Looking for a painter with specific old colors

[Itssawyer]

This is quite a specific color of green, but I was hoping someone would be able to point me in a direction of a classic auto body and paint shop with specific odd colors in Los Angeles, CA. I want to keep it this color of light green as my grandfather painted this in the 60’s. Any help would be greatly appreciated! 
 

Looking for this same interior as well, I believe my grandfather found some of this fabric around the same time and I believe it was close to the original. 
 

thanks in advance! 

Edited March 1, 2022 by Itssawyer
Added detail (see edit history)

[TAKerry]

I would think any reputable paint shop could match the colour, especially with todays technology. Finding a good shop that does restoration work may be the problem though. I would surmise there would be a few in your area though.

[TerryB]

3 minutes ago, TAKerry said:

I would think any reputable paint shop could match the colour, especially with todays technology. Finding a good shop that does restoration work may be the problem though. I would surmise there would be a few in your area though.

Very true.  It’s rare today to see mismatched paint on cars. Not that many years ago it was common to see paint that just didn’t look like a good match.

[Bloo]

You are probably in a better spot in Los Angeles for custom paint colors than anywhere else. In today's world that may not matter though. The paint ingredients have all changed, so most old formulas aren't much help. What you need to do is find some removable piece of the car that is not faded, clean it up real good, and take it in and get it scanned. Paint is then mixed to match. It looks like an early 50s Nash color to me, not that it makes any difference.

 

I agree with TAKerry that the biggest problem is finding a competent shop to take on a car such as this, assuming you are re-doing the whole thing in your grandfather's color. This is far removed from what most body shops do today. If you are just patching I don't know. I see spots on that car that are in plain view and probably cannot be patched very well. Good luck with your project!

 

 

Edited March 1, 2022 by Bloo (see edit history)

[TAKerry]

Especially with silver.  When the shop was installing the motor in my (black) Trans Am they boofed the front fender somehow. The took it to the local body shop to have it repainted. The shop they used does phenomenal work. Black is black right? Well with the right amount of sunlight and at a certain angle the paint def does not match. I may be the only one that will ever notice but I DO! and it bugs me. The motor shop was up front with me about the repair after the fact. I wish they would have said something before and I could have at least shared the paint supplier so they could have used the same product.

[3macboys]

21 minutes ago, Itssawyer said:

I want to keep it this color of light green as my grandfather painted this in the 60’s

Please don't take this the wrong way as I suspect that your grandfather was being practical in his paint selection.  The color reminds me of what I call machine green from one of my summer jobs working in a factory that made 5th wheels - we repainted the presses and other equipment during the summer shutdown a very similar color that was quite simply a gallon of Forest Green mixed with a gallon of bright White - in any event a good shop should be able to come up with a match.  It's not unlike the BSA green that was used on Bantams.  Good luck and just tackling it is doing your grandfather proud!

 

Don

[60FlatTop]

Look through some early 1950's Chrysler product paint chips. They had a lot of non-metallic colors there as well as later years. You might find the exact color. Some CCCA club guys were using Chrysler colors back then.

[intimeold]

Any body shop, today will or at least should have a spectrophotometer. 

 

 When comparing the paint color to a damaged car, technicians use a special device called a spectrophotometer to find the color. This device has the capability of indicating the vehicle's current shade as exactly as it appears in the image. light onto the paint to determine what hue is current at that time.

 

Caution:  The device will read the paint sample that, the device is asked to read.  So You want to have the best sample to test on.  Not a faded, or dirty sample. This is very important 

 

intimeold

[nickelroadster]

You can't really match faded paint

[bryankazmer]

I agree that any competent place will use a spectro (Not on metallics - the light scattering confuses the spectro).  But there is more - you want a formula with right "travel" or "flop" - how viewing angle changes the color.  Also a metameric match will look good under one lighting but not under different lighting.  A test spray of the proposed match before committing is in order.

[AHa]

I'd like to offer an alternative. Don't repaint the car. If the rest of the car looks as good as what you've shown us, a wash and wax would do wonders. Same with he interior. Unless you are doing the work yourself, you're going to find a repaint and new interior a very expensive endeavor and you have a very presentable car.

[JACK M]

I'll take the Corona.

[Guest]

Take a good clean sample of the paint to a auto body paint suppler and ask them to "read" it with their camera. (a door or hood section)

 This will tell you the number for the closest match available today in a modern paint.

[jpage]

I had a devil of a time trying to get a color match for my Dodge. None of the old paint codes are still in existence, and none of the current colors matched  close enough, so I had to try to get it color matched. Every one of the paint dealers, even those with the high tech cameras, told me that they could only match to colors already listed in the current system, and unfortunately, their young staff had neither the skills or inclination to do any hand mixing or research. I finally found a company that had people who knew what they were doing and one of their guys took the time to hand match the paint. Took about 30 days, and he came very close,

but when sprayed it darkened a bit, but matched another, slightly darker shade, that was original for that year, so I went with it. In retrospect, I could have used some colors already available, and while they didn't match exactly, they would have been close. Really. whose gonna' know but me!

[Alex D.]

14 hours ago, Roger Walling said:

Take a good clean sample of the paint to a auto body paint suppler and ask them to "read" it with their camera. (a door or hood section)

 This will tell you the number for the closest match available today in a modern paint.

It was explained to me by a paint supplier that the camera/scanner will not give a formula for the scanned color. It however gives the number of the closest match, which may be 60,80,90 percent and so on, and it is up to the painter or mixer to tweak it to an exact match. Forget about using the old IM (inter-mix) paint chip codes, those dyes no longer exist.

