Paint

"This may all be old news by now since I'm sure locally is a late comer to this game compared to world wide distribution."

True but if there are people out there like me, I would not have tried it unless I read your testimony. 

Bakster

 I purchased some Tamiya LP series and I will give it a try on my new project. I will report back once I try it

Well, OMG (Dave) is onto something. I like this paint. It covers well, it seems to have good adhesion, it retains detail well, it lays down well, and the AB cleans easily with lacquer. One other thing. I sprayed some pieces today only to find my masking had lifted in a few hard to stick corners. This created areas where I didn't get paint coverage. My heart sank because it was a lot of work to mask and I dread the thought of setting up again for another session. Not a fan of brush painting, I mulled it over. I thought, what the heck and I pulled the trigger using a brush. I could not believe the outcome. The touchup blended almost perfectly.

A couple of things to note with the touchup. The piece had an MRP varnish applied and the base coat paint was leftover from the initial spray session. This was a custom color mix and the paint had been thinned for spraying using Mr Color Leveling Thinner. The point is, the paint was thinned and the piece had a varnish on it. Both things may have played a role in why the touchup worked so well. I expected to see a difference in tone because of varnish, but if there is, it is minimal.

My local HT stocks the LP series and that makes it another plus. So, when I want paint fast and I don't want to wait for MRP, I will reach for this more often than not.

Thought I'd share the outcome.

 

Awesome to hear !

I got to reading my original message on this, wow I did come out strong for this paint but glad to hear it's working for someone else too. This may all be old news by now since I'm sure locally is a late comer to this game compared to world wide distribution.

 I purchased some Tamiya LP series and I will give it a try on my new project. I will report back once I try it

Well, OMG (Dave) is onto something. I like this paint. It covers well, it seems to have good adhesion, it retains detail well, it lays down well, and the AB cleans easily with lacquer. One other thing. I sprayed some pieces today only to find my masking had lifted in a few hard to stick corners. This created areas where I didn't get paint coverage. My heart sank because it was a lot of work to mask and I dread the thought of setting up again for another session. Not a fan of brush painting, I mulled it over. I thought, what the heck and I pulled the trigger using a brush. I could not believe the outcome. The touchup blended almost perfectly.

A couple of things to note with the touchup. The piece had an MRP varnish applied and the base coat paint was leftover from the initial spray session. This was a custom color mix and the paint had been thinned for spraying using Mr Color Leveling Thinner. The point is, the paint was thinned and the piece had a varnish on it. Both things may have played a role in why the touchup worked so well. I expected to see a difference in tone because of varnish, but if there is, it is minimal.

My local HT stocks the LP series and that makes it another plus. So, when I want paint fast and I don't want to wait for MRP, I will reach for this more often than not.

Thought I'd share the outcome.

Say Dave-- I purchased some Tamiya LP series and I will give it a try on my new project. I will report back once I try it. Do you have any updates since your last post? Still using it? Still liking it?

I will be leaning heavily on Vallejo as well. Supply chain issues is making me mix and match. Add that Vallejo has such a fantastic range of colors that it makes using their product almost impossible to ignore. Current local Tamiya stock is abysmal. So, that said-- I need to use it.

I have not had good luck with Vallejo paint, tip dry and slow curing, and I am a bit reticent. I am sure it is just me because plenty of people use it to good success. If you have any special concoctions--let me know. Have you tried using lacquer with it?

Recipes are open to all that care to respond.

Thanks in advance.

Eaglecash867

I'm using MRPs lacquers almost exclusively now.  They're kinda pricey, but absolutely trouble-free...which more than makes up for the extra money spent.  They go straight from the bottle to the airbrush, and have absolutely no tip dry, even in the high altitude/low humidity environment I live in.  Unless they specify otherwise on the bottle, all of their colors are semi-gloss.  I thought that was going to be a problem at first, since I mostly build military aircraft.  But, as it turns out, its actually an advantage, because it eliminates the step of putting on a gloss clearcoat before putting decals on.  It cures completely to an extremely durable finish in less than an hour.  The cured product is so nice that it almost looks as if the plastic you painted with it was born that color.  No screwing around with this thinner or that retarder...just straight from the bottle to the model.  HUGE selection of colors that are perfect matches for military colors from all kinds of different countries...pretty much the full Federal Standard line and LOTS of Russian military colors.  A really cool thing I found with it recently is that it is 100% impervious to enamel thinner.  So, if you do your base color with it...such as the white landing gear on an F-16, you can then use good old Testors square bottle metallic silver for the bare metal parts, and if you screw up and get that silver paint where you don't want it...just dampen a q-tip with enamel thinner and wipe it off.  It won't start to dissolve the MRP paint, no matter how much wiping and rubbing you do with it.  That's a first.  I haven't seen a paint yet that doesn't incur some kind of damage from enamel thinner, but this doesn't.  Heh...as you can see...I'm definitely hooked.  Its the Holy Grail of model paint as far as I'm concerned.  Its almost more of an ink, in that it atomizes extremely well and lays down very nicely.

