Help matching Williams silver..Final results

Mark DiffOGR Forum Member

I have a pair of Williams Budd RDC cars I want to change the road name on. I’m not looking to repaint the whole shell, just the ends where Williams customized the unit with the color for the particular road name. I’ve stripped the old paint and want to repaint the ends a matching silver color. I was wondering if anyone has tried to match the silver used by Williams on their Budds.

Over on the Bachmann forum, Williams suggested Krylon’s “Dull Aluminum” as being a close match to their silver. But not having been able to find Krylon’s color, I was hoping someone might know of an appropriate color match.

Here is a picture of what I'm doing. The shell on the left is the "before" so to speak, and the right one is after I'ved removed the "Reading" paint.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

9/2/111:17 AM

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Jeff78rrOGR Forum Member

Mark, from what I recall, these were a flat silver- the closest match is either Floquil "Old Silver" or "Platinum Mist", which is Amtrak silver. You will also need to use clearcoat flat to get it to match without the sheen.. hope this helps..

9/2/117:18 AM

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Rusty TraqueOGR Forum Member

One of the best ways to disguise a slight mismatch is to use a natural "break" in the carbody to paint up to. In this case, the corners of the ends and that ridge just below the headlights.

Rusty

9/2/1110:09 AM

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NortonOGR Forum Member

The Lionel MPC Amtrak RPO/Baggage was repainted with Testors 1246 Silver to match the Williams car behind it.

Pete

9/2/1110:20 AM

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JumijoOGR Forum Member

Testor's 1246 silver. Paint the entire side, not just the bottom of the side.

9/2/118:55 PM

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Mark DiffOGR Forum Member

I finally completed this repaint project. I had some floquil "Platinum mist" I had laying around and it worked out quite well. Nearly an identical match. Although the testors silver would have worked well too.

I used some Champ decals for the "PENNSYLVANIA" lettering along the side and a Microscale decal of the "keystone" on the ends. I didn't attempt to mask the siver and spray Tuscan stipes, instead I cut and applied Microscale Tusan trim film instead.

On the powered unit I installed Evans Designs Green LED's for the markers and a Warm Light LED for the Headlight. On the Trailing unit, I used Evan's Red LED's for the markers. These really make a difference in the appearance of the train under way. I'm now in the process of changing all my Williams engines' headlights to LED's.

I removed the motors and reverse unit from the original Williams Pennsy Budd cars to use on another project. With only a Four car consist, one powered unit is sufficient. I initially rewired the sole power unit to run in series, but when I ran the train, the interior lights were so bright, the cars looked as though they had flood lights installed. As a result, I switched back to parallel wiring and I can run it slowly enough this to suit my needs.

Forgot to mention, I added an MRC sounder to a dummy unit. Sounds good, I wish it were louder though. I am going to have to play with it to see if I can coax a bit more volume from it.