The shops up here in Montreal are full of Tamiya paints, including the new releases, and some Tamiya products like the textured paints that we’ve never seen before. One of the lhs taped the letter they received from Tamiya on the Tamiya paint rack. It claimed it was a labelling issue. Either Tamiya lied in a letter to a vendor, or there really was a labelling issue in the States.
I remember my LHS owner telling me of Tamiya labeling issues over twenty years ago!
I agree with some but not all of this. Testros does make a good product and it is superior to Tamiay for brush painting any day of the week. But Tamaiya is acylic (for those who prefer that), airbrushes better, and has better quality control. I have yet to open a bottle of Tamiya paint that turned into an unusable rubbery glob. That has happened to me more times with Testors paint than I can count. Testors acylics are not as good as other US made lines PollyS/Polly Scale, but since testors gobbled those up they are gonna go away…
I’ve used Testor’s MM enamels for many years, then tried using Tamiya acrylics for a while. They are OK and I like that they clean up with water, but I have had difficulty with masking tape pulling them off. With the added availabilty problems lately, I figured I don’t need that additional complication.
After a long period of experimentation, I have decided to go back to Testor’s Model Master Enamels.
I wear a NIOSH vapor respirator when I spray the stuff, to keep it out of my lungs. No problem if you take the precautions.
I think Tamiya is a splendid paint in many ways. But it does seem that some folk don’t read the labels. I don’t know what the exact brew is that suspends the Tamiya pigments but it’s a lot more than water. Because it will clean up with water means only that - it cleans up with water. After a long thread a year back or so (this might have been on ProModeller/Flory Models) most folks agreed with armor guru Adam Wilder in an article he wrote that Tamiya works better with Tamiya lacquer thinner. He is right - no question. A20 will do the job for standard airbrushing, but if your want to avoid clogging at low psi/light coat painting lacquer helps it lay down far better. As I noted earlier in this thread, if you don’t believe me smell the stuff. It’s simply different paint from a water based acrylic like Vallejo or (sadly not in USA) Revell Aqua Color. As also noted, if you’re willing to walk the extra mile quality artist acrylics like Golden Fluid are terrific paints for both brushing and airbrushing when mixed with the right mediums.
I don’t know why, but I’ve become a paint collector. $2.50 seems likes peanuts at any time, so every order means I pick up a few. So I’ve got them all. (BTW: I heartily agree that PollyScale Railroad paints are the best US acrylics and only lack the neat Euro bottles to put them up with the best period.) I think MM acrylics are good paint. But I’ve only used them in conjunction with acrylic mediums. I heard that they were prone to come off with masking tape. So on the underside of a FW I painted MM Lichtblau (lovely color) but added a little GAC 200 which is a hardener available at any art store along with a blizzard of acrylics mediums that will allow you to customize your paints greatly. The stuff works great.
That said, there’s good reason beyond simple curiosity to like mastering water based acrylics. All of those solvents that hold Tamiya and Gunze together evaporate while you use them and join the air you breath. (Not that water based are “safe” because they have fine pigments in the air, so I suppose a mask is always a good idea.) And yes Tamiya has fine quality control, but I’d bet that bad bottles come from bad storage, not bad production.
Tack on another reason. Companies like MIG and AK are making a mint selling filters, washes etc that could easily be largely duplicated if one understood the mediums they employ. (Abteilung oils per volume are as expensive as the best grade artist oils: but they come in model colors and probably are designed for workability and fast drying over deep color. Hats of to MIG, but it wouldn’t take much to make your own brew once you figured out what was going on.)
I wouldn’t consider lacquers or enamels for painting, no matter how good. (I do rather like enamels for weathering: think AK Interactive may be right in arguing that you can do anything with them that folk do with oils without the long drying times.) But if you’re going to us a water based acrylic, do not thin it with water more than maybe 20%. (I’d put some stuff called “Flow Aid” and “Retarder” into distilled water: it does help for smoother coats and slows drying a little.) If you want to use a water based acrylic very thin and spray at low PSI use “Airbrush Medium” available at art stores. (One bottle will last a very long time. All mediums are cheap per volume.) It’s a kind of very thin polymer that will not break down the molecular glue of the paint the way too much water will do: also helps keep the pigments suspended. You could get an equivalent effect by cutting paint with water based “satin”, “matte” or “gloss” that you can find from MM or Vallejo. (They’re all white and dry clear. Artist mediums simply cost about 5% what you’d pay for the others and work the same way.)
There are alternatives.
Eric
If I had no children I would certainly use Mr Color, no question, but right now I am stuck with acrylics as the “safest” paint and for me Tamiya is the best all around paint, including the best value for the money. I do have a whole bunch of Testor and MM, which I got from Hobby Lobby a long time ago, but the quality (and price) comapred with Tamiya is still unmatched.
To be perfectly honest, I really have no issue with Tamiya hand-brushing, except for white (xf-2), but considering I do mostly armor, 95% of the model is airbrushed anyways and Tamiya airbrushes like a champ.
What I have issue with is the way they misinformed their customers, as well as the real possibility of formula change which could turn out to be a bad one. I still don’t buy the labeling issue, unless the paint was harmful (contained lead, for example) and that “labeling” issue was actually a formula issue. And I certainly don’t believe the earthquake was to balme, considering there were no supply disruptions anywhere else but in the U.S.
Just one of the joys of living in Chicago metro area.
Should be interesting to see if any paint changes made by Tamiya for the US market help or hurt their quality.
The paints are showing up all over right now. As does the X-20A, I just bought a whole bunch of paints and X-20A at Spruebrothers. It was a labeling issue and not the tsunami. But what the issue was is a MYSTERY! I am looking at a bottle of XF-71 which has been relabeled and an old one from last year and the labels are IDENTICAL!!
