RAF Paint Numbers

At long last I have some time to write.

BS 381c was first issued in 1931 not 1948. The BSI lists the following editions:

BS 381 First published 1930 Colours for ready mixed paints
BS 381c First Published October 1931 Colours for ready mixed paints
Second edition 1943 Colours for ready mixed paints
Third edition 1944 Colours for ready mixed paints
Fourth edition March 1948 Colours for specific purposes
Fifth edition 1964 Colours for specific purposes
Sixth edition September 1980 Specification for colours for identification, coding and special purposes
Seventh edition March 1988 Specification for colours for identification, coding and special purposes
Eighth edition December 1996 Specification for colours for identification, coding and special purposes

BS 381 Schedule of Colours for ready mixed paints was first issued in November 1930 as a response to calls from industry, and paint manufactures in particular, for a standard range of colours suitable for a wide range of uses that could be obtained “off the shelf”. It was the first range of standardised paint colours to be published and became the limited range paint colours available from most paint manufacturers for the next 20 to 25 years. It was very soon revised and in 1931 it became BS 381c when additional colours were added. E.g., No 70 Traffic Red, No 72 Dark Graphite, No 73 Gulf Red.

In 1943, and again in 1944, BS381c was issued with a reduced set of colours which specified the particular uses that various colours were to be employed. Three categories were given: General Purposes; Special Purpose Colours; Colours Used on Public Service Vehicles.

No 1 Sky Blue
No 2 Turquoise Blue
No 3 Peacock Blue
No 4 Azure Blue
No 6 Royal Blue
No 11 Middle Brown
No 12 Dark Brown
No 21 Brilliant Green
No 25 Light Brunswick Green
No 26 Middle Brunswick Green
No 28 Silver Grey
No 29 Quaker Grey
No 31 Light Battleship Grey
No 32 Dark Battleship Grey
No 37 Signal Red
No 43 Salmon Pink
No 44 Terracotta
No 46 Red Oxide
No 51 Chocolate
No 52 Pale Cream
No 53 Deep Cream
No 55 Lemon
No 56 Golden Yellow
No 57 Orange
No 59 Middle Buff
No 61 Light Stone
No 64 Portland Stone

Several other standards were produced during the war:

BS987: 1942 Camouflage Paints.
BS987C: 1944 Camouflage Colours. Incl. Amendments 1 & 2.
BS1056: 1942 Painting of Buildings in Wartime.
BS1124: 1942 Household Paints for External Use.
BS1128: 1943 Recommendations for Primers for Camouflage Paints.

These were mainly concerned with camouflage of buildings, airfields etc., from the air using special paints, Bituminous emulsions, silicate paints, oil-bound water paints as well as dusting powders, consisting usually of chalk or gypsum, pigment and adhesive finely ground together intended for simulation of field patterns on airfields.

A couple of amendments were issued to BS 987c leading to additions and deletions, not all relevant to buildings. From 1944 SCC15 (Olive Drab) took over from SCC2 (brown). It was meant to be similar to US Army Olive Drab No 9 and was adopted with the painting of vehicles in mind. It may have also had a use for anti-glare panels on American aircraft. It was added to BS 381c in Amendment No 2 to the 1948 edition in May 1949 as No 298 Olive Drab.

While camouflage colours were being developed in the 1930s by the Air Ministry and RAE standards were produced in small numbers by the RAE in the form of brushed out samples of dope on fabric and paint on aluminium. The first colour standards for widespread use by the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate were manufactured for the Air Ministry by the Mitchell Colour Card Company in the form of printed colour cards inside a small booklet. They became available from February 1939. This does not mean that BS 381 colours were not available. The material specification for both gloss finishes DTD 63 and DTD 260 stated that “The colour of the material was to be one of the British Standard colours listed in the latest issue of BS Specification BS 381, or when an Aluminium finish was required, the standard was available from the Director of Aeronautical Inspection at the Ministry of Aircraft Production”.

The Ministry of Aircraft Production was formed in 1940 and took over the responsibility for aircraft paint colour standards. These were samples of paint applied to cards bound into booklets. On 1st April 1946 the Ministry of Supply absorbed the MAP inheriting the the responsibility for aircraft colour standards. These now took the form of painted sheets of card inside an envelope bound in a ring binder with the title “Ministry of Supply Standard of Colour Gloss and Smoothness for Aircraft Finishes Supplementary to BSS 381”. It is not known exactly when the MoS were first issued, probably not before 1947 and it is assumed that the MAP standards continued in use until then. I was not until 1964 that MoS standards were incorporated into BS 381c itself.

While BS 381c had a good selection colours suitable for external use, its weakness was that it failed to fully address the needs of the house owner, or architects specifying colours for interior use. Most paint companies were soon offering their own selection of 20-30 paler colours appropriate for this. During WWII production was limited to a very small section of colours for specific purposes such as camouflage and decoration of War Department buildings.

Post war there was much more desire to approach design and colour on a more scientific basis. By the early 1950s a considerable amount of research and experiment had been carried out into the methodical use of colour in buildings. Lessons had also been learnt from scientific research into lighting and vision. This showed that colour, if properly understood, could make a direct and positive contribution to the design of a building.
In 1952 the paint industry contacted the Royal Institute of British Architects to point out the problems that were being created by the increasing tendency for users to order special colours or to specify from the continually widening number of available paint ranges. With advice from the British Colour Council a set of approximately one hundred colours was proposed from which it was intended that a range of 50-60 colours would be selected. For the next few years the various bodies involved continued discussing the composition of such a range.

