Lookin' sharp in silver! Shown with the gray door off the other light for picture purposes (so the light looks complete, so you can compare the gray and silver paint, and so the light would be propped up for a pic).
Collection-wise I consider my 1985 M-250R2 a different model than my brand new 2016 M-250R2 since they're pretty different (the former being much better built) so I don't consider that a duplicate per se. These 2001 and 2002 M-250R2s are pretty much identical to my 2016 M-250R2 but still seem a bit better built. The reflectors are a little thicker and not as wobbly and the slip-on connectors are not super loose like with the 2016 one. The 2016's casting seems thinner too. Not crapping on it though, it's a nice light. Just doesn't compare to the original 1985-1991 M-250R2s (except for paint finish; the 80s GEs were terrible at retaining their paint and ended up looking silver like the one above after 10 years lol).
I'd be more interested in these if they were a lower wattage like 50-100W since 250W is a little overkill for anything I need, but I don't have the heart to convert the fixtures with perfectly working gear. If one had a fried ballast I would have bought a 70W or 100W PSMH ballast for it.
I think so. The silver GEs used a smooth silver paint like this. I think the AEs did too. Only Westy used the hammered finish (and sometime in the mid-late 70s even they went to the flat silver paint, so all the boxy OV-15s and OV-25s used the flat paint). My 1965 M-250R still has a good amount of paint left on it. I will have to compare this and the M-250R side-by-side to see the difference. From memory, the M-250R's paint is brighter but then again, that's under natural sunlight versus fluorescent lighting so this M-250R2 will probably appear brighter and shiner under natural sunlight.
I'm thinking of eventually repainting my M250R from the pewter gray I did originally. I'm tempted to use that 2k cast gray because that stuff is like armor! It cures instead of drying like regular spray paint. So far, I've only seen it in cast gray as the closest color I would use on a street light though.
That looks a little dark, but might make an interesting finish and being durable is a plus. The Krylon Pewter Gray is very crappy. It scratches off like the coating on a lottery ticket lol. I always apply Rust-Oleum clear gloss enamel over the pewter gray when I paint a street light. The clear enamel makes it much more durable (and gives it a better shine!). This is what I used for the M-250R2. It's pretty tough and really does dry fast and nice and evenly too. I'm prone to making runs and drips when I spray paint but this didn't do any of that.
Yeah, I did use the Rustoleum Pewter...I noticed lately I can't find it in stores anymore though. I may continue to explore what's out there for 2K paint though. It's more expensive but generally superior over anything else. It's mostly for automotive....and you know how cars are exposed to everything, lol. Another one I may look into is SprayMax . I will contact that site eventually for custom colors and specs.
You might not be able to find it because it's Krylon not Rust-Oluem. I had searched the world for "Rust-Oluem pewter gray" only to find it didn't exist lol. I can only find it at TrueValue for whatever reason.
That makes sense, it's been a long since I bought any of that color. Nevertheless, I still haven't been able to find any Pewter gray at the stores I used to buy it from, which normally stock both Krylon and Rustoleum. I used to use the Pewter for repainting electrical junction boxes at work after I upgrade the wiring but now have to resort to Smoke gray which is ugly. We have an account at Lowes at my job and that's where I pick up the paint.
I got this silver paint at Lowe's. The silver might look better on the boxes (unless they're breaker panels? In that case Smoke Gray is almost an exact match for the original paint on gray electrical panels and fluorescent fixtures). At any rate I try to stick with enamel spray paints since they tend to hold up better (and the high performance Rust-Oleum holds up even better). The Krylon Pewter Gray is pathetically fragile without the enamel clearcoat on top.
The boxes I usually repaint are NEMA 12 metallic enclosures and when new are usually a very light gray color, such as Pewter. Quite often, they are painted over in older machines. The darker grays just don't look good for me on those but sometimes other items are ok, like you mention.
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I'd be more interested in these if they were a lower wattage like 50-100W since 250W is a little overkill for anything I need, but I don't have the heart to convert the fixtures with perfectly working gear. If one had a fried ballast I would have bought a 70W or 100W PSMH ballast for it.