Any colour you like...
Discussion
No, not the Pink Floyd song, but a tale of paint! Specifically, the paint on my 390. The eagle-eyed amongst you at the Wedgefest will have spotted the two-tone front spoiler. This was a result of a local paint shop trying to duck out of some real work and suggesting that I try the colour given on the car's chassis plate, which, I told them, is NOT the colour on the car. How do I know? Well, the bumpers have been scraped on the corners (in my ownership, but not only ny me!) and several layers of silver and primer are evident, most of the silvers being different to each other. So they mixed me an aerosol, I sprayed the spoiler and it's not even close to the current colour, nor does it appear to have much of a metallic content anyway - it just looks 'silver'. Now I can't believe TVR painted it such a crappy shade, so I suspect something amiss in the paint-mixer's art, but I can't do anything about it now so chalk another one up to experience and be even more determined to do the bloody job yourself.
Right. Where does that leave me? Well, I could take some part of the car into a paintshop and let them do a chromatographic analysis of it. Or I could visit my mate Glen at Cleveland Bikespray (not an advert, more of a recommendation - he sprayed my Tasmin 5 years ago and it was a superb job until some 2@ keyed it
).
So off I went and between us we went through 24 boks of paint chips (each book being several hundred colours thick!). Ironically, if we'd started at the top of the rack we'd have got there in 2 books, but no, we started at the bottom! As it happened I'd picked the perfect time of day and weather for comparing paint, and it was Glen who spotted a chip that almost completely disappeared when laid on the car at any angle!
So now we had a paint code, Glen could call his supplier and order some paint... but I didn't want him to do that, because I'd have to buy a minimum of a litre, which is just about enough to paint the whole bloody car, and all I wanted to do was some localised repairs. So I asked if they could tell me which car maker used that colour. Er....no. Because, of course, nobody in the refinishing industry needs to know that, they HAVE a car and NEED the colour, so the database doesn't work in reverse. Arse. Back to square one.
Unless...
What you're supposed to do is look on the database (in Glen's case, a book) to find the model and year of car. This gives you the paint code (of the PAINT maker, not necessarily the one of the CAR maker); you then drag the paint chips out and compare with the car to see whether it matches, before ordering the paint.
So, I reasoned, SOMEWHERE in that book was my colour-code. If I could find the code, I'd find the car it was used on. Yep, says Glen, be my guest... I'll see you in a week. The book is 640 pages thick and has about 50 colours to a page. Should be a laugh, I told him
Armed with a bottle of 1664, and with the aircon running full pelt, I sat down almost bollock-naked and began to search. The book is A-Z by maker, I could start at page 1.
Or I could reason that it may be a colour used by a mainstream maker on a common car. OK then, let's start with the big names. BMW? No. Ford USA? No. Ford Europe? Honda? Jaguar? Hyundai? (OK, so I went back a few pages ) Mercedes? No. Nissan..ah! Oh dammit, last digit is different - but it IS a metallic silver... oh well, write it down for future reference. Rover? Vauxhall? Lotus? Ferrari? Lamborghini? Lexus? Since I was on the 'L's...) Lada? 
What am I doing?! More beer required.... right, where was I.
Lancia. B-7-150... F
me, that's it!! It's a Lancia colour! Oh... hang on. Lancia code 647, Grigio Steel Metallic, 1995-2001. Why the hell does it also list THREE other chip numbers? Oh bollocks, Lancia must have changed the shade during that time... so even if Hellfrauds DO stock Lancia paint, they're unlikely to stock all four shades of the same bloody colour. Arse. 
Still, it only took me an hour to find it, whereas if I'd started at page 1, I'd be about halfway through Fiat Poland by now...
Guess it might have to be a litre of paint after all...
Ian
>>> Edited by wedg1e on Saturday 31st July 01:39
Right. Where does that leave me? Well, I could take some part of the car into a paintshop and let them do a chromatographic analysis of it. Or I could visit my mate Glen at Cleveland Bikespray (not an advert, more of a recommendation - he sprayed my Tasmin 5 years ago and it was a superb job until some 2@ keyed it
). So off I went and between us we went through 24 boks of paint chips (each book being several hundred colours thick!). Ironically, if we'd started at the top of the rack we'd have got there in 2 books, but no, we started at the bottom! As it happened I'd picked the perfect time of day and weather for comparing paint, and it was Glen who spotted a chip that almost completely disappeared when laid on the car at any angle!
So now we had a paint code, Glen could call his supplier and order some paint... but I didn't want him to do that, because I'd have to buy a minimum of a litre, which is just about enough to paint the whole bloody car, and all I wanted to do was some localised repairs. So I asked if they could tell me which car maker used that colour. Er....no. Because, of course, nobody in the refinishing industry needs to know that, they HAVE a car and NEED the colour, so the database doesn't work in reverse. Arse. Back to square one.
Unless...
What you're supposed to do is look on the database (in Glen's case, a book) to find the model and year of car. This gives you the paint code (of the PAINT maker, not necessarily the one of the CAR maker); you then drag the paint chips out and compare with the car to see whether it matches, before ordering the paint. So, I reasoned, SOMEWHERE in that book was my colour-code. If I could find the code, I'd find the car it was used on. Yep, says Glen, be my guest... I'll see you in a week. The book is 640 pages thick and has about 50 colours to a page. Should be a laugh, I told him
Armed with a bottle of 1664, and with the aircon running full pelt, I sat down almost bollock-naked and began to search. The book is A-Z by maker, I could start at page 1.
Or I could reason that it may be a colour used by a mainstream maker on a common car. OK then, let's start with the big names. BMW? No. Ford USA? No. Ford Europe? Honda? Jaguar? Hyundai? (OK, so I went back a few pages
) Mercedes? No. Nissan..ah! Oh dammit, last digit is different - but it IS a metallic silver... oh well, write it down for future reference. Rover? Vauxhall? Lotus? Ferrari? Lamborghini? Lexus? Since I was on the 'L's...) Lada? What am I doing?! More beer required.... right, where was I. Lancia. B-7-150... F
me, that's it!! It's a Lancia colour! Oh... hang on. Lancia code 647, Grigio Steel Metallic, 1995-2001. Why the hell does it also list THREE other chip numbers? Oh bollocks, Lancia must have changed the shade during that time... so even if Hellfrauds DO stock Lancia paint, they're unlikely to stock all four shades of the same bloody colour. Arse. Still, it only took me an hour to find it, whereas if I'd started at page 1, I'd be about halfway through Fiat Poland by now...
Guess it might have to be a litre of paint after all...
Ian
>>> Edited by wedg1e on Saturday 31st July 01:39
father ted said:
Spray it Black........like the black flowers of pain and death in my heart......aaaaaaaaarrrrggghhhhhhh it's all black i tell you black, black, black
Yep, Henry Ford had the right idea.
Let's hope a database is now being organised, to save all this ridiculous time-wasting.
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