Has anyone noticed that Testor's has been discontinuing enamel colors?

Hmmm... seems like Testors are discontinuing some colors. I have a LHS that still carries some of the older colors. I can check if you like.

I thought Testors might be up to something that would expand their part in the hobby, when RPM acquired the Floqui/PollyScale group of paints. At the least, I thought they were buying them to assimilate them into a larger Testors line.

Now, it seems that someone wrote a business class term paper about how to run a company out of its business and switched the title to read "how to succeed". And Testors seems to be following it to the letter.

At the current rate, they will be lucky if they are still selling the square bottles they started with,,,,,in 5 years time. If hobbyists will even buy those, that is.

Rex

Boy, I am in trouble. I do not like acrylics, and rarely use them. I am an enamel guy.  What other brand of enamel is widely available with a good line of military colors?  I guess I need to visit the model RR area of my hobby shop.  There used to be some good enamels and lacquers there.

There' been discussion about this on the IPMS forum. If you visit Testors web site, there is very little mention of anything model building related. It's all arts & crafts.

From the Testors website:

http://www.testors.com/product-catalog/testors-brands/model-master/international-military-and-figure

http://www.testors.com/product-catalog/testors-brands/model-master/

Rob - A long while back I sent an email to them regarding Testors moving away from model hobbyists and catering to crafters instead. Their reply was they will continue  cater to hobbyists and crafters alike. I'm starting to think there's more to the story and are lying to our faces.

Wow, you sure are right.  I went to their website now, and yea, hardly anything about models.  In fact, they don't  have any of their modeling tools and supplies on their site either.  (glue, knives, etc).

I have a bad feeling about this.

My mistake, they do still have tools on there.  But the emphasis does seem to be crafts.

Don Stauffer

Boy, I am in trouble. I do not like acrylics, and rarely use them. I am an enamel guy.  What other brand of enamel is widely available with a good line of military colors?  I guess I need to visit the model RR area of my hobby shop.  There used to be some good enamels and lacquers there.

In the US, we are pretty much limited when it comes to enamels.

there are Testors, WEM Coloucoats, Xtracolours, Humbrol and what Floquil and Aeromaster you can find on Ebay and Amazon (some of the onlines still have some of the colors)

it is not all that much better for US acrylics users either.

True but when one needs an enamel color now and you head into any hobby store, Testors pretty much has a monopoly on the enamel hobby paint market. And their reducing their line of available colors is NOT a good thing for us.

oh, I agree with that, Stik.

Don't know if this is related but Hobby Lobby has clearanced all of their Testors Create-FX washes and stains. The washes are acrylics and the stains are enamels.

I thought for sure Testors would come out with the flesh and camo sets like Vallejo and Mig.

Also, I could swear I saw a product from Testors in the cookie/cupcake isle at Joanns Fabrics!

There is "House of Kolor" if you are into car colors.

I have  their sets that Walmart clearanced back in 2008ish. They are car, metallic, and military colors.

They were getting a little ridiculous in their color line. So many different shades of nearly identical colors. What happened to the good old days when we added a drop or two of white, black, etc. to another color to match our Mark 1 Eyeball?

I made a mistake on the paint number. Should be 1733  [FS36622], not 1133.

They still have  the rattle can but I never use those.

I'm partial to enamels also.let's say I go into panic mode and decide to stock up.would anyone happen to know the shelf life of an unopened bottle?

Should last a good while. I only have trouble after they've been opened up and used.

I have some PollyScale acrylics and love them. Luckily one of the LHS' near me has a good stock. I've started moving away from my beloved enamels that I started with and I started using more acrylics. Mostly Tamiya (but boy I absolutely dread brushing that paint on...) and PollyScale but I have about 1 or 2 bottles of ModelMaster Acryl. For me, I like the fact that I can just dip my paint brush in a bowl of water and with a few little swishes and runs, I have a clean brush. But I do agree that it's sad and a real tragedy to the US hobby region if Testors closes off their paint lines. No matter what hobby shop you inadvertently run in to, its almost guaranteed that they will carry some form of Testors paint. Humbrol is a great paint (and I'm still pissed my khaki ran dry) but it is a very small pot and isn't too well carried (of all the shops I've visited here on Long Island, New York, and there's a lot of shops here, only one carries Humbrol). They shut down the PollyScale and Floquil lines  (which are great paints by the way, if you find any... pick them up while you can. Do NOT miss those paints) and now that they are drifting away, it will be a great loss if they stop producing any number of their paints. If they shut down the ModelMaster line, I think we should all picket their plants until they make the line again...

Amen to trying to brush tamiya,it's almost not worth trying. Big fan of Vallejo these days

Generally I spray Tamiya Acrylic and brush Testors MM, for me this is the best of both worlds. I'm getting to old to change now so maybe a new line of enamels will come along to provide all the great colors MM carries but I sure hope Testors keeps their line open.

Raualduke

I'm partial to enamels also.let's say I go into panic mode and decide to stock up.would anyone happen to know the shelf life of an unopened bottle?

Thanks  for the info  spruce ,.mike

Sprue-ce Goose

Raualduke

I'm partial to enamels also.let's say I go into panic mode and decide to stock up.would anyone happen to know the shelf life of an unopened bottle?

I know my old ( 80s era ) Testors enamels eventually solidified in the bottom of those little square jars, despite being factory sealed.

Can't say for the current batch of enamels.

BTW................I suspect a run on Testors enamels may have started as during my last visit to the local hobby shop  I noticed the Testors enamel rack was half empty.

I still have a few bottles from the mid 60's-early 70's. The paint is still good enough that a quick "sniff" will bring back a flood of memories.

Sprue Brothers is still showing almost all MM enamels in stock.  Have no idea what Testors is doing, but if you are worried, stock up now.  For me, I am still trying to figure out why anyone uses something other than Mr. Color

Jay

I can't believe some of the colors they're discontinuing, I mean I'd understand if they stopped making the odd variants like US Army/USMC Gulf Armor Sand or Israeli Armor Sand, but they discontinued just plain Armor Sand instead!  Anyone who does modern armor is going to understand why that's important.  

AT6 - decant those rattlers into jars and use the paint up, at least.

So, in regards to the Testor's thing... I guess that makes my mind up on whether I should be considering going to Acrylics or not.  I was coming to the forum, actually, to find out if anyone knew why Squadron doesn't advertise Testor's enamels anymore.  This could be part of it, I guess.

From what I can tell, the Testor's site still shows everything, albeit split between 'Enamel' and 'American FS Enamel' sections?  So maybe they are just quietly dropping a color or two, so now I'm with you and the purpose of the post.  Does anyone have one of the old pamphlet color lists?