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Goods Office Sign

Discussion in 'Railwayana' started by simon, Nov 18, 2020.

  1. simon

    simon Resident of Nat Pres

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    I have a sign that says "Goods Office" legally acquired from Frome station back in the 1970s. Wooden back and metal letters.

    It is painted black with white lettering.

    However, I've stated stripping the paint and it looks like the wood was originally painted brown and the letters cream.

    This doesn't seem to be correct if it is a GWR sign, maybe its a BR replacement, although I'm not sure why its not enamel in that case.

    Anyway the question is, does anyone know a source of the correct shade paints if I was to paint it brown with cream letters?

    Thanks

    Simon
     
  2. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Hmm, the order of colours on your sign does sound a bit back to front! Perhaps when it came to the BR repaint the old GWR black and white was either stripped off or had already come off, and then subsequently someone decided off their own back it needed sprucing up again and went back to black and white? Or maybe it was manufactured in very early BR days before they got going with enamel signs.

    Anyway, the colours your after are BS 369 biscuit for the cream and BS 414 golden brown for the brown, according to this site, which is pretty well researched.
     
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  3. simon

    simon Resident of Nat Pres

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    Hi Alex,

    Thanks for the speedy response. 16057190348658810197298780205816.jpg

    This is a pic of part of the sign, although the cream doesn't show up to well.

    Now to find someone who sells paints in those colours.

    Cheers
     
  4. toplight

    toplight Well-Known Member

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    If you check on this website you can see all the colour charts. For example the BS 369 and 414 quoted are shown below The BS ones are British Standard, RAL is originally from Germany.

    https://www.e-paint.co.uk/BS381 Colourchart.asp

    When you have decided the colour you want go to any trade paint place and they can mix up paint to the colours you request. Just give them the colour code. You also specify the size of tin and whether you want gloss, satin etc. Perhaps take along your sign and they can take a look and manually adjust the colour on screen before they mix it.

    I prefer the Johnstones paint so you can get this from a Johnstones decorator centre and they can mix it in about 5mins and will often give you a 10 or 20% discount if you ask nicely. Their trade paints which is what they sell in decorator centres have their logo in a red background. They use their logo in Blue for paints in B and Q etc which is of lower quality and pre mixed.

    When I took a trip previously on the West Somerset railway I got talking to a bloke doing some painting of fences etc at Williton station and he said they had started using this paint called http://www.dacrylate.co.uk/ which they had found lasted a lot longer than Dulux etc but was a lot more expensive so you could try that if you want something that will be outside in all weathers. Not tried it myself.
     
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  5. simon

    simon Resident of Nat Pres

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    Thank you. Most useful.
     
  6. simon

    simon Resident of Nat Pres

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    So today I took some of the brown paint off and under it was black and under that bare wood.

    Looking at photos of Frome station around the time I acquired the sign, signage is white on black.

    So my guess is the lowest layer of black is the original GWR, the brown, or chocolate, is BR WR, as is the top layer of black. I note that the station is now in BR WR chocolate and cream.

    Anyway thanks again to @flying scotsman123 and @toplight for their help.
     
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