Chestnut Grey Green Paint ....again, again, again

[MGC]

I am looking for Grey/Green Chestnut Prospector paint or a way to approximate it myself.
I have read through scores of related threads on this site. 4 or 5 different green paint variations have been discussed. Only one of them, a paint that is more grey than green, resembles the correct original color.

Kirby does not offer anything that closely resembles the correct color. I know that they will attempt to color match but it has not been my experience that they can even after several tries. I suppose I should call and ask if they offer it as a custom color but truthfully, I do not enjoy using Kirby paint.

Ideally, if anyone has a recipe to mix Epifanes to achieve a close color, that would be a golden ticket. Can I add Pearl Grey to Light Green and get there? Has anyone tried to make such a blend? I have several Chestnuts to paint so a bit of extra paint would not present a problem.

Mike Elliot offers a Chestnut paint recipe that seems correct but the paint is from Home Hardware. Does anyone have any experience with that paint and how well it holds up? I could shoot across the bridge to Cornwall this summer if it comes to that.

Is there promise in a recipe Doug Ingraham offered and attributed to Kirby?
The color looks close:
CIL Marine Enamel medium tint base 337280
BLK 1P23
YOX 1P35
TBL 1P3
White 0P2+

Add more to the challenge, here is one attributed to Doug that is not the same as the one he attributes to Kirby.
CIL base #337290, use in the 41 pail
BLK 0p58
YOX 3p2
TBL 0P42
WHT 4p12
A search on those base paints leads to the related WCHA discussions….
This has been discussed for years but I still do not see a clear way to get to the color I want.

 

[samb]

It would be very useful if someone could compare the original to a RAL colour chart (or other international colour coding) so that us that have never seen the actual colour would be able to get a close match mixed.
Sam

 

[MGC]

It would be very useful if someone could compare the original to a RAL colour chart (or other international colour coding) so that us that have never seen the actual colour would be able to get a close match mixed.
Sam

From my experience Pantone has been the accepted reference for all color related specification.
Whatever the case, I am presuming that only someone who has actually seen the original color will recognize it and that only someone who has successfully mixed an equivalent and compared it will be able to comment.

 

[samb]

Pantone would work though in Europe RAL colours are far more widely used nowadays
You are right that the colour needs identifying by someone who knows the original and should be identified using proper colour cards rather than from a screen.
Sam

 

[John Sand]

My local paint store owner matches colors for my boats. He's been doing this a long time. Usually I'm repainting, rather than touching up, so really close is good enough.

 

[samb]

My local paint store owner matches colors for my boats. He's been doing this a long time. Usually I'm repainting, rather than touching up, so really close is good enough.

Without ever having seen the colour, really close becomes somewhere in the region of . . . . maybe!

 

[Dan Lindberg]

Mike,
you are going down a very deep hole.

My experience is with house stain and trying to find a color we liked for the old siding on the house.
I had bought some stain base for cheap (see where this is going) a few years ago - in the 40 gal range.
I studied color samples and mix formulas and even found a site that allowed "mixing" and testing.
After several tries I found a color we "liked", and ordered the colorant*, about 15 liters of the stuff.
I spent more on the colorant then I originally did on the base.

And not wanting to commit all of it untested, I mixed up some small samples and painted a test patch on the house.
Yuck, so more mixes and test patches.
Ended up with a wall of the house with maybe a 6-7 test patches but we finally got one we could accept.
But the recipe was different and I couldn't make it for all 40 gal without getting more colorant.
I did get the additional colorant and finally got the base mixed, ended up with 9 - 5 gal buckets of mixed stain.
But it sure was a lot of work and money.

What I did learn is there are several color "systems" and they use different recipes for the same/similar colors, while using the same colorant names ie, black, Y OX, R OX, white, etc.

Ultimately we did get stain on the house but it would have been a lot less expensive (and work) to just buy the stain mixed from a store.

Dan
* - actually getting the colorant was a whole nuther story, the supplier didn't pack it well and TWICE the package broke open during shipment. Imagine the mess at the PO when they discovered it. The broken packages were scrapped as I recall. don't remember if the suppler ate it of insurance.

 

[Nick Dennis]

Just paint it red. That’s the fastest colour anyway

 

[MGC]

Dan... Great story and boy can I relate. I thought I had hit a home run with the paint I once put on our house. I was going to town and I mean to town. Power sprayer, tipping it in... I had one end of the house done when my wife came home and proclaimed that the color was unacceptable. She took off with all six cans and had them retinted to the point where the paint tech had to tell her there was no more room in the cans for even one more squirt of black. That became the color of our house for the 12 years before we had it sided.....
The Chestnut paint is indeed a rathole.

