What was Titanic's correct funnel color? I've seen many depictions in media and paintings, but it seems like two main sides to this. First is tan/beige ish color. I've seen this color depicted in a lot of media, and this is the way I've depicted my titanic's funnels for years.
But then there's yellow. The most debated Titanic color of all, without question, has to be the lower funnel color dubbed White Star Buff. Not quite one color or another, with barely discernible hints of one or two others, it's a color that defies easy description let alone replication.
I was recently reading Peter Davis-Garnier's "RMS Titanic: A Modelmaker's Manual", and in that book, it is stated that the "White Star buff" colour was sometimes referred to as "White Star pink". That got me thinking, "were Titanic's funnels really that visibly pink that people used to call the colour by that name?". The case for more than one formulation of the color Of all the debates relating to Titanic's appearance, the question of the color of her funnels reigns supreme as the most controversial.
This particular color has come to be known in the greater Titanic Community as "White Star Buff" (WSB). Funnel colors of shipping lines were their signature colors and aided in their identification. Learn about the four funnels of Titanic, their colors, shapes, and purposes.
Find out how they vented the exhaust gasses, cinders, and smoke from the ship's engines and other spaces. The image of RMS Titanic, with its four towering buff-coloured funnels, is iconic. But a persistent myth has lingered: that the fourth funnel was nothing more than a cosmetic embellishment, a deceptive "dummy" designed purely for show.
While its aesthetic appeal was undeniably a driving force for its inclusion in the Olympic-class (of which Titanic was the second ship) design, the truth is far. Below are the paint mixes used on Art Braunschweiger's model. These are the scale equivalents of the colors I determined to have been used on Titanic based on the consensus of my own and other TRMA members' research.
When mixing paints, I used one eyedropper filled up to the same amount for each drop indicated below. All colors on the actual ship were in gloss paint, but were finished flat. This document summarizes the exterior details of Titanic's four funnels through diagrams and descriptions.
It discusses the reinforcement bands, riveting patterns, additional structures like ladders and whistles, and paint colors. The funnels featured a black painted smoke band and base flange, with the middle section painted White Star Buff, to identify the shipping line. Reinforcement bands.
The red color was used to make the funnels more visible and to create a sense of contrast with the blue hull. The Titanic's interior was a different story altogether. This is the original color before I painted it the new color: As with the first two funnels, once the Funnel Plating was secured, I masked off the bottom black lip and then airbrushed it with a few coats of the Mission Models British Sand Yellow acrylic paint.
This is the color I am using to better recreate the 'light mast' White Star Buff.