks without painting all 26 trucks. I looked at a couple examples of Harbor Mist Gray paint and am of the opinion that the Kato trucks are darker. I can live with the difference from prototypical color, but want the DPH trucks to blend in with the Kato trucks. So I am looking for paint that matches the molded color of the Kato trucks. If I am mistaken and that color is indeed Harbor Mist Gray as offered by one of the paint suppliers, then I will track some down. If I am correct, again being lazy, I was hoping someone might have already found a good match to the Kato trucks, saving me the trouble of collecting paint I may never use.
If you want Model Master paint, Light Ghost Grey might be close. Coincidentally, this is a bottle that I spilled. The paint on the outside gives a good indication of the color. It is a flat paint, so it won’t match the smoother, glossier finish of the plastic parts, but the base color looks close. The Model Master Aluminum is not a good match for the KATO parts, although it is correct in name. You would have to repaint all the trucks for it to match. I would go with one of the grey colors before I went with a metal color.
Don't worry a bit about matching your DPH trucks exactly to the Kato trucks. That woudl be as unprototypical as leaving it black. I've looked at a lot of color photos of UP and ATSF trains, and the variation in so called standard colors is dramatic. Harbor mist grey could vary a lot.
