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Color Spec for Zinc Olive Drab

is there a standard that calls out the color range for steel parts plated with zinc and chromated with a olive drab finish?

Bob Bauer
customer service for a job shop - Mpls, Minnesota, USA
October 1, 2008

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October 2, 2008

There is a MIL Spec that gives color chips for paint, but there is none that I know of for OD chromate.
The best way of handling this is having a set of identical chips for the plater and the customer. One for OK and one for unacceptable.
It may take some work to come up with a set of "bad" chips. work with the customer to find out what it is that they are not happy with. They need to be able to define what it is that they are unhappy with. You can tweak your chromate and your chemical vendor can give you some clues on how to get certain appearances.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida

James is correct. The color of OD chromate has been based upon the paint color range. The "correct" color ranges from green/brown to brown/green. Generally, the single component materials are browner and the two part materials greener.

Gene Packman
process supplier - Great Neck, New York
October 4, 2008

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