Milwaukee Orange

Thanks to Richard Schauer for the first report from the contractor's shop on the start of the Milwaukee 441 repainting project. Today's update has little to do with buses, but a lot to do with paint matching.

A small update this week, after finding no progress because the shop was too busy last week.  Their paint guy made a first attempt at color matching, and he's pretty close.  He and the foreman and I looked at the test cards he made under good full-spectrum lighting and agreed that the ivory needed to be a little darker and the orange a little redder, but they're both close.  He plans to have updated test cards next week and will also make first attempts at the imitation gold and the maroon.  

(The black doesn't need to be matched, because it's just black.)  My photo is just taken with the normal shop light and doesn't particularly do the colors justice.  441 will really look sharp when it's done!

I have been working on converting good photos I took into lettering artwork, so that vinyl masks can be made.  This is different from the process on 9631, because it had the lettering on top of the finish coat (we replicated what CTA had done).  441 needs to be "lettered under," 

which means that the letter color is sprayed all over the area of the lettering, and then positive masks are applied and the background color is sprayed.  When the masks are removed, you see the lettering color.  

I'm down to 6 letters and the "441" number remaining to do.

Rail & Wire issue 272 is in the mail now.  When you get your copy, read all the way to the end for an article on 9631's restoration!