Mixing Paints

I've just now started using an airbrush to paint my bikes. Does anyone have any hints or tips on mixing paints into variouos colours? Instead of buying more paint in specific colour for each project, I should be able to just keep a supply of some basic colours which can be mixed to make other colours. Is there a chart available for this?

All colours are made from various different blends of the three basic colours, Red, Yellow and Blue, plus Black and White.

However, much as it sounds like you could 'stock' these five hues and then mix any colour you wish for, is not really correct.

Y'see most of the colours used anywhere are mixed from many different colours, even black and white. So depending on what 'base' colours you are blending together, lets say for example, red and yellow, you might end up with orange, you might get green, or you might just get a colour that makes you wanna puke!

Purple for example, has as it's parent colours red and blue, but there are many different purples all blended from various shades and volumes of blues and reds.

Mixing colours is really a 'black art' and as one who learned to do this as part of his trade training, I'd stronly urge you to consider purchasing pre mixed colours to suit whatever your wish, for each model you build.

On the other hand, I'd also encourage anybody to experiment with mixing colours, but be prepared to chuck out a lot of paint, or not be able to duplicate it to repair any damage later on.

For pinstriping I often mix my own colours. However, I have on the shelf one can of every colour One Shot Enamel available. That gives me a much broader base to mix from and allows me to create a much wider range of colours.

If you really want to mix your own, I'd suggest trying to get hold of a Pantone Matching System. These are available from printing ink and sometimes signwriting material supliers. This system was developed to standardise colours so that printers and signwriters could duplicate ink/paint colours for printing purposes no matter where in the world they are located.

It's not the perfect system, but there is no perfect system when it comes to mixing colours. What it will give you is the formulae for mixing around 800 different colous to match those on the Pantone colour chart.

Hope this helps.

im in the same boat as you pete, i use all acrylic based paints and have struggled along the way to get any decent results. i recommend that you do what i did. i seen my local paint dealer and he has been a great help and source of information and they could even mix the paint for you if you have no luck.
good luck and hope to see your progress...