Nick...Thanks for the suggestion. Blues, Burgundies, Greens, Brown and Cream but only once a red canoe and never yellow.
I once painted a Kennebec Kineo red and hated it.
I did paint an MG a blazing red and it looked great. I had a very red Mustang 5.0 and red 260Z.
I am in the camp of Guards Red is the only proper color for a Porsche, but no more red canoes.
I do not aspire to copy Bill Mason.

 

[patrick corry]

For what it's worth, I painted my restored Island Falls Willow in Kirby's Grayling Grey. It's an odd color... in the barn under artificial light as in the picture, it's clearly grey-green (the darker green is filler). Outdoors however it appears to be almond, unless skies are overcast when the green tint comes out....

Outdoors...

 

[MGC]

Patrick, that is really wild. I was curious about that color.
This is Kirby #01 Green Grey matte. It's too green for the Cnuts. I currently have this canoe sitting literally right next to the Prospector in my garage. The Cnut is a much more grey and muted color.

 

[patrick corry]

Following this theme:

My restored Chestnut Chum in Kirby's custom mixed paint to match Sherwin Williams "Cornwall Slate". It was intended to be semi-gloss but came out rather flat. I'd go gloss next time.

Same canoe, outside:

And, a comparison of Kirby's colors vs. the Cornwall Slate:

 

[Etienne-Henri]

Patrick, that is really wild. I was curious about that color.
This is Kirby #01 Green Grey matte. It's too green for the Cnuts. I currently have this canoe sitting literally right next to the Prospector in my garage. The Cnut is a much more grey and muted color.
View attachment 53663

Please Mike, excuse my ingnorance, but which is this beauty of a canoe ?
Etienne

 

[MGC]

Etienne, you have a discerning eye. That is a very unique old Gerrish.

Gerrish 813

Quite a few years ago I bought a Gerrish canoe from a very nice older man in Eastern NY. While he was raising his family it had been the canoe that they used for fishing, paddling, camping. He had quite a few memories tied to it, but unfortunately no provenance. When he bought it in the 60's it...

forums.wcha.org

 

[Etienne-Henri]

Thank you and congratulations : she is amazing

 

[MGC]

After several calls to Kirby, there are a few interesting things to mention.
First, Kirby files custom paints by customer name. So...if I happen upon the perfect color for this hull, it will be filed under my name. They will not have a cross reference to "marvelous and impossible to duplicate Chestnut Green Grey" unless I suggest that they do that. (I will if we get there.)
Next, the two recipes I noted previously that are attributed to Doug Ingraham and one to Kirby, are meaningless to Kirby. They are not Kirby recipes even though that is how they were previously described.
Finally, armed with the knowledge that they file by customer name and on the chance that Doug actually did land on a correct Kirby color, they will check the giant rolodex to see if they have a Chestnut green under Doug's name. I'll call back tomorrow and see what they may have come up with.
I will probably end up sending them a sample to match.
Again, again and again, and again. Maybe I should just paint it Rust-Oleum rabid red.

 

[patrick corry]

Again, again and again, and again. Maybe I should just paint it Rust-Oleum rabid red.

Nooooo.... please keep at it to find the "marvelous and impossible" Chestnut Grey. I will then re-paint my Chum since most people look at it and think it's just primer! Next, how about that elusive Tom Thomson blue-grey color.....

 

[MGC]

Dan called it. I've gone down a very deep hole. I really had hoped this thread might draw out a simple answer.
I spoke to Kirby yet again. George consulted with the great rolodex and it turns out that if Doug Ingraham was a Kirby customer, he never had a custom color mixed. So...those recipes attributed to him are dead ends where Kirby is concerned and probably for some other shop, possibly Home Hardware.
I'm going to send Kirby a paint sample and see what they come up with but I also plan to try and mix something up on my own.
Patrick, no worries....I do not plan to own a red canoe. I still regret choosing that color for my Kennebec and that was almost 40 years ago.
It will be dyspeptic mint green like the walls of an ancient hospital before it's painted red.

 

[samb]

It will be dyspeptic mint green like the walls of an ancient hospital before it's painted red.

So a bit like this one.....

which I think goes nicely with my other chestnut

???

 

[MGC]

Yikes.