I'd like to give my little Pexto finger brake a new paint job. What is the recommendation for the best brand and color of paint for proper Pexto green? Or for green painted machine tools in general? The commercial Krylon or Rustoleum Safety Green colors are close, but too bright or not the right tint......I'd be interested to know what others have used in painting their machine tools.......

Dave,

Try Valspar Tractor and Implement color line. Oliver green might be nice choice. A little duller then John Deer green.

I used both spray bomb and quarts. They offer a hardener too for the quarts/gallons.

http://www.valsparmro.com/products/Specialty/Tractor-Implement-Spray.html

Scott

"Sea Foam Green" (I'm not kidding) is just about a perfect match. Also used by some roads as a diesel cab interior color. You might have to get a clean sample and have it matched. Try a Benj Moore commercial store or distributor, and get the P22 series urethane enamel, easily matched and custom mixed. I pay about $32/gallon for the stuff, and as Scott says, you can add some hardener. It sprays and brushes out really well.

Howard P.

Gack! Sea Foam Green (also Focal Green or Postal Green) are modern colors, from the fifties, sixties maybe. I'd go with the Oliver green for the traditional look.

There were woodworking machines built under the Oliver name, but I believe it was a different firm. They were also dark green.

Is there any small part with paint in good shape, that could be taken to an auto parts or paint store and scanned to match?

Steve Hunter

For many years the true color for many machine tools and paper machinery was called "spotlite green" or "spotlight green". It was the standard for many years I would guess 1940-early 1970s. Worked in industrial paint shop in early 1970s.. Shortly there after many machines were starting to come out in all sorts of colors. As our machine shop modernized the new Horizontal boring bars were coming in orange, red, blue? Suppose it was how you ordered it. But almost all your older {older being subjective} machine tools were "spotlight green". Was told at the time it was because of research that the color did not distract peoples vision. That is how I remember it from early 1970s in mfg plant with both product and machine shops with all 1940-1950 machine tools. Maybe it was just a war time paint spec that industry kept up until someone said "hey this color is dull and boring"? History as I remember it, from a guy who can't remember if he had breakfast or not. Cheers, John.

Lots of machine tools from the pre-1970 era came in grey or tan, although green seemed to be the most popular.

In college, I spent a work term in a wire and cable plant with a beautifully equipped machine shop full of 1940s Standard- Modern lathes (about six each of three sizes), and they were all grey. The mills, drill presses, grinders, etc. were from assorted builders and were a mixture of green, grey, or tan. The shop was in a wonderful old pre-1920 sawtooth roofed building that was filled with light on all but the darkest days.

Steve Hunter

Of course other discussions on this board mention paint research and matching. I would not be hard to identify and sand out a example of the original paint found on the machine (find a cover or similar which is portable), then have that matched in modern automotive paint by a dealer... (they can do spray cans) This would be defensible as "most accurate"

Alternatively find a color you like... look at tractor colors, then use that. As others have noted there were many colors used, and machines were repainted when overhauled. So you can choose a color for "your" shop... it is after all yours...

Randy

That would be correct, and for many of the same reasons that drafting-table covers and some forms of paper stock are that color. I have seen references on this but don't have them (and have not a hope of finding them!)

This was one of the early applications of visual theory and psychophysics to industrial design. Another, later example was the (somewhat misguided, as it turned out) idea of using that awful yellow-green color to make emergency equipment 'stand out' (it is the color to which the human visual system, more particularly the cells of the retina, is supposed to respond most strongly.) As it turns out, overstimulation of parts of the visual system is worse than ensuring recognition of a particular object ... which is relevant to the choice of both the shade and saturation of the 'green' used for paper and background.

I'd be tempted to use the color of 'low reflection' paper or drafting surface as a colorimeter reference if you don't like the suggested industrial colors...

I now realize that the OP wants to restore his finger brake, so of course matching to a clean color sample on a removable part of the machine is the way to go, although I'll admit, restoring shop machinery is a concept that is rather foreign to me. I typically just pick a color that's close when something needs paint.

But, for the sake of discussing the proper "look" in historic shop facilities, it's best to keep in mind that machine tool colors when through changing "styles" over the years, same as clothes, but on a much longer cycle.

Back before the turn of the twentieth century, machines tended to be black, with striping and lining, and possibly a flourish of color for the maker's name. The common Singer treadle sewing machine is a good example.

By the depression years a lighter gray had become common. Every Bridgeport milling machine I have either owned or used, including the old-timer with the four digit serial number, had been "battleship" gray when it left the factory.

The Fifties started a move to the dark green already noted. By the seventies, the concept of "branding" had taken hold, and each company adopting its own color; Powermatic went from green to gold, Rockwell (formerly Delta) went from gray to tan, and bunches of companies adopted blue. The trend continues today.

Aside from the as delivered colors, large organizations tended to have maintenance programs that included periodic repainting of ALL the machines in the shop. Everything I ever worked with when I was with the CTA was painted battleship gray. Conversely, when we moved the mill shop out of The Transport Co.'s Coldspring Shops in Milwaukee, everything was painted dark green with ivory trim... almost did look like Oliver tractor colors. Years ago I bought a molding press out of a shop in southern Wisconsin where the owner was a Packers fan, and everything was painted green with yellow trim... John Deere touch-up colors were a good match.