Whats up with paints.

By Testors I going to assume the age old and trusted enamel paint in the little square jars. Testors makes Model Master in  enamel,  acrylic & lacquer, in a bewildering assortment of colours: Automotive, Marine, Military & Fantasy. Tamiya makes enamel & acrylic, but AFAIK only exports the acrylic to North America.

So, much of the MM paints you see may be enamel or acrylic and is chosen for the color selection. Tamiya (and Gunze Sangyo whose jars look similar) is chosen for those discerning paint users (like me) who don't like the smell, toxicity of solvent based paints and are butt lazy when it comes to clean up. Acrylics wash up with plain old water.

lol I need that then cuase I tend to be butt lazy, No really So as far as the pigment and such no real diffrence, I have some MM paints that testors didnt have the right color for like jet exhaust etc... Yea I meant he little square jars. lol

Model Painting Rule #1.. whenever you get ready to paint a model, there will always be one color needed that you either don't have or have just ran out of...

I've been building for only 5 years but somehow I just have amassed a lot of paint, because whenever I go to the hobby shop to just "look" i at least buy a bottle of paint..

My Fav has to be the Model Master Enamals. I just love the color selection and ease of use.. got about 250+

I also use Tamiya Acrylics because I like some of their colors better and they airbrush nice too. got about 20

I like Humbrol enamals because they are good for brush painting and airbrushing... got around 10 so far.. hard to find in my area.

and I like Pollyscale for some types of weathering... got about 20....

and the old testors square's I use these because I got a lot of them and they are tried and true... about 200 bottles.


I know........ Its a curse....

I love the Tamiya Acrylics and will use them whenever possible.  I have at least 1 or more of every color and have taken a liking to mixing my own colors with those when necessary.  They are sooooo easy to clean up!

The guys at my LHS were teasing me the other day that I've bought enough of those that I they are going to have to give me the Tamiya Paint rack from the store as it would be easier.  LOL

i've been modeling for 30+ years and have accumulated 400 bottles of paint and have found thru necessity that when our paints dryout which sometimes they do instead of tossing them break up the dryed up paint out of the bottles put it into a small dish and crush it into a fine powder put a equal amount of paint powder and thinner back into the bottle to rehydrate it and it's as good as new it worked on 29 year old bottle of 15 cent testors paint thats a long time ago  i tryed it and it worked i was amazed and it saves so much time and money flat or gloss it does'nt matter it just works try it and you'll see .

 

OS2U-3 KINGFISHERS: Little Killer Birds

intereting, never tried to rehydrate dried up paint.  dried up paint is why I switched from MM enamals to Tamiya acrylics.  never had a problem with a bottle of acrylic paint drying up, while I've wasted $$$s repurchasing enamels that have dried up on me.

I have been buying a lot of Model Master paints because you can buy them to match FS numbers, and my LHS has a huge selection of them. I like the way Tamiya paints go one with an airbrush, and like someone mentioned before, no toxic chemicals. I keep a bunch of Testors acrylics around for when my daughter is working on a model. She can go crazy and mix paints and clean them out with hot water and I don't have to worry about her trying to clean the brush in lacquer thinner. I wonder if there is any diffrence between the MM acrylics and Testor's acrylics? Besides the bottle size

I've had Testors, MM and Tamiya all dry out eventually... never tried rehydrating them though.. hmmm  might be something fun to try!

I am a die hard Vallejo acrylics person.. (throwing yet another variable into all this...  )  They go on like enamel, dry smooth as a babys bottom, and because they come in a dropper style bottle the worst that dries out is paint at the dropper tip... I've had a few bottles almost 2 yrs now and all I've had to do is use a toothpick and dislodge a small plug at the tip... I do use MM enamel and acryl, and have a few bottles of Tamiya.. but for the selection (100+ colors) and the length of time before having to replace a bottle...(because it is a dropper bottle paint measurement is more precise IMHO, I've figured out about how many drops will cover X job)  my vote is Vallejo all the way!