Orkney blue.

[Phil Pilot 20]

Hi. I’ve just bought a blue Orkney pilot house 20. The hull is blue and is immaculate apart from a couple of scratches. I rang Orkney to ask if I could buy some paint or give me the ral number. They don’t do paint and there no ral number as the gel coat is made specifically for them. Does any one know what colour blue it is. It looks like Oxford or maurisious to me but I’d like a perfect match if possible

 

[Adios]

They can't be bothered to ask the gel coat manufacturer or tell you who makes the gel coat so you can ask? If Orkney won't tell you probably no one here can. I wonder if you took a photo with your phone and held it up to the hull if it looks like a true representation can they match it in a paint shop from the screen? Otherwise you can get ral swatch cards to take back to your boat I guess.

 

[Phil Pilot 20]

What I’ve done is bought a gel coat repair kit. If I can’t find the colour I’m going to paint some gel coat on a piece of card and see if a decorators merchant can scan it to match the colour.

 

[Thistle]

Do Orkney supply gelcoat repair kits?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

They can't be bothered to ask the gel coat manufacturer or tell you who makes the gel coat so you can ask? If Orkney won't tell you probably no one here can. I wonder if you took a photo with your phone and held it up to the hull if it looks like a true representation can they match it in a paint shop from the screen? Otherwise you can get ral swatch cards to take back to your boat I guess.

A photo is very unlikely to allow good colour matching, unless you're using professional calibrated equipment, and even then only maybe.

 

[Adios]

A photo is very unlikely to allow good colour matching, unless you're using professional calibrated equipment, and even then only maybe.

i've got an Eizo calibrated PC screen for having photos printed and know what you mean for that but its not quite relevant to this idea. it was an idea to take a photo of just a portion of the hull with a smartphone and then view the photo and hold it up next to the blue there and then and see if its any good, if not discard the idea, if it looks the same then the colour must be the same. take that to the paint guy and get them to scan the screen. I wouldn't know if its a good idea unless I tried it but i understand your skepticism.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

i've got an Eizo calibrated PC screen for having photos printed and know what you mean for that but its not quite relevant to this idea. it was an idea to take a photo of just a portion of the hull with a smartphone and then view the photo and hold it up next to the blue there and then and see if its any good, if not discard the idea, if it looks the same then the colour must be the same. take that to the paint guy and get them to scan the screen. I wouldn't know if its a good idea unless I tried it but i understand your skepticism.

I've worked with calibrated screens and a calibrated printer, and even with that kit the match is only so-so. And it needed to be redone fairly regularly; screens drift a bit as phosphors age. Differences between reflective and emissive colours mean that ultimately the colour gamuts don't match; colours possible with one are impossible with the other. Your technique is as good as possible, but still depends on the ability of the human eye to distinguish colours, and you're still matching an emissive colour (the screen) with a reflective one (the hull).

The ideal would be proper colorimetric scanning, but that needs equipment that most of us don't have access to; I didn't and I worked in an environment where colour matching might matter; ultimately we used proof printing to ensure we got the results we wanted (our printer was set up to an industry standard). Barring that, I'd get two colours made up to bracket the colour from the photo and mix them on the spot to get a precise match.

 

[Adios]

but still depends on the ability of the human eye to distinguish colours,

If he's not able to distinguish a difference between the hull and screen then close enough match?

Differences between reflective and emissive colours mean that ultimately the colour gamuts don't match;

but we're only talking about 1 colour which will be constant on the phone and matched from phone screen against hull and then recorded by scan in shop. I don't think gamuts come into it on a single mid blue which would be within the range of all gamuts.

you're still matching an emissive colour (the screen) with a reflective one (the hull).

thats my guess at the biggest problem as well but still its just one colour, presumable the scan would come up with the right tone of blue but maybe the wrong lighter shade in which case...

I'd get two colours made up to bracket the colour from the photo and mix them on the spot to get a precise match.

...it might be better to take some grey to mix in. Though again if the eye says emissive and reflective looks the same held up won't the scan be able to record as an eye does otherwise it will never match colours to what we expect. He would have to make sure phone brightness isn't on auto adjust or low power mode.

Its gone from a throw away idea to me wanting to test it out now ?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

If he's not able to distinguish a difference between the hull and screen then close enough match?


but we're only talking about 1 colour which will be constant on the phone and matched from phone screen against hull and then recorded by scan in shop. I don't think gamuts come into it on a single mid blue which would be within the range of all gamuts.


thats my guess at the biggest problem as well but still its just one colour, presumable the scan would come up with the right tone of blue but maybe the wrong lighter shade in which case...


...it might be better to take some grey to mix in. Though again if the eye says emissive and reflective looks the same held up won't the scan be able to record as an eye does otherwise it will never match colours to what we expect. He would have to make sure phone brightness isn't on auto adjust or low power mode.

Its gone from a throw away idea to me wanting to test it out now ?

I think the point is that the match would only be good for one particular set of lighting conditions; you'd only get the screen matching the paint under the particular lighting conditions when you did it. That's where the difference between emissive and reflective comes into play; the colour of the screen (emissive) doesn't change with lighting, but the colour of the paint (reflective) does.

 

[Hunterlees]

As suggested, get a RAL colour chart to start with.
Buy RAL color fan deck | RALcolorchart.com

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

i've got an Eizo calibrated PC screen for having photos printed and know what you mean for that but its not quite relevant to this idea. it was an idea to take a photo of just a portion of the hull with a smartphone and then view the photo and hold it up next to the blue there and then and see if its any good, if not discard the idea, if it looks the same then the colour must be the same. take that to the paint guy and get them to scan the screen. I wouldn't know if its a good idea unless I tried it but i understand your skepticism.

Post deleted.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

In any event, a correctly pig

Hi. I’ve just bought a blue Orkney pilot house 20. The hull is blue and is immaculate apart from a couple of scratches. I rang Orkney to ask if I could buy some paint or give me the ral number. They don’t do paint and there no ral number as the gel coat is made specifically for them. Does any one know what colour blue it is. It looks like Oxford or maurisious to me but I’d like a perfect match if possible

I would send an email to the managing director of the company, rather than relying on the word of whoever answered your phone call.
In any event, a correctly pigmented gelcoat repair will be more satisfactory than tryig to do it with paint.

 

[Jodel]

Orkney used to supply a small pot (a bit like a 35mm film container) of touch up with their boats. The previous owner might have left it at the back of a cupboard/locker somewhere.