I have a few CATs working in my neighborhood, and the color isn't exactly yellow to me, maybe a little green? There's a D8, which must be the little brother of the D9. Amazing how dirty and chipped it is down low, but pretty immaculate the higher you go

Caterpillar yellow thread :

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/18/t/128408.aspx

Ready-made

https://www.spotmodel.com/product_info.php?products_id=52561

H.P.

Hi, Dave!

Well, that's the "Nature of the Beast". Years ago, when I worked for a John Deere dealer as Rarts Manager, we had the AG contracts (Farm Tractors and equipment), Forestry (Log Skidders and Crawlers with winches, Grapples), Construction (Excavators and related types), Industrial (Crawler-Dozers with "inside or outside-framed" Blades or Loader Buckets, 4x4 Wheeled Loader/Backhoes), and Consumer Products (Lawn and Garden Tractors and related Implements, and Bobcat Skid-Steers). There was A LOT to know and to remember!

We would get brandy-new equipment of all kinds into our dealer stock, and we rented quite a bit of it out, as well. You'd be surprised at how "beat-up"-looking some of this equipment got in such a hurry!

As to color; I would recommend going direct to a CAT dealer for your paint, if you're going to be building a "civilian"-type. You'll want to make sure that you prime your model with a good primer before you take on the actual paint-job. Dealers of this kind of equipment always carry the paint for what they sell right on hand, so you shouldn't have any trouble in locating the right paint for the right job...

Bear in mind that Caterpillar went through several color-changes throughout their history, and one of them was fairly recently. Today's "Caterpillar Yellow" is not quite as bright as it was back in the 1970s. Even though I worked for John Deere, we stocked paints for our customers who owned different makes of the same types of equipment we sold. It made sense- Maybe someday, an International, Massey-Ford or Cat-owner might buy a John Deere, right..?

TAKE PICTURES for reference- Photos of the real thing are INVALUABLE when modeling...

GOOD LUCK!

Thanks, do you know the formulation of the ready-made one, it looks good. Acrylic, enamel, lacquer, other?

Dave

https://www.zero-paints.com/FAQs/Zero_Paints_FAQ.html

H.P.

Thanks, I missed that.

I did look at the other thread, and saw Napa Auto parts carries new and old caterpillar yellow spray paint. I will try and get that and see how the color is. Not sure what era the Meng kit is supposed to be. Fairly modern I think.

The MENG kits are of newer machines, which were coming out during the mid-1980s on through to today. You will need the "new" Caterpillar Yellow, which seems to have an almost "tannish" cast to the color...

As per my review of the original Vajra kit:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/4565

Floquil Armor Yellow (Union Pacific) is a very good match for modern, slightly faded Caterpillar yellow.

Floquil is no longer available, at least I thought so.

I found a conversion chart from testor that uses Vallejo as below. is this what you did, or do you have a source, like your own stash, of floquil?

VMA 71.033* Yellow Ochre
Closer match ...
5pt VMA 71.033 Yellow Ochre
1pt VMA 71.001 White

Thanks to all of you for your help with the "Caterpillar Yellow" dilemma.

After some further research, I have found that the IDF mostly painted theirs in Israeli Green, which I was able to order from AK.

I also have read that certain parts (TBD) were left yellow, as received from caterpillar. Further research required.

I still had the same bottle from the late 80's, and it was still viable. I read that Testor's bought Floquil, but haven't actually purchased any in many years.

I don't think they were intentionally left yellow. More likely they just neglected to paint replacement parts such as the pistons, which I imagine take quite a lot of abuse.