[bryankazmer]

A spectrophotometer (it's not a camera) works by scanning intensity vs wavelength of the light reflected off the sample.  It has had the pigment curves and paint base color curves for that company's raw materials in the computer already.  It overlays the curves until the best fit to the sample is found.  The more pigments that have been scanned into the library, the better the matching can be.  It does give a formula for the proposed match, that's the whole point.  The best computer match should be tested and tweaked, as well as viewed under different illuminations and angles.

 

Old mix formulas based on obsolete (and often now forbidden) pigments and bases are next to useless unless the company has already done work on characterizing conversion.

 

A skilled color matcher (there are actual tests for a person's ability to see subtle color differences) can match without a spectrophotometer, but it's by an intelligent guess and iterative samples.  It's takes more time and money.

 

 

[The 55er]

I used to get all "worked up" about finding colors that would be an absolute match sometimes or days or weeks, going thru dozens of books, taking chips outside in the sunlight etc. It can be a maddening process. For a complete repaint I would find an old 60s-70s book or two full of non-metallic paint chips, match it up as best you can and have a good paint store mix the color if possible. I mean life's too short to worry about little things like this.

[bryankazmer]

If you're going to use that approach (and there's nothing inherently wrong with it), you need to be sure the old match has a modern version (I'd still want to see a test spray), because some pigment chemistries have been regulated out since then, such as pigments based on hexavalent chrome or cadmium salts.

 

For blues and greens, like the OP is looking for, the match is likely to include phthalo blue.  Make sure the concentration is more than tenths of a part, even if it means adding more titanium dioxide to compensate.  Matches with very low content will fade.

[The 55er]

Paint stores may not be able to mix every single 60s-70s chip that's in the books anymore, so you may have to go with a second or third choice. I've painted many hundreds of cars over the years, no one's ever told me the color on my car is wrong, incorrect, too dark, too light, etc. Just get as close as you can, if there's a slight variation at all it won't be noticeable to 99% of the people that view the car. 

[31plymouth]

Is that a gas can under the car near the droplight?   Gas fumes+ dropped light = disaster.

[Itssawyer]

On 3/1/2022 at 12:58 PM, 3macboys said:

Please don't take this the wrong way as I suspect that your grandfather was being practical in his paint selection.  The color reminds me of what I call machine green.

No worries man! My grandfather seemed to love green! When I was little, I took after him and chose green for everything ha, so just keeping his memory alive is all I’m trying to do, thanks for the guidance!

 

[Itssawyer]

On 3/3/2022 at 7:12 AM, bryankazmer said:

If you're going to use that approach (and there's nothing inherently wrong with it), you need to be sure the old match has a modern version (I'd still want to see a test spray), because some pigment chemistries have been regulated out since then, such as pigments based on hexavalent chrome or cadmium salts.

 

For blues and greens, like the OP is looking for, the match is likely to include phthalo blue.  Make sure the concentration is more than tenths of a part, even if it means adding more titanium dioxide to compensate.  Matches with very low content will fade.

Very interesting, I was unaware.
 

Thanks for the info—Much appreciated. 

[Itssawyer]

On 3/1/2022 at 1:01 PM, 60FlatTop said:

Look through some early 1950's Chrysler product paint chips. They had a lot of non-metallic colors there as well as later years. You might find the exact color. Some CCCA club guys were using Chrysler colors back then.

Will do.

[Itssawyer]

On 3/3/2022 at 7:51 AM, 31plymouth said:

Is that a gas can under the car near the droplight?   Gas fumes+ dropped light = disaster.

It is but has been empty for years.

[Itssawyer]

On 3/1/2022 at 1:28 PM, intimeold said:

Any body shop, today will or at least should have a spectrophotometer. 

 

 When comparing the paint color to a damaged car, technicians use a special device called a spectrophotometer to find the color. This device has the capability of indicating the vehicle's current shade as exactly as it appears in the image. light onto the paint to determine what hue is current at that time.

 

Caution:  The device will read the paint sample that, the device is asked to read.  So You want to have the best sample to test on.  Not a faded, or dirty sample. This is very important 

 

intimeold

I will take this into consideration.

thanks for the knowledge.

[marcapra]

Is that a 31 Chrysler?  Looks good!  I think that beer on the fender is an aftermarket item.  

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by marcapra (see edit history)

[Billy Kingsley]

On 3/1/2022 at 8:56 PM, AHa said:

I'd like to offer an alternative. Don't repaint the car. If the rest of the car looks as good as what you've shown us, a wash and wax would do wonders. Same with he interior. Unless you are doing the work yourself, you're going to find a repaint and new interior a very expensive endeavor and you have a very presentable car.

This is the best advice. The car looks fine, and your grandfather actually applied this paint himself. Preserve it and you are preserving a piece of him. 

[dictator27]

On 3/1/2022 at 5:56 PM, AHa said:

I'd like to offer an alternative. Don't repaint the car. If the rest of the car looks as good as what you've shown us, a wash and wax would do wonders. Same with he interior. Unless you are doing the work yourself, you're going to find a repaint and new interior a very expensive endeavor and you have a very presentable car.

This is very sound advice. It looks like a good clean up would do wonders for it. Enjoy the fruits of your grandfathers labour.  Don't  fix something that isn't broken.  🙂👍

[vintage1]

I agree with some of the others guys, leave it as is, looks great. If it has some bad areas buffing and waxing can do wonders.