Loss of Paint Brands - Or What Now? Not just paints though.

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Techniques
1

Yup; it’s everywhere, creeping Political correctness.

No paints for models that can be construed harmful to some tad who chooses to drink it! Well ,let’s see, that leaves out 90% of the paint I remember and a lot that if you really read the label are still harmful if swallowed!

So what is one to do? make your own. Well, that’s one way but where does most the pigment come from ? Minerals, Flowers and certain Chemical products as well! Oh! we mustn’t forget Vegetables either or Spices!

Now that I really have your attention, I will ease off. I do have a real reason for this post though. Do you know what a Color Wheel is? Also, do you know why the old Masters, Before Michealangelo and others developed it? Oh yeah! he and others added to it of course.

Why? so that you could take the base eight and create just about any other color in nature. Pigments came at that time from Ground earth powdered fine ( Not as fine as today, but usable). Now, years later there comes a man with an idea, I can use this product for Toys and Models. It came from Wartime developments in refining and chemical research. What’s this? This is where Styrene! (Or originally labeled High Impact Styrene.) Originally came from!

Now to develop a paint for these returning Servicemen and Women so they could paint this stuff with their kids after the Molds were made and the companies cranked them out as fast as rabbits know how to multiply!

Enter companies like Floquil, Polly-S and Testors as well as Pactra and Humbrol. OH how did these products get pushed off the marketplace? Look at housepaint. Most of it today is not worth the powder to blow it to Kingdom Come! Why? Well certain Chemicals were harmful to us, BEFORE! California decided to have these warnings put on every product in the States.( How’d they manage that?)

The biggest offender-Lead. Yes, that stuff is bad for you, Period! If you were on Assistance and your little ones were chewers they would ingest it as they chewed the wimdowsills. in your project( Or in England, Council) housing! Oh! my gosh lead poisoning! Sadly the problem is with us still in old pipes in water systems and piping all over the world.! The paints are the obvious ones because we see and use them daily.

So how do you combat this? You don’t! Build your model out of the box, No paint, No Putty, Oh! and No Glue. great looking model eh wot? Back in the Day there was an American Company called Monogram. They were first out with Larger than 1/24 scale models of Cadillacs. They were awesome with Vacuum Metalized surfaces and fine molding. You know what was odd. I was doing something one day on one of mine. Oh! holding a wheel in my mouth whilst I grabbed the tube of really nasty smelling Glue! My tongue started to tingle.

When I took the wheel out it stopped. I licked( Yes,I did that!) What do you expect a seven year old boy to do to learn? The Body of the Car. Same thing! Hmm. Never thought of it till years later when I was holding something in my mouth because I didn’t have enough hands in a ship repair situation. Same effect and it was a very small switch housing!

See there have always been stuff that’s not good for us. I cannot but pray that the day does NOT come when Hobby tools are sold to folks only over the age of Majority. That varies statewide anyway. I would ask then. Does that mean the Boy and Girl Scouts can no longer have pocket knives?. Or that when you own a gun you put this red plug down the barrel to prove it’s unloaded and store the Ammo in the house down the street your Brother in law lives in?

I really am writing this to Poke tongue in Cheek fun at our laws. and by that at our Lawmakers. The best way Lawmakers could protect us from ourselves is not to run for office and to shut down all the Law school,s till They( The lawyers) are a fading breed then let new ones come up in LIMITED numbers.

Guess what? Then no new laws so steeped in gobbledy gook that even twelve good law professors cannot figure out the ramifications to Society. Let’s start with the Hobby! Give me a pocket knife, some White-Wash( Sorry,that’s made with natural powdered lime) and a piece of wood, Oh! Splinters! ( Outlaw Wood Models, NOW!) and some Beet juice for Waterline paint! and I’ll build you a Coast Guard Ship Model.

2

I’m betting that MRP paints have all kinds of un-PC ingredients in them, and they work better than the old paints in my opinion. No messing with them…no special thinner mixes, this ratio of this…that ratio of that. They just work, straight out of the bottle. Their cure time of less than an hour also eliminates the dreaded, days-long dry times we’re all familiar with. There’s no down-side to them.

3

TB, If you are going to continue to write such long posts, you are going to have to start including pictures if you expect me to read them [A]

4

You guys realize that VOC regulations have nothing to do with political correctness, right?

5

Although I was being facetious when I said “un-PC ingredients”, I often find myself being skeptical of what is considered “safe”. There are all kinds of things that were once thought of as safe, which aren’t now. Heck, even things that were invented 5 years ago have ended up in several of those 1-800-BAD-LAWYER commercials. One of the solvents I use in modeling even had a substitute being sold for it a few years ago, and the popular belief was that the real stuff had been banned because it was so poisonous. Turns out it was actually just a marketing gimmick caused by urban legends, and the “substitute” turned out to be just as dangerous…if not more so. Personally, I’d be more concerned about all of the electromagnetic radiation we’re all being exposed to on a daily basis, but I don’t see many regulations regarding that. [2cnts]

6

I was out of modeling for a while and resumed within the past few years. I made the jump from enamels and lacquers to acrylics in one big step. It was certainly different, but not necessarily bad.

Outside of modeling, I think you’d have to agree that modern automotive finishes are vastly superior in terms of durability and fading than anything from our youth and they do so with far less environmental impact in manufacturing and application. Paint doesn’t have to be nasty to be good.

7

MJY65;

Question here; How many fairly new, Under ten years old, Cars have you seen with peeling spots of clearcoat on them? This tells me the paints are way crappier than back in the day. I bought an old car in 1978. It was a 1957 Dodge Coronet four door. After washing the paint was as good as new. No rust and the car had been outside since 1970. Oh! it was a Texas car as well. No Road salt!

