[Heathkit] SB series cabinet paint

[Carl]

Glen, you are completely correct, the colors were different even when new.
When the SB-200 and 220 came along I built many for customers as I was doing 
all the way back to the DX-100. Never did the other SB stuff.

Age, sun, stability, or whatever just doesnt cut it when I opened freshly 
packed boxes. A particular gray-green doesnt get lighter and darker either; 
it changes one way or the other.

Carl
KM1H.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Glen Zook" <gzook at yahoo.com>
To: "Dennis Petrich" <radioart at charter.net>; <heathkit at mailman.qth.net>; 
<kim.herron at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 6:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Heathkit] SB series cabinet paint


> If so, then the color stability was extremely lousy even over the short 
> term because I have seen various SB-Line units purchased new at the same 
> time that came through with various colored cabinets!  Now the kits were 
> probably not manufactured on the same day, maybe not even in the same week 
> or even month.  But, the time frame did not encompass several years. 
> Also, the cabinets were not exposed to the sun before shipping (at least 
> that I can determine).
>
> Also, why the different front panel colors?  Again, units bought at the 
> same time could come with any of 3 different shades of green on the front 
> panel.
>
> Now I believe that the color that came on the SB-104 (maybe they had 
> stabilized the paint formula by then) is definitely the best looking of 
> all of the various colors that I have seen (it is a light gray-green) and 
> that is the color that I have had duplicated for use when I repaint 
> SB-Line cabinets.  The Sherwin-Williams formula for that particular shade 
> is posted in the article on my website.
>
> Now the gray that was used on the DX-20, DX-35, and DX-40, as well as on 
> part of the DX-100 cabinets is generally well within standards.  Now it 
> can vary slightly due to batch mixing, but, overall, the colors have held 
> up very well over the decades.  Also, the "Apache Green" paint used on the 
> Mohawk, Apache, Warrior, Marauder, Seneca, SB-10, Comanche, Cheyenne, and 
> several other units have again been pretty much the same.  Of course there 
> are slight batch differences but the colors are well within what can be 
> considered to be the same "range".  Those cabinets are pretty much the 
> same color as they were when the units were new.  But the SB-Line is 
> considerably different.  As I stated before I have seen at least 5 
> completely different colors on those cabinets ranging from a very 
> "pleasant" color like on the SB-104 to some pretty "putrid" shades of 
> green.  Frankly, I have never seen such widely varying colors on radios 
> manufactured by other companies.  It
> is hard to believe that Heath used such lousy paint on the SB-Line 
> equipment, but such is definitely possible.
>
> Glen, K9STH
>
> Website:  http://k9sth.com
>
>
> --- On Fri, 6/27/08, kim.herron at sbcglobal.net <kim.herron at sbcglobal.net> 
> wrote:
>
> You're right in that you've seen more than one color on Heath Cabinets. 
> What you don't realized is that they've changed color because of exposure 
> to sun, etc as well as other factors.  The original color did not change 
> but the chemical stability of the paint used from the early sixties to the 
> late 70's did.
>
>
>
>