If I bought body panels from various suppliers in the same RAL colour, what chance would I have of them being the same colour? And if I got the wings from one place and the nose cone, bonnet and scuttle from another, so that the two different types didn't actually touch, do you think you could get away with a subtle variation in colour?

Cheers

Adrian

I'd be willing to put a rather substantial amount of money that they would not match!!!

if you bought orange, they'd both be orange... thats probably about it

They should be very close, but its a known fact that different batches are different shades...

Im not sure on the spec as far as paint goes but i used to mix colours for vinyl flooring production and we had very strict limits using an expensive software package and a spectro photometer to measure the match.
Depending on the colour - you could still tell the difference with a good eye and sometimes even with a QC pass, it would be noticeably different. Then again, we were matching side by side and you say that the panels aren't touching so you will probably be ok.

I got my chassis powder coated RAL silver grey and my body panels are gel coated RAL melon yellow, i then ordered some cellulose, just with the RAL numbers to match both (so i could colour code some bits) as far as the test bits ive painted, im very impressed with the match so far

I bought some replacement bodywork for my Vortx a couple of years after I'd built it. The new GRP came from a different manufacturer. It was a perfect match. (They bought the gel coat premixed). Later still I bought an aerosol of paint in the same RAL colour and touched up some scratches on the cycle wings. Again a good colour match.

If you buy RAL coloured paint, it should be as good a colour match as any other paint made up to a colour code.

Thanks for the replies

Adrian