question So Deep Bronze Green was not actually a Land Rover colour?

[59Prototype]

Deep Bronze Green

 

Until recently I had always thought that Deep Bronze Green, a popular choice for Land Rovers, was actually a Land Rover colour. However I now believe it to be a British Standard (BS) colour that Land Rover decided to use. Hence it was not specific just to Land Rovers. That now makes sense as I believe that the 1959 prototype Mini Mokes made by the Austin Motor Co. (as part of BMC) were painted Deep Bronze Green. At that time BMC were nothing to do with Rover and Land Rover.

 

What's more I had always thought that BMC engines were painted BMC Engine Green. It now seems that BMC Engine Green was no more than BS Mid Bronze Green!

 

Have I painted (if you'll excuse the pun!) a fair picture or is there more to add?

 

Graham

Bournemouth

[ruxy]

BMC engines were painted MoWoG Green weren't they ???

 

 

IIRC the early move to Bronze Green was called "Bronze Green" DBG and shades of came a bit later LoL

Edited November 8, 2013 by ruxy
amd.

[Ivor Ramsden]

The very early Land-Rovers were painted light green, a Rover car colour, from 1948 until mid-1949. At that time the Rover Company received a big order from the Army who would have specified Deep Bronze Green as the finish colour like everything else that they ordered, from bikes to tanks. For whatever reason, Rovers decided to change the standard colour for all L-R production to DBG. It saves cleaning the spray equipment if nothing else! The chassis was also painted DBG from this time until 1954. A limited range of other colours was available but it was only in 1953 with the introduction of the 86" wheelbase vehicles that the company started selling a bigger proportion of non-DBG vehicles.

 

So far as I know, 1949 DBG is the same colour as 2013 DBG. However, it seems to be a very unstable colour over time. The original factory paint retains its lovely yellowish tint for donkey's years but a lot of aftermarket paint darkens with age which I think is why people believe that the colour has been modified over the years. As an example I sprayed one of those new-fangled Series 3 Land-Rovers DBG this summer and it only kept its glowing yellowish shade for about a month. I've got a lot of new original L-R panels, all of them in DBG, and mostly ex-MoD and they are without doubt all the same colour with only very slight variations despite their being dated on their MoD labels any time between 1950 and 1963.

[david052]

I am about to get a set of LR Series steel wheels blasted and powder coated. I specifically didn't want DBG but the original Land Rover colour - LRC1 or LRC001 (BSC381-223 Middle Bronze Green). However the powder coaters are having trouble identifying a suitable colour - what can I tell them to help?

 

Thanks

[59Prototype]

Ruxy

Yes, you're right, BMC engine green was also called MOWOG green but I think that this was simply BS Mid Bronze Green. I think it's what's called clever marketing that in turn let's them charge a few more bob for punters to obtain the 'correct' paint!

 

 

 

Thanks to everyone else for your comments on Deep Bronze Green. If I read things correctly, although it was a colour mainly associated with Land Rovers it wasn't a colour exclusive to Land Rover so other vehicles (non Land Rover) could also have been painted the same colour.

 

Graham

[ruxy]

Actualy - I spelt it wrong , it was mowAg

 

On the Series ONE Club Forum , from when the forum started up - there has been a long long thread about the type of paint from inception , and of course the colour question crops up in great great detail (thgis was more to do with the colour that preceded DBG).

 

I do know from 1970's "original" Land Rover touch up tins & aerosols - just had the words Bronze Green.

 

------------------

 

I don't like to quote the author / publisher Pat Ware too much. However if you look in his book 'QUARTER TON' (1996) (that I rate far better than some of his books in more recent years).

 

Page 99

 

When military contracts began to dominate the production lines from mid-1949, the colour was changed again to the standard military 'Deep Bronze Green' regardless of whether the vehicle was intended for military or civilian use, since it seemed easier to paint all the vehicles the same colour.

 

 

---

 

 

 

I can't recall if this was accepted as a tablet of stone..

Edited November 8, 2013 by ruxy
can't spell actually either

[wally dugan]

deep bronze green green or BS 6224 appeared in around the early 1950s and was a military specification number 2012 nearly all vehicles came in this colour as to the bmc engine colour it was called middle bronze green or BS 223

[ruxy]

I was in fact correct with spelling first time , mowOg , the common term for the paint colour .

[fv1609]

FV Specification 2012 was issued by FVDD on 1st January 1948 stipulated DBG as BSC 24 as it was then. Later in the year when BSC381C was adopted it changed designation to 224 for finish coat of AFVs & MT vehicles. At that stage the manufacturer's finish for power units was acceptable.

 

This Specification superseded the earlier version issued on 6th February 1945 by combining AFV Specification 2013 & Specification MC 286C issued by DFVI.

[wally dugan]

A specification sheet dated the 24th june 1965 l have specification sheets with the same spec of paint up to 1970

[welbike]

It is my understanding that DBG was already around prewar, was this the same colour?

 

Have read somewhere it was a semi gloss in 1938-1940, before KG No.3 came on the scene.

 

Will look in Mike Starmers books later today.

