hello wd forum , im nick pleased to meet you ,I am the custodian of a 1941 b s a wd m20 ,foolishly without consulting people who know more about this old girl than I do I sprayed her deep bronze green . looked lovely , then , it should be matt deep bronze green. New stencils ,transfers and badging a week later I gave her the first show for quite some time . at same said show a fellow m20 ,b40 etc etc owner explained to me that the 1941 production m20 should be brown . My issue ,and would be eternaly grateful for , would like to know which brown ,dark brown ,rustic brown ,service brown .. any help would be gratefully received .if you've read this thank you for your time and please don't hesitate to contact me with any information or help ,thanks again NICK.
The wartime colours (all matt) were Khaki Green No.3, SCC NO.2 Brown and 'British Olive Drab'.
Colours continued in use until paint stocks were used up.
Most sources seem to indicate that SCC No.2 Brown replaced KG No.3 around June 1942 so a 1941 BSA was probably finished in the earlier colour.
You perhaps need to bear in mind the trim level of your bike. If it has the late war bits and panniers then it will probably resemble a 'rebuilt' vehicle rather than look ex-factory and if rebuilt after mid-1942 then it would almost certainly have been painted in brown.
Unfortunately there is no British Standard code for Khaki Green no3 and everyone will give you a different opinion of what that colour looks like, mainly because the original paint turned browner over time. There is a code for Service Brown BS499, I would say your bike would be KG3. You can make this colour yourself by mixing Olive Drab, Mid Bronze Green and service Brown together until you are happy with the result. As long as you make enough to do all the bike and a bit left over for touch-ups so you don't have to match the colour again.
As Horror has said, there are conflicting ideas on the way to achieve KG3. I've mixed my own on several occasions based on matching to original items taken from this bike. I've never been able to obtain exactly the same shade twice as I've done it by adding this and that until I'm happy.
Just this week I've mixed another 3 liters to a written recipe with the idea of repeating it in the future....Which is:-
1 Ltr BS 298 Olive Drab
1 Ltr BS 499 Service Brown
1 Ltr RAL 7013 Grey/Brown
1/2 Ltr Ral 6014 Yello/Olive
And no matter what shade you end up painting it every 2nd "expert" who looks at it will tell you and every one withing 200 yards just how wrong the colour is CAUSE HE KNOWS
It is a strange one! As surely there must have been some sort of paint code for all the different manufacturers to get their KG3 mixed to. Obviously there is inevitably bound to be shade differences between different paint companies and even batches from the same company can vary which is apparent even from today's computer guided mixing systems.....Always buy you B&Q Sky Blue kitchen paint from the same batch.
And of course I should have said that I've mixed 3 1/2 Liters and not 3 Liters. Plenty enough to repaint my 5SW with some over when it arrives. I'll often mix and use up obscure colours or non required tins of paint as build up layers or under mudguards etc. To save on top coat paint.
My preferred paint these days is, single pack polyurethane matt mixed by my friendly local auto paint firm.
I'm very happy with the colour of my version of KG3, the problem I'm having isn't colour, it's finding a paint that's petrol resistant enough. I used 2pak on my 16H, although it is reasonably petrol resistant it is too shiny in Matt and needs dusting over to get a proper Matt finish. This is very time consuming, so after restoring the B25 which was cellulose paint from John Critchlow and is very petrol resistant, I mixed this KG3 in cellulose. Not as resistant from my local paint suppliers and a good rub with a petrol soaked cloth started to take it off a sample piece. OK that's not the treatment anyone is going to do to your bike but it's not good. I tried some Polyurethane paint from my local supplier and that came easily with petrol too. So I'm going to try some from Ron's supplier which has passed the petrol text on a sample piece. Annoyingly I've sprayed all the small parts of my project which is loads, I'll now have to go over them with this new lot of paint.
I recently finished the restoration of my bike and being a complete novice about the WM20 had the same issues in the end I copied an Olive drab colour that came from a modelers paint and took it to my local paint shop to match, Although illegal in Hong Kong where I live I manages to obtain Cellulose as the matting agent you can add does make the paint go matt, the 2 pack colours still have a slight sheen. I haven't had any issues with petrol removing the cellulose and remember 30+ years ago cars were all painted with cellulose without issues before 2 pak hit the market
I agree with you Stuart. 30-40 years ago products did work a lot better than today's products. But in the modern H&S regime all things must be safe for a toddler to drink!
Nitromoors paint stripper, Finnegan's Hammerite and Humbrol enamel are just some of the products that I've relied upon since the 60's. But sadly none of them come anywhere near my expectations anymore. I've heard guys bemoaning the fact that Halford's cellulose paint will just wipe off with a petrol soaked rag......I'm very grateful for my local paint shop these days. Ron