Everything on this 1/72 F-16B was painted with MRP paint (except for the bare metal parts on the landing gear and missiles which were Testors square bottle metallic silver of course).

 

Hey, EagleCash... today, I tried MRP through my Badger 155. You are not kidding about this paint! This stuff sprayed like silk straight from the bottle. It is hands down the best paint I have ever sprayed. It had great coverage, it lays down super thin, and like you said, no tip dry! I am really impressed with this stuff. I purchased white, black, gloss clear, flat clear, and semigloss clear. I tried the white today and I am looking forward to trying the others. The only downside it is stinky, with being a lacquer. But that goes with the territory.

Also Guys, I am loving the quick disconnect. I am finding myself changing brushes on the fly, and there is another plus. The hardware allows the brush to spin on the hose. I like that. No more fighting the hose as it binds. That also helps with putting the brush into its cradle.

Just an FYI.

Tanker-Builder

Aha!

 I know what I have to try! Maybe a good reason to shake the dust of the old Badger!

 

If you have them around your area it's worth a shot, I think you would appreciate how these paints lay down.

My Badger 200 is pushing on towards 50 years with me, it looks it but still going strong.

Aha!

 I know what I have to try! Maybe a good reason to shake the dust of the old Badger!

Ya. they work great. Just lmiited gloss solid colors out here so far. They have about every spray can I think. I've been on the lookout for the LP black though so got that at least..

My 57 T Bird will still get decanted 2x Torquoise though. Non of that in this line up. That's ok, decanted 2x enamel with a little thinner added comes out as nice just slower drying.

Edit: by the way I used the Paasche H #3 needle set and side cup @ 20 psi. Usually lacquers I shoot with my Badger and .25 needle but the Paasche was sitting there so what the heck. The # 3 kind of poured the paint on lol. But it came out nice.

the Baron

 

 

oldermodelguy

I know the thread is a month old now and inactive...

 

 

 

Oh, don't feel bad! We've had far older threads come back to life! 

 

Ditto.

oldermodelguy

I know the thread is a month old now and inactive but I just wanted to say I hit on the combo of Tamiya LP lacquers and Mr Leveling Thinner and wow ! LP1 is Gloss black and it's knock down gorgous . Thinned it 1/1, so easy it's crazy. In the dehydrator it was dry in 10 minutes and every bit as glossy as when wet. Cleaned right up with hardware store lacquer thinner. My local hobby guys got it in ( both the spray cans and these bottles) but they are just 10ml bottles. I don't think they got all colors either but a couple of the tough ones to get right they have.

I'll be using this black on my classic car fenders and such. If they come out like my test shoots no polishing. And the odor really isn't bad considering lacquers generally are terrible in that way. Anyway, long story short I'm pleased they work so nice and finally I got access to some locally.

 

Hey Dave, thanks for this follow up! This is a great report about Tamiyas LP series of paint. It's funny you posted this because just last week I noticed my local HT stocks it. I had wondered if it was any good. I will try it!

oldermodelguy

I know the thread is a month old now and inactive...

Oh, don't feel bad! We've had far older threads come back to life! 

I know the thread is a month old now and inactive but I just wanted to say I hit on the combo of Tamiya LP lacquers and Mr Leveling Thinner and wow ! LP1 is Gloss black and it's knock down gorgous . Thinned it 1/1, so easy it's crazy. In the dehydrator it was dry in 10 minutes and every bit as glossy as when wet. Cleaned right up with hardware store lacquer thinner. My local hobby guys got it in ( both the spray cans and these bottles) but they are just 10ml bottles. I don't think they got all colors either but a couple of the tough ones to get right they have.

I'll be using this black on my classic car fenders and such. If they come out like my test shoots no polishing. And the odor really isn't bad considering lacquers generally are terrible in that way. Anyway, long story short I'm pleased they work so nice and finally I got access to some locally.

Eaglecash867

 

the Baron

Yeah, there's a discussion over at HyperScale on that topic.  I've never ordered from him, myself, so I can't say. 