 

Cheers,

 

Lex Schmidt

Edited November 9, 2013 by welbike

[fv1609]

DBG appeared in 1931 as "BS 381 No. 24 Colours for ready mixed paints".

[welbike]

Thanks Clive,

 

Just looked it up in Mike Starmers "British Army colours etc." and he states also from BS.381C: 1930 "Colours For Ready Mixed Paints" - This has the contemporary colour swatch of Deep Bronze Green 24 and I found it identical to the 1964 colour from which the match (in the rear of the book) was made.

 

For anyone interested in British Army colours I strongly recommend to buy Mike's books, or at least the above mentioned one.

 

But I will reproduce the DBG recepy that he has found to make a colour sample from Humbrol/Revell modelling paint tins;

 

Gloss: 6x Humbroll 2 Emerald

4x Revell 84 Leather Brown

1x Humbrol 21 or 33 Black

 

You will need to use satin varnish for pre-war finish.

 

So far Mikes stuff, it has all major colour samples, sprayed on cardboard, glued in the back.

 

Cheers,

 

Lex

 

ps, Landrovers in 1930??????

Edited November 9, 2013 by welbike
Spelling again!

[fv1609]

Many of us owe a great deal to modellers for their fastidious attention to detail. I have a vehicle that could not have been restored authentically without such information.

 

But I had an interesting conversation with a modeller of planes & warships who maintained he adjusted the shade according to the scale he was working with. He felt that the eye & brain software perceived shades differently according to the size of object being viewed. I had never come across this before. Maybe it explains how a small paint sample looks to be a good match but doesn't look so good when the whole vehicle is painted. But that could be more to do with my poor painting technique!

[Ivor Ramsden]

Aye, if you lighten the paint colour slightly on a model it does seem to make it look more like the original. The brain is a strange thing - at least my psychiatrist tells me that mine is ....

 

Seriously the subject of "scale colour" keeps a lot of modellers entertained for hours on various forums but not as much as "accurate colour", for example discussion of exactly what is the right shade of Dark Green for a 1943 Spitfire. Some maintain that it's GOT to be the exact BS colour whereas I reckon that this is cobblers. We've got parts from several WW2 aircraft in the museum. Some of them show different layers of paint where the things have been repainted and EVERY coat is a different colour even though they're all supposed to be Dark Green, Dark Earth etc. Even yellow varies a lot, so my attitude is, provided you paint your Spitfire (scale model or the real thing) etc in something which is reasonably close to RAF Dark Green, nobody can say it's wrong.

 

The same applies to uniforms where re-enactors get wound up over somebody else's battledress being the "wrong" colour. It's utter garbage and you only need to look at wartime colour photos of groups of men in uniform to see the differences in colour - they vary a lot.

 

Sorry, I'm hijacking here.

[ruxy]

So , what exactly is the Solihull colour more or less Eau de Nil that Rover used on engine castings after grey (whatever shade that was) until the introduction of the red colour on 5mb blocks (that I have seen described in a book as Terracotta Red , I would have to check - it may have been a Haines) ..

 

Talking Eau de Nil shade , not the Sky Blue / Duck Egg Green LoL that the MOD used as a engine re-finish.

[59Prototype]

Wally is already aware of the following tale and I have a feeling I have mentioned it before on this forum.

 

Around 1987 I went to look at the Mini Moke (14 BT 17) that was at the time displayed in the Museum of Army Transport, Beverley. It's now in the Haynes Museum at Sparkford. I was in the process of restoring my 1959 Moke and was on a fact finding mission. I asked someone at the museum if they could tell me what colour army green was as I wanted to make sure I painted my Moke the right colour. Whoever I spoke to said: 'Look at all the exhibits you see before you and they are all different colours!' he said 'There is no such thing as army green. I think it was what they happened to have in the paintshop at the time!' Perhaps a slight exaggeration but the point was made. In the end I settled for Deep Bronze Green and in hindsight I now know that it was the right choice.

 

If you think about it it's logical that colours varied a little especially during WW2. Nowadays we have the advantage of rapid communication, emails, computers and fancy technology which enables us to get things spot on. They had none of that 70 odd years ago. It was more important to get the damn thing out on the road or up in the sky! Of course they were right. Say for example a Spitfire was painted in slightly the wrong shade? Would they have sent it back to be re-sprayed? Not on your Nellie!

 

Graham

[fv1609]

Some years ago I was lucky enough to buy two cans of high gloss DBG that were both of similar age and genuine military contract paint. Unfortunately they were by different contractors.

 

After the paint had dried each looked to give a good DBG finish. But side by side one had a rather bottle green tint whilst the other was richer brownish tinge. This difference was particularly obvious after decanting into jam jars. After some months the pigments had settled to the lower part of the jars. One pigment was bottle green/blue and the other brown/red.

 

Looking at the jars it would be hard to believe that they both came to very nearly the same colour!

 

As far as Rover engine paint goes all the Series 2 FVRDE Specs I have seen quote:

 

Engine enamel grey Donald Macphearson LSW.703

 

Whatever that is!