I don't know if anyone really knows how diligent South Bend was over it's history with color match and consistency.? God only knows what went on during the war years and as long as SB was building lathes there were probably multiple cost savings involving paint suppliers.? One of the other variables is the history of the individual machine.? Depending on how much crud was allowed to accumulate and what solvents and cleaners were used to remove it I am sure that a lot of the surviving machines vary in color significantly.? In the case of my heavy 10, which I know has never been painted, the color tends toward green as much as gray.? You may want to concern yourself more with the quality and user friendliness of the paint you choose than how closely it matches someone else's lathe.? Just my two cents.

On 7/26/2023 11:57 AM, Mike Poore wrote:

1. I used the Sherwin-Williams mix and was not impressed. It looked to me almost identical to the Rust-oleum oil based Smoke Gray that I used on another machine. I admit to being a bad judge of color. I have read, but cannot say with certainty, that there is no proper SBL gray because of variations year to year. I can say that I have seen multiple SBL models that were supposedly sporting original paint and looked different. One unanswered question for me is how age affects the original color of 80 year old paint and if you color match old paint are you really matching the original color.

?

Lord. knows the chosen paint colors vary with taste. Like someone else said, I don't think there actually was an ORIGINAL SB gray color for these machines. My 10L heavy was green and rusted when I got it. I stripped it & painted it with a blueish tinted gray that I found from someone on one of these sites. Not a straight gray, but I like it.?