I ordered a bunch of MRP paint from them, along with 2 Eduard canopy mask sets for my Su-25 project (one for the inside, one for the outside).  Apparently, they only had 1 left in stock, so they put one on "back-order".  This is fine...happens sometimes, I get that...but the problem is that they billed me for the back-ordered item up-front and never seemed to care about getting more of them back in (which is what the term "back-order" is supposed to mean to everybody in the world who deals with parts inventories).  After waiting for 6 months for the back-order to be filled, I sent them an e-mail requesting that they send the back-ordered item or refund my money for it.  Never heard back from them.  Tried to file a dispute with Paypal to force a refund, but Paypal couldn't do anything about a transaction more than 180 days old.  I could have pursued it further with my bank, but it was only about 10 bucks, so I just decided to punt and stop doing business with them.  I definitely won't be going back. 

Yeah, that was the theme of the recent complaints, that he's taking money now for items he doesn't have in stock, but then fails to deliver.  Apparently he didn't always conduct his business that way, but, that doesn't matter if you've ordered something, had your money collected, and then get neither the order nor a reply.

I remarked that that sounds a lot like the way Internet Hobbies conducted his business, but that drew an angry response from one of his older customers.

A bit late to the thread here, but wanted to chime in and mention that I am slowly converting to MRP myself. Their lacquers are great, but more amazingly (to me anyway) their acrylic-lacquers (whatever that means) are pretty awesome. I have accumulated a small inventory of both. I have tried Mission Models (mentioned above)_ a few times and I strongly prefer the MRP becuase it seems to cover better, with Mission Models seeming to take a painful number of thin coats to cover. In fairness, I was probably making some basic mistake with the stuff since many folks here really like it.

Earlier, on the subject of Vallejo you mentioned a larger needle, higher PSI and a couple drops of Vallejo Flow Improver. Those are the 3 things you want to do. The dry tip issue will not go away completely, as it seems to do with pure lacquers, but it won't be much of an issue. FYI, I use .35mm min (.5 preferred) and 25 PSI.

Somebody mentioned how well Vallejo lays down when it's done right above, and I agree. It really does.

On the Acrylic clears (and Stynylrez), I've found that a proper fan tip with a .5mm tip (in my case) seems to solve most of the issues. Even, as much as it pains me to admit it, with F.... Fu.......Fu.......Fut.......... FUTURE!. :)

Otherwise, for a fuss-free clear coat , I prefer an oil-based and my go to is still the Alclad clear line but I suspect the MRP clears will delight me once I try them, since all of their other stuff has.

Good luck with your quest, Stevie.

the Baron

Yeah, there's a discussion over at HyperScale on that topic.  I've never ordered from him, myself, so I can't say.

I ordered a bunch of MRP paint from them, along with 2 Eduard canopy mask sets for my Su-25 project (one for the inside, one for the outside).  Apparently, they only had 1 left in stock, so they put one on "back-order".  This is fine...happens sometimes, I get that...but the problem is that they billed me for the back-ordered item up-front and never seemed to care about getting more of them back in (which is what the term "back-order" is supposed to mean to everybody in the world who deals with parts inventories).  After waiting for 6 months for the back-order to be filled, I sent them an e-mail requesting that they send the back-ordered item or refund my money for it.  Never heard back from them.  Tried to file a dispute with Paypal to force a refund, but Paypal couldn't do anything about a transaction more than 180 days old.  I could have pursued it further with my bank, but it was only about 10 bucks, so I just decided to punt and stop doing business with them.  I definitely won't be going back.

Eaglecash867

...Can't really recommend HobbyWorld though.  Their customer service is non-existent... 

Yeah, there's a discussion over at HyperScale on that topic.  I've never ordered from him, myself, so I can't say.

WonderBread

Tamiya sprays nice BUT it brush paints horribly and doesnt have great selection...and it can be hard to get from time to time.  Its worth your time to learn vallejo imho

It brushes fine for me with a couple of drops of Vallejo's airbush flow improver mixed into it.  I also put a little bit of the flow improver in the next pallette cup over from the one with the color in it, so I can pre-wet the brush with it.

I don't do much brush painting anymore though.  Everything but knobs and switches gets airbrushed now.  For knobs and switches, I'm using good old fashioned Testors enamels in the square bottles.

WonderBread

...Tamiya sprays nice BUT it brush paints horribly...

It needs to be thinned, to apply by hand.  I learned that after many years of using Tamiya acrylics, brushed right from the jars (I used other paints, too; Tamiya had specific colors I was looking for, and I didn't trust mixing my own).

The paint would clump on the brush, and when applying a second coat, I'd find that the second coat would sometimes lift the first one off.  And that was with a primed surface.

Eventually, as I started working more with an airbrush, I read a comment somewhere that said Tamiya's paints are formulated for airbrushing, and are meant to be thinned.  The light bulb went on at that point.  Now, I avoided using Tamiya's thinner at first, because I was being Dutchy.  I tried water, but got the same results.  Then I tried 91% isopropyl, and got the same results-though I found it useful for cleaning the brushes.

