The tints are used to tell butyrate, nitrate, taut and non-taut apart. They might mess things up for clear-coating.
Just to help clear (no pun intended) up the use of tint colors in Randolph clear dopes here is a list of the clear & tinted products.
1. Nitrate clear, tautening, #210 No tint, completely clear. Used only on Grade A cotton or Irish Linen (full-scale airplanes since we don't use those fabrics).
2. Nitrate clear, non-tautening, #E-4964 No tint, completely clear. Used on Ceconite or other heat-tautening polyester fabric processes.
3. Nitrate clear, non-tautening, #G-6302 Green tint, recommended for first coat down on Ceconite or other heat-tautened fabric. Has special additives for adhesion promotion on polyester fabric. The green tint enables you to see how much you are applying to the fabric as well as being an identifier of the dope.
4. Nitrate clear, non-tautening, #W-7868 Blue tint, also used for the first coat down on polyester fabric but with only plasticizer added. The blue tint enables you to see how much is applied to the fabric as well as acting as an identifier of the product.
Butyrate also gets a tint on one Randolph product.
1. Butyrate clear, tautening, #9701 No tint, completely clear. Not recommended for use on heat-shrunk synthetic fabrics such as Ceconite (Dacron).
2. Butyrate clear, non-tautening, #W-8350 Light tan tint and dries clear. Again the tint enables you to see how much is being applied.
3. Butyrate clear, non-tautening, #A-1690 No tint, dries clear.
4. Butyrate silver, non-tautening, #G-6303 (Rand-O-Fill) has aluminum pigment to block ultraviolet light to prevent deterioration of the fabric.
All Randolph colored (for topcoat colors) butyrate dope products are non-tautening.
Just thought I'd list it here so that anyone who does not have either a Randolph product sheet or an Aircraft Spruce Catalog can see it directly.