Celeste, turquoise, sea-green, cyan, etc..

neeb

What's the difference? I'd like to see a colour chart on which all of these were named... Which are greener and which are bluer?

And then there is Assos's "clinic" or whatever they call it. Unfortunately, searching for "assos" and "clinic" just brings up lots of stuff about STDs...

Did Bianchi celeste used to be greener in the past or is it just the old photos that make it look that way?

Reason for asking is that I'm starting to think about a long-term custom steel frame project and it will need to be the perfect colour. I'm thinking a sort of sea green, but I want it to be distinctly greener than celeste (which in its current incarnation is more blue than green to my eyes).

tim_wand

In my humble opinion you are quite right, Celeste ala 80's and 90's Bianchis was much greener.

A mate of mine has got a Mega Alu circa mid 90 s and a Bianchi Via Nirone which are both meant to be celeste. (the mega alu has some yellow on it of course). The two colours are nothing like the same.

Its even worse on the Carbon frames, Saw a Bianchi Oltre at Windmill wheels which was meant to be celeste just looked pale blue to me.

Totally random fact, but I work for a well none home diy retailer and we have a machine that matches paints, Celeste 80/90's version really gives it a mind feck.

A lot of the pigments that used to be in old paints (solvent based) are illegal to use now as many were carcinogenic or just plain too expensive.

neeb

Interesting stuff! The colour I (may) eventually be looking for will be a little greener than even 80's celeste, so maybe that will get it over any gaps in current pigment availability...

I'm sure I saw some 1950s Bianchi somewhere that was really much, much greener... perhaps even more so than 80s celeste? I will want to out-green any celestes of whatever vintage.

Random weird fact - I once saw a distinctly celeste Trek in California. That was a bit weird.

Giraffoto

If you can find a specialist car paint supplier, they'll make up any colour you like from the same range of colour cards that you'd use for decorating your house. There used to be one called Leonard Brooks in Harlow, I don't know if they're still there.

rolf_f

Giraffoto wrote:

If you can find a specialist car paint supplier, they'll make up any colour you like from the same range of colour cards that you'd use for decorating your house. There used to be one called Leonard Brooks in Harlow, I don't know if they're still there.

I think they maybe. I was looking for that sort of service in Leeds a while back (unsuccessfully - I assumed it would be a pretty commonplace sort of service but seemingly not) and did pick up references to Leonard Brooks.

That place is about 5 minutes walk from where I grew up - proper old fashioned place; untidy as anything! Small world and all that.

Supposedly the original Bianchi celeste was a colour from the war that they managed to get large quantities of for not much money.

Bunneh

Men don't see those colours, we just see PURPLE, GREEN, BLUE etc. None of this Cyan crap, I'm not a woman for goodness sake.

Better vacuum and wash the curtains.

Giraffoto

Rolf F wrote:

Supposedly the original Bianchi celeste was a colour from the war that they managed to get large quantities of for not much money.

It's been claimed to be variously the colour of the sea seen from various places, the sky likewise, and the eyes of a princess of somewhere-or-other. Celeste is most probably the colour that the Italian Air force painted the underside of their fighters - you can see examples at the RAF Museum at Hendon. There was a hell of a lot of aeroplane paint left over after WWII, which is why the classic Land Rover is a strange mid-green (RAF cockpit paint) and so many British cars of the late 40s were grey, brown or green.

RideOnTime

Just get some brown...

tim_wand

RideOnTime wrote:

Just get some brown...

There are probably more shades of Brown than most other colour, My Mrs reckons theres 50 shades of Gray.

Seriously though dont know where OP is based but I ve looked into home spraying and the one in my area that keeps coming up is Doncaster Motor Company, (car repair specialist, my mate owns a vintage classic restorer and uses them for paint)

When I commented on Timmy Turbos ORANGE bike I think he sent me a link to them and House of Kolor (paint specialists)

neeb

Bunneh wrote:

Men don't see those colours, we just see PURPLE, GREEN, BLUE etc. None of this Cyan crap, I'm not a woman for goodness sake.

Better vacuum and wash the curtains.

I knew I'd get someone telling me to MTFU... Yes, well, 7% of men have some sort of colour blindness anyway, it's a recessive X chromosome mutation.

Giraffoto wrote:

It's been claimed to be variously the colour of the sea seen from various places, the sky likewise, and the eyes of a princess of somewhere-or-other.

I read that it was the eyes of the queen of Italy. No wonder the Italians lost the war if they used those criteria to choose their air force camouflage...

Giraffoto wrote:

Celeste is most probably the colour that the Italian Air force painted the underside of their fighters - you can see examples at the RAF Museum at Hendon. There was a hell of a lot of aeroplane paint left over after WWII, which is why the classic Land Rover is a strange mid-green (RAF cockpit paint) and so many British cars of the late 40s were grey, brown or green.

