colour matched paint

[tim...]

Went into a store (I won't name it because it mighty not be the store's fault, could be a generic problem with this product) with a sample of the emulsion paint that I wanted, painted on to a piece of plasterboard (of the same type that I expect to be painting onto).

now that I have opened the tin and painted the the walls (well a bit of) the colour has dried out to be closer to that of the base colour of the plaster board than the colour that I pained on.

I guess that the emulsion is translucent to the laser device that they use to determined the colour mix and I got a result tainted by the colour of the backing?

going back tomorrow with the same painted onto some gloss white paper.

bugger is I bought 10L of it

tim

[FMurtz]

Can you add tint and fix it ?

[Brian Gaff]

Are the colorimeter. These devices used to cost a fortune for military paint matching as the finish also makes the paint look a different colour, so the faintest tendency toward rippling etc can look a different colour. Brian

[Martin Brown]

Try a second coat on the same area before giving up. The first coat is likely to still show some of whatever is underneath it through.

Emulsion tends to need (at least) two coats to entirely obscure the material that it has been painted onto.

Oops. Colour matching is something of a challenge. I prefer to take away shade cards and interpolate the formula. I have used this to good effect matching existing faded known composition paints in our VH. It is tricky because the paint systems may have the same name but have changed over the years as new resins and low VOC formulations have become the norm.

[tim...]

only if I knew how much tint to add

as we have seen this task is difficult enough when adding the tint to a base paint that's white, how can you work it out for a base paint that's an unknown colour

Anyhow, seems I was wrong about the translucency, the machine came up with the same numbers with the gloss white backing.

And it seems that the measure was inaccurate, two other shops (one from the same chain) have come up with the required numbers for, what I now know is correct for this discontinued paint, albeit not as their first choice. So I now have the paint that I want at the shed price, not the trade outlet price (almost twice as much)

But I can't get shop number 1 to accept that the original fault is theirs, arguing that it's the inherent variability of the product that's at fault and the risk is mine. Just so you understand this, the difference in colour is about the same as taking a sample of blue, and getting green. That's not an acceptable margin of error. It's just plain wrong.

tim

[tim...]

now available in a variety of high street outlets

What I have isn't even close to what I wanted

tim

[tim...]

No, it's just too different to the bit of the wall that I painted from the dregs of the previous tin, that I (also) used to create the sample.

It's a discontinued paint and there are no cards for it. I know its name but it wasn't on their database (turns out it was on a trade store database, I wish I'd known that yesterday)

I tried, but I couldn't find a current paint sample card to match

I'm more annoyed that I lost a 4 hour painting session at the house, where because it was full of gas fitters, there was little scope for more complicated work, than the 60 quid cost.

tim

[tabbypurr]

A photo, a physical sample and an LBA may encourage them to change their mind.

NT

[tim...]

I shall be mailing the UK head office complaints team

the physical sample will be difficult

and an LBA seems premature