Paint Formula

[John Scheibe]

Does anyone have a Nason paint formula for Academy Blue Metalic for a 1949 Kaiser?

[MarkH]

I had a vintage paint chip sheet from just about every company when I was trying to match my "54 Aero color. Most of those companies are long gone or absorbed into others. The only one useable to anyone was the Ditzler (pittsburg plate glass) sheet, still in business as PPG. You can probably find one on ebay.

You may ,like me, run into your supplier only having modern metallic particles, brighter than what was in vintage paint.

If you want that subtle vintage metallic, I highly recommend these guys.They stock it and can mix your color in enamel, acrylic, base clear or lacquer.
http://www.autocolorlibrary.com/

[Gordie]

Even if you found the paint formula which is on most paint pages from the old suppliers it would not work as the colors recommended in 1952 for mixing are no longer available.  Get a an old paint chip page which is common on eBay and have your local paint company mix it for you from the sample chip.  There have been several discussions on the forum covering this and a few good suppliers named if you want to pull them up from the forum archives.  Marks recommendation is probably a good place to start.

[njpatera]

Curious, why Nason? (Axalta Now)

[rialto]

I believe PPG has a color catalog going back to the twenties. They have modern formulas for most vintage colors and can still make them for you. They also have a scanner that can generate a formula if you have a good painted sample for them to scan. Your sample needs to be a certain size for this to work.

[John Scheibe]

Thank you All,
I like Nason base coat / clear coat because it is readily available in my little town, and it is almost as easy to spray as nitrocellulose lacquer.  I have tried working with my local PPG shop but they say they can't provide with any colors going back to 1949.  The TCP Global link look promising.  Many Thanks!!!

[MarkH]

If you go with TCP and base clear you might consider their "Restoration Shop" house brand to save a few bucks. Jimmy wouldn't come right out & say it was a copy of PPG but he did say if my painter was familiar with & liked PPG he would like that. That's my painter's favorite brand and he said the Resto Shop paint layed down just like PPG, it really turned out nice.

[Jerry Wilbeck]

Some of the advertising for the 1947 Kaisers had RED PAINT in the vertical portion of the grill with the word "SPECIAL" in red.  Does anyone know if that was placed in the grills of production cars, or was it just an "advertising" gimmick?

[Gordie]

That is a good question.  Every colored sales brochure for 1947 Kaisers shows a red special name on the grill but the magazine ads do not show the name at all but all were made from paintings and not photographs.  I seem to remember NOS grills for sale that had black lettering.  Red looks just like black in black and white factory photos of the '47 Kaisers of which there are many.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

When Kaiser-Frazer rolled out the K-100 Spoecial, they added "SPECIAL" to the center point area of the grille as they were not trying to let the cat out of the bag when it came to ending the K-85 project; Like the Ford Cardinal in the early 1960's they shifted emphasis to other products and let the abandoned project fade off into the sunset.

Check the information on the 1947 Kaiser K-100 Special in KFOCI HANDBOOK or the 1948 release Illustrated Parts List for 1947-48 Kaiser and Frazer cars for more on this.

How come nobody mentioned the "SPECIAL" in scropt on the trunk of very early Specials and the 'SPECIAL' script on the metal door sill trim plates?

[Gordie]

Because Jerry's question was what color to paint the lettering on his grill?  Early and late features of '47 Kaiser's will be explained in the new judging or assembly standards being made.