Pactra , Remember them ?

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

Here’s a short trip down Memory Lane ;

Pacter paints .A myriad of Colors . I don’t remember any flats . Well I was doing cars mostly then anyway . No Airbrush . What’s fellow to do ?

Get a good brush ( Soft and wide ) Take that 1/4" brush and dip it halfway into that well shaken bottle of Pactra Mandarin Red . Paint in one direction and don’t go over the spot .

Now paint next to that area and do it like a car goes together .Cowl panel, Hood, Right side /Left side .Front fenders , Doors etc. Remember only go in one direction .

.The finish ? Exceptionally shiny and YES , No Brush Marks , Just Like advertised !Not being able to A/B anymore I sure miss that Pactra ! Acrylics, Bah Humbug ! ! Worst paint I ever met in both Housepaint and Model paint !

Yep .I still have all wrapped up, a 66 Charger ( Remember those ? )Done in Pactra Mandarin Red and a Black ( Flat Textured center roof section, and trunk center ). Do I think it’s cool? Heck Yes and it was Brush Painted with Good Old pactra in 1967 !

I have a Revell L-1011 in white Paint .Pactra Insignia White .Brush painted too!( It helped that the model was molded in white too ! ) . I wish someone would come out with a good Enamel ( Oil based ) that was the equal to the best brush on paint around PACTRA . Bye T.B.

2

I remember the first bottle of Pactra I ever purchased…having discovered a pre-mixed zinc chromate color in this completely-unfamiliar brand at my tiny LHS.

I had that very bottle for close to twenty years…and it was as stable and liquid to the very last brush-full as it had been at the first. Not too many ‘modern’ formulas that can say that! (Of course…to be fair…that was back in the days when the nanny state didn’t yet protect us from our hobby paints. For all I know, it could have been a 100% formaldehyde and carcinogen mix…)

3

I switched to Pactra rattle cans from Testors for my antique and classic car builds way back when. I don’t recall buying into too many bottles of Pactra paints, I stuck mostly with Testors for bottles as I recall ( could be wrong that was many moons ago ). By 1974 I was airbrushing though. Too much history to put in a single post lol ! But yes Pactra was a favorite there for a while.

4

Ah Pactra… they had some great flat colors. They had a Dark Olive Drab that was an excellent match for the color in use at the time on US Army vehicles… their Pactra International line of military colors sold at hobby shops had an Olive Green and Khaki shade that were perfect for US uniforms, and the Flesh color, flat and with a hint of a suntan look, in that line was not the comical apricot or pasty cream glossy colors that I had previously had to use.

Just like the Floquil & Polly S/Scale paint lines, Testors bought up their competitors, then later discontinued them. Boooooo Testors…

5

I can still kind of sense that sort of musky smell of Floquil paints, loved those paints ! I recall switching to Model Master at some point after Floquil was gone ( good but not the same at all).

I do remember some flats from pactra, they had a great batch of colors for canvas, be it military truck coverings or classic car convertible tops. I’d use acrylic today …

6

I remember Pactra from way back, when I was doing flying model airplanes. They made a good fuel-proof model airplane dope. I also used their plastic enamel, though I usually used Testors. In the days before flat model paint was available, we mixed talcum powder with the gloss paint to get a matt finish.

7

Odd that you should mention that smell, as it was the immediate sense-memory I had reading TB’s post. Sort of a combination of artificial ‘fruit’ smell and horse-hide glue…

8

Now that you mention it I remember adding powder to paint to flatten it. I don’t recall that flats weren’t available though but more that I might not have had flat in a certain color…

I remember around 1958 getting a set of bottled paints for Birthday/Christmas/Easter or what ever the occasion and painting a 58 Buick model with them by brush. What a mess ! And besides that they were flats. So my mother tried to remove the paint with fingernail polish remover ( I was 8 in 1958) and melted the styrene on one side. I suspect that was the end of the 58 Buick, not sure, don’t recall but I don’t remember it ever being on display either…

9

Yes, very different smell at any rate. I don’t know of any paint like floquil today in any way including that odor.

Probably Model Master Gloss enamels comes closest to Pactra.

10

The Pactra name I remember, cannot remember using it (or not).

I wanted to Google down memory lane, and ended up reading something about Testors re-releasing the Pactra name in a line of RC car paints.

Here is a link to an Amazon site selling the stuff. I think.

11

I remember not using them because it was hard to gt coverage.