At the same time work carried out by the Schools Group of the Architect’s Department of the Hertfordshire County Council had led to a particular range of paint colours being developed which had been used by a number of local authorities, especially in schools. The details of this range of 49 colours, including black and white, were published in 1953. It came to be known as the Archrome (Munsell) range, and paints based on the range became commercially available shortly afterwards.
The system of colour notation developed by Albert H. Munsell in the early twentieth century was felt to be the most useful in describing colours. Colours are described in terms of its hue, value and chroma, where hue distinguishes red from blue, green from yellow etc., value being related to the lightness or darkness of a colour, and chroma the strength of the colour.

The colours of the Archrome range were arranged in a grid with the hues placed horizontally so that colours of equal value appeared in the same vertical column. Munsell notations were included in order for the reflectance values to be calculated, and for a precise comparison of the relative qualities of different colours to be made.

Other bodies expressed an interest in the advantages to be gained by specifying from a limited range of carefully chosen paint colours. In March 1955 an interim range, based heavily on the Archrome colours, was released for use by all Government Departments. Later in the same year, the paint industry in conjunction with the RIBA and various Government departments finally agreed on a standard range of 101 colours which incorporated the Archrome range. This was adopted by the British Standards Institute as B.S. 2660: 1955 Colours for Building and Decorative Paints. This was to have an affect on BS381c.

While all this was going on, the BSI contribution was minimal. In 1945 it issued BS381WD: 1945 Flat Colours for Wall Decoration, a set of ten pastel colours that seem to have been taken from BS381c. This was replaced in 1949 by BS1572: 1949 Colours for Flat Finishes for Wall Decoration, an expanded range of 17 colours. Although it largely duplicated the work of British Colour Council, it was specifically designed for the Ministry of Works, rather than for the profession of interior design.

So, when BS381c was revised in 1948 it had largely lost its original purpose and become a miscellaneous selection of colours used for/by a diverse range of purposes and organisations that included traffic signs, London buses, vitreous enamels, the General Post Office, the Ministry of Works, the South African Railways Administration, the War Department and the Admiralty. Its changing purpose was reflected by its new title/description; Colours for Special Purposes.

Colours were renumbered as follows:
100 to 199 blue, turquoise
200 to 299 green
300 to 399 yellow, cream, buff
400 to 499 brown, pink
500 to 599 orange, red
600 to 699 grey
700 to 799 purple, violet

So, for example No 1 Sky Blue became No 101 Sky Blue, No 16 Eau-de-Nil became No 216 Eau-de-Nil and so on.

In 1964 the standard was revised again reflecting its change of purpose. In the words of the BSI.

“With the publication in 1955 of BS 2660 Colours for building decorative paints (superseded in 1972 by BS 4800), it became necessary to distinguish between the selected range of colours provided by that standard and the unrelated individual colours in BS 381C, which provided standardization of colours for applications that were not necessarily limited either to buildings or to paints. This led to the revision, published as BS 381C : 1964 Colours for specific purposes (described as ‘for identification or other technical purposes, or for purposes based on long established practice’)”.

The MoS aircraft finishes that had been issued as a supplement to BS381c were now incorporated to the standard proper with Dark Green incorrectly given the number 641. BS 987c was finally cancelled and colour No 10 Dull Red transferred in BS381c as No 435 Camouflage Red.

Now for the ‘Yes Minister’ bit.

The next edition was in 1980. 5 new colours were added and none deleted. A survey was conducted that had suggested that many of the colours were probably no longer used within the scope of the standard, so 41 of the total 107 colours were designated as obsolescent intending to omit them completely from the next revision. Of these 40 were withdrawn.

Following consultations, 25 of the colours in the table of obsolescent colours in the 1980 edition were reinstated in the table of standard colours for the 1988 edition.14 colours previously listed as standard were declared to be obsolete. Seven colours were deleted and seven new colours were added. All erroneous references were corrected, e.g., 641 Dark Green became 241 Dark Green. The names of four of the colours were changed as they were considered no longer appropriate. 267 Traffic green became 267 Deep Chrome Green, 368 Traffic Yellow became 568 Apricot, 538 Post Office Red became 538 Cherry, and 539 Red became 539 Currant Red.

For the current revision (1996) it was decided that all colours would be at the same gloss level and this would be semi-matt as with other standards (e.g. BS 4800). There should no longer be gloss and matt colours. It was also decided to declare no further colours obsolescent. Two colours previously declared obsolescent, 366 Light Beige and 453 Shell Pink, were reinstated in the table of standard colours and all other colours declared obsolete in the 1988 edition were withdrawn. Five new colours, 284 Spruce Green; 315 Grapefruit; 380 Camouflage Desert Sand; 420 Dark Camouflage Desert Sand and 629 Dark Camouflage Grey were added to the standard.

Copies of cancelled editions from 1948 to 1988 can be bought for £152 from the BSI shop. The companies that manufacture powder coatings and such like often have colour cards for various standards, BS 381c, RAL etc.

http://www.unitedcomposites.net/jointpages/bs381cColours.htm

It all depends on the particular era; British Standards had no input during WWII, with all colours being named, and numbered, by Farnborough. DTD Technical Circulars were issued, occasionally with a list of colours and their numbers.
British Standards is a hugely complicated system, with the 1930 B.S.381 becoming 381C in 1948, with amendments in 1964, 1980 and 1988.

To be honest, the modeller forums seem to be the most authoritative – those guys get into analysing period paint chips with spectrometers to get their hues right.

Case in point: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234957356-sky-blue-what-is-it-good-for/

Depends on the time period, but I’m sure that someone on here had softcopies of AP119 which is the painters bible

Current UK colours are to BS381C here

http://www.e-paint.co.uk/BS381%20Colourchart.asp//

What year? There are two BSC standards as far as I know – and the wartime colours didn’t follow a BSC standard.

Edgar and Antoni are probably the two people I can think of who know the most about colours 🙂