Small Scale Military Headquarters

I don't know how many of you customizers out there are aware of this,...but the Tamiya's OD green and Testor's Model Masters OD green (spray paints) are totally different! I mean way off. Tamiya is a dark green, and Testors quite light. Which is more true to the military OD??? I had no idea the range here. And, the bottled paint from the same company, same color, does not match 100% either...the difference here is noticable too. What's the opinion on this from you fellow painters.

That is the norm with Olive Drab..
It was also true in WWII.. Two tanks that came from the same factory often had two different shades of OD depending on who/when the paint was mixed..
So, which is right??? whichever one you are using at the time..

From what i understand the paint color changed through the course of the week a little as it settled.
The same was true of the Piper plant producing their J-3 Cubs one painted on monday would look totally different than the one made on friday as the paint settled throughout the course of the week. This causes there to be a range thats acceptable for the OEM color in restorations.
So to the best of my knowledge there is no "correct" shade, they all fit in the correct range of colors that apeared during WWII.
I think you can prety much pick wich shade you prefer or brand like working with betterand use that as the right color.

~Jay

Also WWII OD is different then Vietnam or later OD. The more recent OD seems to be darker and have more brown in it.

I use Testors when I need a well worn lighter shade of olive drab and Tamiya when the tank needs to be darker.As the other guys said,variations in paint look great and more realistic in a group of tanks.

Mark

Ok Cool , I used the testors today for my WWII Sherman...and then did some spot spray with the Tamiya OD, to add some depth...looking pretty good so far!

According to paint charts, Testors ModelMaster paints tend to be the most accurate when it comes to us FS colors.

HTH

How do these compare to the Olive Drab cammo paint at Home Depot? I've been real happy with how this paint works and dries on my models, and a nice flat finish. But how does it compare to the two models paints you all are using?

I've been using the spray paints...since I've been to lazy to fire up my airbrush......and they are way better than anything you'll get at Home Depot...these are made for plastic model kits!

Interesting. I've had just the opposite luck. I've had problems with Testor's (haven't used Tamiya's), but the Home Depot special (can't remember if its Krylon or Rustoleum OD) works great.

I think the Tamiya paint goes on nicer....it takes more coats...but the mist is finer than that of testors...which you have to watch...the paint comes out really fast. I had bad luck with hardware store spraypaints!

WW2 OD has the US standards number FS34087. That is what Testors sells. The Post Korean era OD, the darker,brownish, glossy color is FS24087. This color is known as semi gloss OD. There was a period from 1944 to 1957 when the WW2 shade OD was used, but it was a semi gloss finish. The OD scheme disappeared after VietNam when the multi colored camo schemes were adopted. During the post Korean era, the US Marines had their own green too. It was FS 34052. It had a more forrest green cast to it. The colors were fairly standard and they had to meet govt specs to be used. No doubt there were minor variations, but they had to be pretty close to specs. An interesting note is that true WW2 Olive Drab was acheived by mixing black and yellow pigments ( I forget the ratio) to get the OD color as opposed to the normal mixing of blue and yellow (remember art class when you were a kid?) to achieve green.

TJ