Liquid Olive Paint for Civil War Period Equipment

Shown below is a reproduction coal box for a Civil War Period Traveling Forge that is painted with Liquid Olive Green paint used by the National Park Service to reproduce the paint used on equipment during the American Civil War according to formula provided in the Ordnance Manual of 1863.

My investigation into Liquid Olive (green) resulted in the information that to match the original colors, the National Park Service used period ingredients found in the back of a factory dating to the mid-1800s, for the paint they are currently using. Use of modern ingredients that are labeled "lampblack", etc., will not produce the same colors as real period ingredients. When during earlier paint research, the National Park Service used modern substitutes, they ended up with a sickly yellowish green paint that they later replaced with the above formulations listed under the Sherwin-Williams and Lowes headings.

-- DaveEinhorn - 04 Feb 2008