German red oxide primer! What color?

Vallejo Red brown primer is the exact match, says 8012 right on the bottle

I don't know if any one else foudn this in their LHS but i picked up a book by testors/MM called the Modeler's Tech Guide. Now I have been working plastic since i was a kid but I picked it up any way to see if it had any new tricks to teach me. In the back is a very comprehensive paint guide and manufacture's equivalent guides. Unfortunatly their is no listing for any manufacturer making RAL8012 but there was a cross reference for RAL 8017now im not sure if your looking for enamel or acryl so email me at bnlfesta@bellsouth.net and I will email back the correct info to you. It also has a listing of other colors for german armor as well as US Russian and other militaria. Let me know and I will be glad to look it up for you.

Brian

Wow Andy im sorry to hear that you were "attacked" was it a FSM member?
No need to apologies, I thought we had a good discussion and I found your input very interresting and informativ. I know enough about german armor to say that I think your mix will be very close to what I am looking for, and I will try it out the next time I build a Tiger where I need the red oxide primer. Again thanks for your input.

Hey monrad, folks

My apologies – I had a half dozen posts in this thread which I deleted in a pretty immature response to some dill who took exception to my analasys of ‘Red Brown Primer’ and sent me a pretty acrimonious email. Just let me say that I am absolutely certain the sender was NOT anyone with a post in this thread. Anyway after settlin’ down some, I realise that my response was pretty unfair to Monrad and/or anybody else looking for the answer – so here, as best as I can remember, is the basis of my previous posts:

All German armour (and possibly other vehicles) were finished in a red brown primer. This colour has the technical designation RAL 8012 Red Brown. All you ever wanted to know about RAL 8012 and its application can be found here: http://miniatures.de/html/int/camouflageWi.html

The one thing this article doesn’t tell us is what colour it was, in the sense that it doesn't give us a model paint manufacturer’s stock number. Now ‘colour’, its use and application is my thing! I don’t claim to be a particularly good painter, but that’s something different again. Anyway I decided that to help Monrad (and anybody else) out I would try to produce a ‘universal’ recipe for Ral 8012 that would work no matter what manufacturer’s paint you use. It’s actually a colour that should be available, because late in the war it is certain that many vehicles had their interior left in bare primer, and it is very possible that some vehicles may have seen action with incomplete oversprays, the primer being left as the ‘red’ camouflage colour.

One colour that the model paint manufacturers DO however supply us with is the OTHER red-brown colour used on German vehicles, the one used in the late war camo schemes. This colour was designated RAL 8017 Chocolate Brown and it is close enough to 8012 that I think it can be reasonably easily mixed back to the other colour.

The official recipe for RAL 8012 Red Brown (PRIMER COLOUR) is:
34,8 Parts Sicotan Yellow L 2110
5,9 Parts Paliogen Red L 4120
47,2 Parts Bayferrox Red 130 M
6,9 Parts Titanium Dioxide 2310
5,3 Parts Lamp Black 101

RAL 8017 Chocolate Brown (CAMO COLOUR) on the other hand is:
18,3 Parts Sicotan Yellow L 1912
48,5 Parts Bayferrox Red 130 M
4,4 Parts Titanium Dioxide 2310
28,8 Parts Lamp Black 101

Now ignoring quantities for the moment it can be seen that the ingredients for the two paints are identical except that 8012 contains a small quantity of Paliogen Red. This is a colour not unlike the red found on the lower part of ship hulls. The other major difference is that the camo colour contains a heck of a lot more black.

So as compared to the camo colour, the Primer was very slightly redder, a good deal yellower, and a heck of a lot lighter.

Here then is my ‘universal’ red primer recipe, which should work for most brands of paint, acrylic or enamel.

10 drops whatever-you-use-for-red-brown-camo colour
2 drops bright yellow
1 drop bright red
4 drops white

If it looks too dark still, add more white, or a little more yellow. Be careful of adding more red - you risk turning it pink instead of red-brown. If it starts to go pink and you want it lighter, try adding a very light brown like Khaki Drill.

Do not get too worked up about getting it exactly right – it is a paint that was intended to be covered over and it would have faded FAST! Just avoid at all costs finishing up with a pink primer! If you use Humbrol enamels - the paints I am most familliar with - the colour you are aiming for is browner than 70 and redder and lighter than 186. And whatever you do, don't ever try to match a colour to a swatch on a computer monitor or one from your printer! Very few things in life are certain, but I guarantee you that your monitor and/or printer show it wrong!

Playing around with colour is fun. Remember that everyone percieves colour differently, and that any colour will change with different lighting conditions. Just mix away, and at some point something inside will click, you will sigh or smile and know that you have got it!

Cheers, Andy!

Thanks I will try that.
Well since we haven't got a chat room we have to do the "chat" here, besides someone else might find this information useful too.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Andytee 10 drops whatever-you-use-for-red-brown-camo color 2 drops spectrum yellow 1 drop spectrum red 4 drops white Heck, if it totally stuffs up I'll buy you a new Tiger - so long asit isn't 1/16, or radio controlled, or...... Cheers! Andy.

Buy me a new Tiger! Im in.
The recipe sounds good. But what is Spectrum yellow and spectrum red? is there a Testor or Humbrol substitute?
Thanks for your replies, they are interesting reading.

Thanks for your input cmtlu. I don' t doubt that the color was different from factory to factory and unit to unit, I have been building Tigers for a long time now, I have 10 books on the subject and I have seen Tigers in different museums. But if I knew wich color the germans specified as "red oxide primer" then I could take that color and change the tone to get the effect that you and Andy are talking about.
And you are right its not brown, I have seen this mix in a mag. once I guess I have to give it try its Humbrol Matt Rust 113 and Matt Scarlet 60. In a 50/50 mix I guess.

monrad,

It is not 100% true that German (or any other) protected their tanks with primer once factory assembly was finished. In fact most of components and sub-assemblies arrived already painted in primer color to factories for final assembly, so you can find so many different primer shades as suppliers/sources involved with as andytee suggested. Depending on the tank you have choosen even you can paint different primer (shade) in turret, hull, gun, wheels, hatches and so on. I have seen some original german stuff in primer color some times (inside toolboxes, hidden side of road wheels or authentic chipped paint) and all of them were different at all, but very different to german red brown camouflage color (if you mix it 50% with flat red, perhaps...). Sometimes it was like dark red (like ships flotation line), others it was almost dark orange. Do it as you wish, but it should look quite red (not brown) when finished. Hope this helps.

Enjoy modeling!
Lu

Im not panicing. I know many of the colors are different from unit to unit, because the camo paint was a powder or paste, that was send to the units they then had to thin it with either water or oil. Often they used motor oil that had been used, or filthy water this ofcourse changed the color. But the red oxide primer was aplied at the factory. Since I build mostly Tigers this means at the Henschel factory, so it was the same color every time. But I guess you are right it only needs to be a fairly close match. But it would be nice if someone had a number for a Testor or Humbrol paint that is a fairly close match.

Thanks Andy for the link , now we just need to know who makes the RAL 8012.

While everybody's color balance on their monitor is different, I swiped this off of a website that sells paint. This is listed as Red Oxide Primer:

Model Master's acrylic "Anti-Fouling Red" is a pretty good choice. Nobody is going to pull out the paint chips and say this is the wrong color.

Monrad
I was wondreing the same thing about these red oxide primers, I has been reccommended to use some for a rusting effect technique, Thanks for bringing up a good question. What type of store should i shop at to acquire the stuff?
cheers