Touch up paint colour matching

One way to find it is to unscrew the oil hatch and take it to Halfords. Or maybe the engineers doing your annual have a cupboardful of various spray cans (this is how I learned it).

I went to a body shop in the local car parts neighborhood with our tail cone cover. They have a pistol shaped device which is capable of detecting the color of a sample. The result is fed to a complicted looking machine which mixes the paint. Our bird is white (cream?)/brown (tan?), and the brown is excellent. The white is not quite as good but still really OK. IIRC I payed 15€ per color.

Yes; the problem is that getting the original paint won’t work for a touch up because the existing stuff has faded a bit.

For my TB20 main colour (a “pearlscent diamond white” from MAPAERO in France which is a horrible company to deal with) is fairly well matched by an aerosol for a VW from Halfords Obviously the Halfords paint is crap but it is OK for touching up little bits.

As for RAL etc (there are several charts in use) you can buy the colour guides on Ebay, e.g.

But the chances of finding an exact enough match is not great. I have tried this many times, ordering a stock colour in 2K paint.

Peter wrote:

Obviously the Halfords paint is crap but it is OK for touching up little bits.

Of course, the body shop mixture is not as good as the original PU paint either, but just fine for touching up.

IME, car body shops use the 2K system i.e.

• 2 pack primer (various types e.g. “high build”)
• base (one pack) – this gives a matt finish
• 2 pack lacquer – this is what really makes it look great, and gives UV protection

The stuff is lethal and needs the proper breathing gear – mine was £150 for the mask. There are previous threads on this – maybe under “2k”.

The retail aerosols are just cheap and nasty and nobody good in the trade uses them, but for touch-ups it’s OK. A plane that’s a few years old will not be perfect and the main thing is to prevent corrosion. Mine is touched up all over the place, with various stuff including model makers’ paints (Humbrol)

As discribed above to use some easy detatachable small panel and get it “scaned” to determine the nearest colour match
than get “this” colour mixed as a 2 pack paint and get it filled in special 2 pack aerosol cans that will only let the hardener mix with the paint when you are about to use it. This way you are using proper 2pack paint (the downside is that the aerosol can not be used again as the paint will dry up inside the can after a short while) after painting the area u want to paint (dont worry about any “nose runners”) and the paint is really dryy use an orbital sander with 1200 grade wet and dry and go over the resprayed area this will blend in any overspray and also u can remove any “nose runners”
after this use a profesional (very low speed!!) polisher with some cutting compound and than polish compound

u will be amazed about the finish looks like new!!! works also for stone chips etc just need to have plenty of paint in the chip the too much paint u will rub away with the 1200 grade sander and the for finish use the polish