Well, that settles it then - to get real celeste, just find out what colour is recommended in the Airfix model kit of a 1/72nd scale Macchi MC-202...

Alain Quay

neeb:

Yes, if you do some Googling the steel Colombus frame Bianchis of around 15 years ago and earlier were a beautiful colour (although Bianchi is Italian for 'Marmite'.) The celeste was slightly metallic and had a 3-D depth to it. In the sunlight they would look a slightly different colour. I know because I owned one. It was sort of like this
http://dayton.craigslist.org/bik/3247317680.html

Alas they moved away from that when they moved away from steel frames. Apparently the respray colour to ask for is Pantone-#332. See http://www.color-swatches.com/pantone/332-c/swatch.html but I don't know if it would have that metallic quality.

Gizmo_

I'm a big fan of #AEFFD6

/ex-web-developer

Bunneh

Apparently I only see in black and white :P

neeb

Alain Quay wrote:

It was sort of like this
http://dayton.craigslist.org/bik/3247317680.html

Alain Quay wrote:

Apparently the respray colour to ask for is Pantone-#332

That's nice! I especially like the pearlescent / metallic look.

Gizmo_ wrote:

I'm a big fan of #AEFFD6

As is that...

However, I think the colour I'm looking for is just over the threshold of being green rather than turquoise. I mean, you would say it was green, but it's "sea green"...


Chr*st, I think Bunneh is right, this is all a bit metrosexual... But I have owned a frame before that I hated because it was the wrong shade of blue (it was supposed to be sky blue but was a light navy blue, which is as different as orange as far as I'm concerned...)

neeb

Dammit, hadn't noticed that the background colour on forum messages alternates...

OffTheBackAdam

Looks like they were greener.


However, finding an unresprayed one!

sungod

if your screen isn't calibrated and the applications/images aren't colour managed then ffs don't rely on it for evaluating colours, rgb doesn't work for mixing paint, there's always a translation needed, and there're umpteen models to choose from

assuming we're both talking about the same assos blue, like the little blue bit on a tub of chamois cream, i reckon pantone 319

but bear in mind pantone is mostly for ink, which is transparent, and swatches assume it's printed on a specific colour paper

for paint or powder coating, one of the ral ranges would be more useful, for instance...

http://www.e-paint.co.uk/ral_design_colours.asp

...but don't rely on what shows on your screen being a good match!

if you want to get the colour right, a swatch book viewed by cloudy daylight is good, any decent paintshop will have swatch books and be able to mix within the colour system(s), there's no substitute for eyeballing the real thing!

team47b

Yeah, like wot sungod said, monitors are subtractive colour, the more colour added the lighter it gets until it becomes white, paint is additive colour, the more clour added it gets darker until it becomes black, so you can't compare the two.

find a paint sample and get it matched to paint, don't use printing ink to match to paint either.

Get a RAL code number specific to the year required from the manufacturer, they probably have records.

neeb

Thanks for the advice.

Before I commit to anything (and this is definitely not happening soon) I'll get hold of some real paint, probably 2 or 3 different candidates, and splash it around...

That's the other thing I've noticed about colour - the same shade looks different on small areas and large areas.

neeb

Apologies for resurrecting the thread, but I've now got to the point of actually having to choose the colour. The frame builder has emailed me a pantone colour chart - I guess it is the "coated" one as all the numbers end with "C".

Now, I know that the colour on the monitor screen is completely useless as a guide... But assuming I can find a swatch book I guess that's as good a guide as I can get? Given what was said above about the pantone colours being for ink, I'm a bit confused as to why that's being used as a reference.

Thinking about 353C or 358C. Or maybe 346C.

sungod

for pantone, coated swatches show how the inks will appear on shiny paper

seems odd they're using pantone, but as long as they guarantee the frame will look the same colour it does no harm

if you can do central london i can show you a swatch book, otherwise try an artist/design supplies shop, they often have pantone swatch books (not cheap) and may have one you can 'browse', otherwise try places like sign makers etc.

i remembered i've got a (modern, bianchi labelled) celeste jersey, it's tricky as the fabric has a sheen, but compared by daylight 3258c looks the closest match

fwiw the colours you mention are all much greener than that, which is what you were after, 346c and 353c are cooler greens, 358c is distinctly warmer

neeb

I'm in Helsinki, but thanks for the offer sungod. Design is quite a big thing here though, so chances are I can find a shop that has a swatch book.

i remembered i've got a (modern, bianchi labelled) celeste jersey, it's tricky as the fabric has a sheen, but compared by daylight 3258c looks the closest match

fwiw the colours you mention are all much greener than that, which is what you were after, 346c and 353c are cooler greens, 358c is distinctly warmer

Yup, I specifically don't want people to look at the bike and think "celeste" (in its modern form at least), I'm looking for a blueish green rather than a greenish blue. So it needs to be just green enough to be outside the bounds of celeste.