What you are seeing out there right now is some stock Tamiya USA had left over at there place. So get-em while you can because they shipped everything they had and it will be some time before we see more.
BTW…it was a labeling issiue and the govt. turn down there new lable more than once. (red tape)
Thad
Eric, you seem to have a lot of experience with a lot of different paint. You mentioned your preference of enamel washes instead of oil washes over acrylic bases. Do you have any experience with acrylic washes over a cured acrylic base. I am trying to prove to myself that an acrylic wash on an acrylic base does not work. So far, it is working. I use Tamiya paint!
I asked a similar question a few days ago, some of the responses may be useful;
/forums/t/141198.aspx
Four words: Earthquake, Tsunami, Radiation and Typhoon…
Sound’s like a new take on the Transformers!
This is incorrect. As was stated many times in this thread, it is because of labeling issues and waiting of approval of the US gov.
I though it was Godzilla’s fault.
I also use flow improver and a slow-drying blending agent (retarder) with Tamiya paints. They hand-brush great now. I made my flow improver out of 1 part Future and 4 parts distilled water. I purchased the retarder at Hobby Lobby for about $5.
I can see no difference between Mr. Color or Tamiya - they’re both in theory acrylics and both function a lot like lacquers. As with Tamiya, if you use Mr. Color use either Tamiya or Gunze’s lacquer thinner. Bulk stuff could attack the plastic - one place where saving money could be a very bad idea. If you ever get a badly clogged airbrush, however, nothing will unclog it faster than soaking the nozzle, tip and needle in some “extra strength” lacquer thinner. Just don’t stay in the same room. There are “green” lacquer bulk thinners that work very well for brush cleaning - or removing paint spots - and are less ugly to deal with.
Eric
Someone mentioned using pledge as a flow improver. I’d give that a thumbs up but it works differently than “Flow Aid” that you’ll find at the art supply. Pledge is a lot like several of the “mediums” used with fluid artist acrylics really. I think what it does is help keep the pigment suspended. I’m not a chemist, but I’d guess that Tamiya and Gunze both put stuff in their suspension fluid to do exactly that - would also explain why the pigments don’t settle on the bottom quickly and perhaps begin to adhere. Of course you will be giving your finish a “satin” effect with Pledge, but I like that for most uses. (How many things are really “flat?”) And if you want to dull the finish there are many ways to do that at the end.
As for acrylic washes, I’ll know more soon. AK Interractive is getting together with Vallejo and pushing an “all acrylic” weathering option. They don’t claim it’s the best, but they do claim you can make a really sweet kit without any enamels, oils and the solvents that go with them. Mig Jimenez has done a DVD with AV Vallejo called “AFV Acrylic Techniques.” (Might have to order it from Europe.) Mig Jimenez is a blinking genius and could make a model using color crayons so you have to take that into consideration. However, they are selling acrylic washes designed to be used over acrylic base. (I’d sure toughen the base with a good blast of Pledge: you can get a little off with thinner without wrecking the base that way.) The techniques employed are different however. When using an acrylic wash (several now available from Vallejo) you dampen the surface and work pretty quickly. They have some kind of thick retarder - looks like an artist acrylic medium to me - you can get the same stuff mixed with water that would work almost as well. But you would deploy your washes bits at a time. Streaking and stuff can be done very well with acrylics just don’t let it dry. Want quick “rainmarks?” Heavily thin some acrylic Buff with water and lay on the stuff slowly in thin streaks: very impressive effect. That’s an old Jimenez trick from his MIG days.
I don’t think it would matter what kind of paint you used for a wash really, but I’d sure look for some kind of “retarder.” If Tamiya doesn’t sell it, Gunze does. Better yet, get some at the art store made by Golden or Liquitex - $6 will buy you and your children a life time supply. Pick up some Flow Aid while you’re at it - that will supply your grandchildren too. Mix it with water, (about 10:1 water/flow), dip your brush into it and Tamiya becomes a much better hand brushed paint than it is normally. (Or try the pledge technique someone mentioned above.) Added to a wash, it does slow the drying time which could be a problem with an acrylic wash. Personally, I think acrylics dry brush ok, but maybe pigments would be better for fading. Either that or pre/post shading and using varying hues of the base color with an airbrush. I’m not saying this is the best way, although it would help avoid tidemarks which I think some modelers think are part of weathering - they aren’t.
Anyway, I’m finishing a ship that’s taken much too long and it needs some pinwashes. I’m going to try the black acrylic wash prepared by Vallejo: pretty sure it will work.BTW: if you don’t like solvents, you really want to look into fluid artist acrylics. They’re tops on the “benign” scale, but you do have to master a few of their mediums. I’ve done a few posts on them. They work great. I would recommend, however, using proper artist acrylics like Golden Fluids (a really good brand) instead of crafts acrylics like Apple Barrel or Dreamcoat: the artist pigments are definitely better. (I’ve heard the cheap stuff work nicely in dios - I’d believe that.) If you want to stay in the model paint world, Vallejo is very mellow, but better yet is Acqua Color from Revell-Germany. I’m collecting Aqua now because the stuff claims to be “self-levelling” and from my use, the claims seems to be very close to the truth. I hand brushed a good hunk of terrain on my battleship and it’s almost impossible to see brush strokes. That would be great news for tank camo. And Aqua is water based - zero smell.
Eric
[dto:] The shortage problem preceeds all of that…at least in my neck of the woods. But, that doesn’t mean those things aren’t compunding the problem.
Five words: Earthquake, Tsunami, Radiation, Typhoon and labeling issues…
I still think Godzilla had something to do with this.