I am just in the process of refurbishing an ignition coil for my Nippy and I need to paint it the 'Lucas brown' colour. I was just wondering if anyone has any paint recommendations and or a close RAL code equivalent? I'm also assuming it would have had a matt finish originally instead of gloss.
Is this the standard coil or something more exotic ? Lucas sports coils for example were painted "Polychromatic Brown" which is a gloss metallic beigey-gold colour. Sorry, I don't have any RAL equivalents.
If there is a flake of original paint still showing I suggest you take the coil down to Halfords and try for a match with their car paints.
or take a trip to B&Q (other DIY stores are available) with your paint sample and they should be able to scan it using their Valspar scanning system and mix you some. The only problem is that their smallest tin is probably 750ml and I suspect that is rather more than you might need
I successfully did this for a Colchester lathe - much cheaper than genuine Colchester paint
I understand what you both mean about a DIY shop. Unfortunately, I actually cleaned it up some time ago (I just never got round to painting it in its final colour) so it is now in primer. Having said that I don't recall it having much original paint on it sadly.
John - in answer to your question, its nothing too exotic. Its an early Lucas coil when they were using brown bakelite instead of black, so I think the main body should be a chocolate brown colour, like the attached picture.
I have simply gone to my local auto paint suppliers and had them match to remaining paint. most can do this in an aerosol. Although they may have been full gloss when new, it would appear from the original samples that have passed through my hands that a low gloss or satin finish is now the most appropriate match.
Were all original Lucas coils brown??
The only reason for asking is that the coil that came with Ruby was black and the paint was fairly chipped and so I stripped it and painted it myself and no evidence of any other colour being present it is black, thinking this to be the original colour.
I have two other Lucas coils, both sad looking cases, but both are again black, no trace of brown.
The following doesn’t prove anything either but there is a supposedly original coil on the web for sale at 40 squid which is again black, just curious.
Ian - I'm thinking they wouldn't have been full gloss as well.
John - I agree that RAL 8017 looks like a good match for that one, to add to the mystery though I found some more pictures of examples that look more like RAL 8008. I think I'll have to make a decision on one colour and see how its turns out. I doubt there are many 'original paint' ones out there
Denis & Ivor - I understand what you mean. I didn't realise until a couple of years ago that Lucas even used brown bakelite. All I can think of is that they changed/stopped using it in the mid 1930's and moved to black. My coil is dated February 1936, the entire top section is brown bakelite and I must admit I've never seen a mixed colour one (black painted body/brown bakelite). I do know Lucas also produced DK4A's in brown bakelite, CFR2's and SF5 fuse boxes amongst other things. Having said that, my DK4A (September 1935) is in black bakelite, so there doesn't seem to be any pattern to it.
