Zinc Chromate Yellow

[Vaughan]

Hi guys what the best way to achieve zinc chromate yellow. I only use Modelair and it's not a colour available in their range.

[Guest]

tamiya call theirs yellow green, so add a bit of green to some yellow and see what you get and then adjust accordingly

[stona]

I'll second Andrew.

I have WEM's version of ZCY and it is exactly as described,yellow with a green tint.

Cheers

Steve

[Dave W]

Testors do a Zinc chromate no.1184

[mossiepilot]

Hey Vaughan, what do need it for, because I did a search on "zinc chromate" and found this site - Everything You Need To Know About Zinc Chromate - which gives a brief history of the use of the stuff and they say it could be any colour from yellowy green (raw zinc chromate primer) to greeny yellow (raw zinc chromate mixed with lamp black) to salmon (raw zinc chromate mixed with indian red) depending on the manufacturer and end user.

And I thought it was just a sort of green, which is what prompted me to do the search in the first place.

Oh well, more paint colours to collect.

Tony.

[AlanG]

Vallejo model Air Zinc Cromate (71094) is a green colour and is the colour i've used for all my B-17, B-24 and P-47 builds

[stona]

Vallejo model Air Zinc Cromate (71094) is a green colour and is the colour i've used for all my B-17, B-24 and P-47 builds

There was a green zinc chromate (infact several) colour too.

Cheers

Steve

[yak face]

As steve and tony say , theres several different types. Research is key to knowing whether you want ZC green /ZC yellow or even the salmon pink (i once used this pink colour in the wheel bays of a Corsair f4u1). Once I know which colour i need ,i just mix it using green and yellow ,until it looks about right, the beauty of it is that the actual paint varied so much in shade that its impossible to say its wrong or right. cheers tony

[Vaughan]

Thanks for all the info Guys, I gather that these wheel wells were in fact ZCY so will take your advice and have a go at mixing some paint.

[Guest]

IIRC, Zinc Chromate was basically used as a base for anti-corrosion finish, used on the interior of some aircraft during WWII (AFAIK, the B-17 and B-24 were not among these, but I could be wrong); as has been mentioned, the actual tone varied due to allowed formulaic variation as exact specs in wartime can run afoul of shortages! Allowing for shortages of given materials in wartime meant one could always get the finish, else one would be "dead in the water!" IIRC, "Interior Green" started as a nickname bestowed by aircrews for the zinc-chromate-based finishes, and some time post-war the U.S. military gave an actual color-spec to the name "Interior Green" . I suspect the Testor color might be to this post-war spec, and since anything I make that would need the color would be from WWII, I mix my own too, and even add a drop of black for the "lamp-black!"

Regards, John

[Vaughan]

Thanks for the info John very interesting reading.