So I broke down and bought the Tamiya thinner, and found that I could apply coats as thin as if I had airbrushed them.

I use some Vallejo colors, but they're equivalent to Andrea's colors, in my experience, no worse, but no better.  Some of the Model Color matte colors have a glossy finish, too.  The Prussian Blue, for example.  So I use them, along with the other water-based acrylics I listed above.

I use Vallejo for everything except primer and utility gloss cotes.  For that i use rustoleum in spray cans and future.  

Vallejo is fantastic imho.  Its non-toxic and has no odor.  Its available in any color under the sun, thins with water, cleans up with windex, great bottles, etc i could go on and on.  

The only downsides are that you have a bit of a learning curve with thining and dry tip and it takes a bit to fully cure once applied.  Once you learn it, its very user friendly. 

Tamiya sprays nice BUT it brush paints horribly and doesnt have great selection...and it can be hard to get from time to time.  Its worth your time to learn vallejo imho. 

I use Tamiya's acrylics, for airbrushing and hand-brushing; running out my stash of Model Master colors, mostly just interior colors for aircraft, plus some RAF camo colors; Testor's enamels in the little square bottles; Andrea's water-based acrylics; Vallejo Model Color water-based acrylics; Lifecolor water-based acrylics; and craft store brands of water-based acrylics: Folk Art, Americana, and Apple Barrel.

Unless those brands all go away, I see no need to try anything else.  Your mileage may vary, of course.

J.A. Modelworks

It's probably the best spraying acrylic paint out there IMO.

I wouldn't argue with that.  If I didn't have a nice spray booth and had to spray acrylic, I'd probably use MMP.   I like the way Tamiya sprays better, but their color selection is nowhere near what MMP offers.   

J.A. Modelworks

My go-to's are Tamiya, Mr Color laquers, and mission models paints. A good amount of people seem to bash mission models paints and I dont know why. It's probably the best spraying acrylic paint out there IMO. If I do use MMP I rarely use the poly additive and I have found it sprays best at 15-20 psi. Priming is also a must with MMP! 

 

I'm with you,no problems spraying Mission Models.

Vallejo Model Color works great for me also.

Very similar to Tamiya are the AK-Real line,same bottle as Tamiya same characteristics,I thin it with Lacquer thinner,and their colors are more specialized.

I agree that availability is important,if I can't get it,if shipping prices are prohibitive,then it doesn't do me any good.

My go-to's are Tamiya, Mr Color laquers, and mission models paints. A good amount of people seem to bash mission models paints and I dont know why. It's probably the best spraying acrylic paint out there IMO. If I do use MMP I rarely use the poly additive and I have found it sprays best at 15-20 psi. Priming is also a must with MMP! 

^^^^^

Same ones I've used.  They also make a special matte varnish to simulate Have Glass V. (MRP-278)   

Hey Bakster,

Those are the ones.  They're just plain lacquer paint and require no thinning.  Here is a full list of their clears.  Have a look around on their site.  They have a pretty extensive selection.  You should be able to use their paint numbers to search on SprueBrothers.

https://mrpaint.sk/index.php?route=product/search&search=super%20clear

Eaglecash867

But their non-2K clearcoats are my go-to now.  4 different sheens

Hey Eaglecash... are these the MRP clears that you use in the link? 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/mrp-mrp-048-gloss-varnish--1328405

Are these Acrylic lacquers?

Bakster

 

 

keavdog

Very happy with Mr Color cut with their leveling thinner 50/50.

 

 

So, for the model I am working on, Mr Color offered me the best option in terms of color choice. So, my first order is for Mr Color. MRP will surely follow as I test their paints too.

I found a video testing Mr Color paints and I pasted the link below for anyone interested. He confirms the ease of use and he seems to really like it.

https://youtu.be/dh0XND6KwmQ

 

 

PS: I ordered these from Spraygunner late yesterday. I just received an email that they are shipped. Amazing service.

keavdog

Very happy with Mr Color cut with their leveling thinner 50/50.

So, for the model I am working on, Mr Color offered me the best option in terms of color choice. So, my first order is for Mr Color. MRP will surely follow as I test their paints too.

I found a video testing Mr Color paints and I pasted the link below for anyone interested. He confirms the ease of use and he seems to really like it.

https://youtu.be/dh0XND6KwmQ

Eaglecash867

Oh...forgot to mention the supplier part of it.  Sprue Brothers is an MRP dealer, and so is HobbyWorld USA.  Can't really recommend HobbyWorld though.  Their customer service is non-existent.  But, Sprue Brothers has always been fantastic.

 

I was nosing around yesterday at Sprue Brothers and their MRP offering. Good to know these are the guys to buy through.