- Roginald
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Re: Nakajima AX160 tear-down and paint job
I was actually thinking of a light tan colour as well, then realised how perverse things have got. This all started as I wanted to decide whether to paint my Actionwriter since it has aged, non-white plastic. But it's not a horrible discoloured yellow - it's a smooth even tan. So basically the fact that I very nearly decided to paint the Nakajima the same colour means I've come full circle, and I should probably leave the Actionwriter alone!
- Roginald
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Re: Nakajima AX160 tear-down and paint job
I'm not at all confident this is going to work out. The green spray paint I've just bought isn't a dye, so it may well cover over the texture of the plastic, and may even make the embossed elements look a bit silly.
I've taken two shots of the green paint can cap over the typewriter next to the keyboard (2 different lighting conditions) and I do think it would give it a bit of a Hermes vibe, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
Does anyone have opinions? Suggested alternative colours?
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Thread Starter- Uwe
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Re: Nakajima AX160 tear-down and paint job
Were it me, I'd try to match the colour used for the key and function labels. "Blue and green should never be seen," comes to mind here. And if not the exact blue, at least a complimentary colour (use a colour wheel).
I'm not familiar with plastic dyes, so this is all very interesting. For my painting needs I've always used products that were specifically formulated for plastic - and which cost a fraction of the price.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Roginald
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Re: Nakajima AX160 tear-down and paint job
Uwe wrote:
Were it me, I'd try to match the colour used for the key and function labels. "Blue and green should never be seen," comes to mind here. And if not the exact blue, at least a complimentary colour (use a colour wheel).
I'm not familiar with plastic dyes, so this is all very interesting. For my painting needs I've always used products that were specifically formulated for plastic - and which cost a fraction of the price.
I do like the idea of matching the highlight colours used on the function keys; I was hoping this green would be reasonably close at a glance. None of the images I've shown really seem the same as real life, but studying the photos does make the function colours look far more blue. In real life, with hindsight, I'd say the colour is something like teal; either way, green is way off.
I've just done some very crude photoshopping, sampling the highlight colour on the LCD display, and filling the green case with that so it matches perfectly within the photo, if still not quite reflecting reality.
This is the original photo:
This is the photoshopped one:
I'd say that colour works better than the green at a distance, and starts to make even more sense when you are up close and can see the colours on the screen panel and the keys. I'm not too sure that it gets around the problem that, generally, it's still a big mass of dark colour, with much lighter colours for the keyboard and screen area.
There is a vinyl dye available which comes very close to how that second photo looks:
I can't see a teal colour though. Still, I think the Navy in the link will be a better match than the avocado!
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Thread Starter- Roginald
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Re: Nakajima AX160 tear-down and paint job
And if not the exact blue, at least a complimentary colour (use a colour wheel).
Great idea, I've never looked into the idea of complimentary colours.
On this website, on my monitor at least, I think #0d8a6f is showing close to what I see in real life for the highlight colour. The third type of harmony you can select there, "analogous", gives a green fairly close to the one I used.
The fifth type of harmony gives a sort of purple colour - actually very close to the burgundy vinyl dye colour that interested me as shown here:
I wonder if I can use the colour wheel results to justify the burgundy which I wanted anyway, but didn't think would work? I still don't think it would work, because of the same issue of it being quite dark compared to the keyboard and screen panel. Also, while the colour wheel tells me that they work well together, my brain isn't agreeing!
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Thread Starter- Roginald
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Re: Nakajima AX160 tear-down and paint job
I forgot the link to the website I was using for the colour wheel info:
There's a box there where you can type in #0d8a6f - as I say, on my monitor at least, that's very close to what I see in real life.
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Thread Starter- Roginald
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Re: Nakajima AX160 tear-down and paint job
Does anyone know a good way to get compatible printwheels for this machine? This always seems to be a bit of a minefield. I've just managed to get a nice font from eBay at a good price. But other listings, even ones which say they are compatible with 'Nakajima' products, don't look the same and/or are very expensive.
For the IBM Actionwriter, I've had the best luck with buying an entire old typewriter by Adler for example, just to get a nice printwheel. Similarly, are there brands of old typewriters that I should be looking at in order to get hold of printwheels for the AX160?
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Thread Starter- Cadha13
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Re: Nakajima AX160 tear-down and paint job
I have been looking at the US Swintec typewriters and stumbled upon all of this. This is from Nakajima themselves, for the US market.
This is for the US distributor, so you can see what is available for printwheels here.
I have just picked up a Swintec 1186 CM with a custom travel case.
As there are really dozens of OEM manufacturers from Nakajima ALL company.