The thing is moot really. I remember when the P.P.G rep came by the shop to demonstrate how to use the new Ford paints that required Hardener in it. After that it was ridiculous, Hardener here, Hardener there, Then Clear-Coat. G.M. could be done with Lacquers. Dry totally in forty eight hours - Polish and re - install trim - Deliver to customer - Done!

We had a dedicated booth and drying area for Enamel jobs with a heat feature in it. They were dry to total hardness in 12 hours. Then left to cool for a day. Enamel takes longer to gas out. Lacquer, not so. But the operations were done at seperate ends of the compound. All polishing and buffing was done in a seperate building!

We had the latest dust and air flitration equipment you could get. Don’t wear Protection and Breathing gear? Collect your last paycheck! No Exceptions!

8

I’m not in the industry, so really haven’t observed that. I guess it depends on how far back we are talking about. I have absolutely no experience with cars built/painted prior to the mid 1960s. I can tell you that two of my dad’s cars, a 1974 Ponitac and a 1984 Chevy pickup had major paint issues. It’s possible that that era was the low point of paint technology and today’s are better than that, but not as good as vintage paints from the 50s.

9

Testors has NOT been pushed out of the market. It is still in business as a brand, and continues to develop and sell new paints. The only change is that it has dropped military colors in its MM line and developed new colors for a broader range of market. They have developed a new line of lacquers (I suspect they are acrlyic lacquers) that I like very well. They are quite similar to Tamiya acrylic lacquer.Their color-shifting paints are new, appearing after the so-called death.

They have expanded their line of metallic enamels such as gold, silver, aluminum, etc. Their latest flat aluminum is very nice, as is their Chrome. The latter is great for touchup on foil flaws and gaps.

The obituary for Testors was highly exaggerated. My local HL manager says the Testors paints sell very well. I have no connection with Testors, just a long customer relationship- I used Testors paints on my first models over seventy five years ago, as well as their model airplane glue. They are still my goto paints for everything except polished or lightly weathered aluminum, for which I am an Alclad fan.

I see more paint brands on the market now than ever before in my seventy five years of model building.

10

Hi Don;

I used the Testors name in General. The Model Master Line was mainly what I was hoping folks would understand as the product. the Little Bottles are out there and Yes! the New metallics are nice. I also noticed the custom colors seem to be sticking around. Gotta look for them, but they are still out there!

It’s like Humbrol. You can still find it but the pallet appears to have shrunk. It actually in some colors hasn’t, They just changed the name. Deck Bleached Teak is now Dark Sand!

11

MJY65;

You are definitely right about the 84 Chevies and Yes, even the 74 Pontiacs. Some colors just did not seem to hold up to the weather very well. What no one realizes though is this. Paint is assailed constantly by all we throw at it. Muddy water and Dusty air act just like sandpaper, Microscopically, on paint. If you have a bad or poorly made color it will fail faster!

12

Don, this is not correct. It has been confirmed over and over (including the editor and chief of this website) that the entire line of modelmaster is discontinued. That includes the entire acrylic line and enamel line of model master. As well, all the metalizers and the lacquer automotive sprays.

The only thing left is the old testors square enamel bottles. That’s it.

This is not rumor or misinformation. This is fact and has been confirmed by testors/rustoleum.

The colors you are mentioning (the lacquer sprays are called "extreme lacquers " have been around for at least 10 years

I’m pointing this out as a polite courtesy because your posts statng the opposite is confusing for people and is the opposite of the information coming directly from testors.

Lastly, you may still find certain mm paints in stores as they are selling any stock that is still on shelves

13

Hi Hypertex;

Yup! It’s all rolled up in rules and regulations handed down though. V.O.C ( Volatile Organic Compounds are Not good for you. Never have been. It took regulations though, to protect the folks who used it regularly. Before then, Well? It was up to the persons or departments in charge.

14

It is becoming really difficult to find Model Master Metalizer rattle cans. I recently needed a can of Metalizer Stainless Steel. The only place that I could find it was an online hobby shop in Poland.

15

Hi JohnnyK;

You are so right.They disappeared here in almost a FTL manner. Now like you, I have to use something else.

16

As to the 1:1 paint problems that our big 3 had in the late 80’s to mid 90’s, it was laid to incompatibility of new paints adhering to the"e" coat primers used on bare metal at the factory. The shop I went to work for in '95 did $35K in repaints in one year on just chevrolet’s alone on warranty fixes. Multiply that by all the other shops across the country, and all maker’s, no wonder the big 3 finally said no more.

You noticed that the edges of doors and fenders peeled less than centers of panels…more paint. They were using thinner color coats. Whites and silvers seemed to be the worst offenders, along with reds. TB’s observations are spot on. Newer base/clear coats are way better than in years past. Waterborne paints are the norm now and gaining because of the VOC regs.

Roughly equivalent to our use of some acrylics over bare plastic and peeling.

17

Don, I haven’t been able to find any form of flat/dull coat lacquer from either MM Or plain Testor’s.

I’ve used their #1960 spray cans for years. Last time I ordered from Scale Hobbyist they sent me a rebranded version called Testors automotive laquer. It seemed to be the same thing. Now they don’t even have that. It’s a staple to my model finishing.

I’m talking about the 3oz spray cans here. Any ideas?

18

I bought some glosscoat recently. I am low on the dullcoat so I will be going to HL this week, so I will let you know what I find.

19

Glosscote and dullcote are Testors brands so they should still be widely available. It’s only the modelmaster line thats sadly gone. I rarely go to HL so I’ll be curious as to what they currently carry.

20

The 2 Hobby Lobby stores I’ve been in recently have not made any changes. The same Testors racks are in place, with more and more empty slots.