Model Master Paints Discontinued

It was bound to happen. Their quality has been declining for some time. I hate to see them go, but at least there are plenty of alternatives available. 

stikpusher

I hate to see them go, but at least there are plenty of alternatives available.

Yeah, I hardly use them anymore. I still love the way they spray though.

They are still making enamel paints, however.  They just are no longer making specific military colors.  They have actually brought out some new metal tones.

Aztek- good riddance. Probably turned off more first time a/b users that brought on board.

Yers I will miss MM but it's an opportunity for others to step in.

Don Stauffer

They are still making enamel paints, however.  They just are no longer making specific military colors.  They have actually brought out some new metal tones.

 

 

Yes, they expanded their square bottle line of enamels quite a bit a couple years ago. But mostly in colors useless to military modelers. At least those enamels will still be around. I do hope that they continue to make their enamel airbrush thinner. That is good stuff.

Oh Oh!

       I knew it was coming. This is what I never understood about American Companies. Keep pulling selection and desireability and lower quality to save money and eventually create a negative market, then kill a product!

    This has happened so many times in our corporate sectors, our business model is a joke in other parts of the world. Did Toyota or Samsung or Honda or Mitsubishi, make a bad product when they got us on board! NO!

      Oh! sure there were duds. That's bound to happen in any human endevour. But why do we always gain a great Market following, then Shoot ourselves in the foot?

 All this Tree-Hugging Water-Saving Hype about Acrylics is just that, B.S. If you look closely at the product listing it tells you that Water Based acrylics are bad for the environments!

     Now color selection. Okay, they missed some Humbrol had, like a real good looking Deck,Bleached Teak. Great for Shipmodelers! I could let Testors M.M. gas out by the bottle for say three days,and I had the greatest texturing paint I ever saw!

 Going back to Acrylics for a minuts. M.M. Acrylic Glosses , " Bad Paint " Lousy brushability and cleanability. Tamiya, well all of a sudden they have their own thinner and brush cleaner. Still lousy brushability out of the bottle! Then I read folks are using Lacquer thinner on Acrylic Lacquer. Wasn't Acrylic supposed to mean easy clean up with water ?

     I give up. I guess now, I will just grab what works for me on a project and never mind brand loyalty ever again. Gosh, that's sad too. Testors has made from me, both as a business man and a modeler, thousands of dollars going all the way back to the Fifies.. Multiply that by all the Modelers who started and stayed with them, Guess they don't need the money ,HuH??

MJames70;

   Hi, I don't belittle you your feelings. But what you fail to see is this. I am a retired Model-Builder. I still get calls to retouch or change a model I have already built. Do you really expect me to spend time trying to make the surfaces accept a new and different product and hope the color will match?

 That is one of the things I liked over the years about this product. I can still take a Very old bottle of Yellow( Quite transluscent, it is!) and they match.

 I had quite a mix of products in the shop, still do. But, my go to base for Client builds was Testors Model Master. Ease of use , Ease of Clean-up, Durability and Matchability and Mixability. These are reasons one holds to a certain brand for a certain job.

 House-painters who,ve used Sherwin-Williams brand for exterior paint on a house, don't suddenly switch to Joe-Mart Brand because it is cheaper. They stay with a product that has changed but consistently provided a superior product. That was, for my company the reason for the brand loyalty. Now, in the lead article the writer mentions Pactra. When in forty years have you ever seen or heard of Pactra Paint? It's been gone since I came back from " The Nam"

quote user="Tanker-Builder"]This is what I never understood about American Companies. Keep pulling selection and desireability and lower quality to save money and eventually create a negative market, then kill a product!     This has happened so many times in our corporate sectors,our business model is a joke in other parts of the world. Did Toyota or Samsung or Honda or Mitsubishi, make a bad product when they got us on board! NO!       Oh! sure there were duds. That's bound to happen in any human endevour. But why do we always gain a great Market following, then Shoot ourselves in the foot?[/quote]

Wow--great dissertation. I whole heartedly agree TB.  

The big problem with these new acrylics is each brand requires their own support system. Some hand brush well, some do not, some require additives for thinning, flow enhancers, retarders, etc. some do not. And there does not seem to be much interoperational capability with these various brands. 

These paint folks need to remember the K.I.S.S. principle. If a paint brand requires all sorts of additional steps and additives to get best results, I’m gonna pass. 

Sad to see them go for sure.  I used them exclusively for a while but once I sprayed Vallejo Model Air, I never looked back. 

stikpusher

These paint folks need to remember the K.I.S.S. principle. If a paint brand requires all sorts of additional steps and additives to get best results, I’m gonna pass. 

 

Man ain't that the truth! 

I do like their Luftwaffe colors.  I currenrly have a good supply of those.  I have been using Tamiya paint recently.  I have been modelling so many years that severl companies are not around way back when I started.  So I addapt.  But MM paints worked very well for me.  I'll miss them also.  

Don Stauffer

They are still making enamel paints, however.  They just are no longer making specific military colors.  They have actually brought out some new metal tones.

 

 

Don, Testors wrote me back and they are only making Testors line of Enamels, no Model Master products what so ever.  

It's too bad, as I grew up on Model Master, but like many others, I've moved on.  I now use Tamiya exclusively.  They are great for airbrushing and with a drop of retarder, they brush just fine.  Colour selection is fine for me and I use Scalefinishes paint for car bodies.  All I need. 

I found the quality dropped with modelmaster.  After opening, they would tend to dry up.  Also, I was tired of never knowing what colours are currently available, as they were constantly discontinuing colours, etc.  

Old school, I discovered Pactra military matte paints that were superior to Testors flat paints. Testors always seemed more of a "satin" than flat and their dark olive was better than Testors olive green. Remember, this was back in the dime bottle days.

But yes, I grew up with Model Masters in the 1990s and into the 2000s. I've gotten back to the point where "close enough" is good enough for me color shade wise.

Their 200 shades of aircraft gray and armor greens was probably their downfall.

Tanker-Builder

...Keep pulling selection and desireability and lower quality to save money and eventually create a negative market, then kill a product!...

I think that in this particular case, you have it backwards.  Demand fell first, and they responded by gradually scaling back the product, until finally taking the decision to discontinue the product.  I suspect that Model Master's core customer base is made up of older American modelers in their 50s or older, and that base is dying off.

Old habits. I have been using acrylics for last three of my builds due to head aches I get with enamels , I guess this old dog can do new tricks  live long and Prosper

the Baron

 

 

Tanker-Builder

...Keep pulling selection and desireability and lower quality to save money and eventually create a negative market, then kill a product!...

 

 

 

I think that in this particular case, you have it backwards.  Demand fell first, and they responded by gradually scaling back the product, until finally taking the decision to discontinue the product.  I suspect that Model Master's core customer base is made up of older American modelers in their 50s or older, and that base is dying off.

 

But I agree. I'm trying AK Interactive. There is now a generation of paint that works in the a/b straight from the bottle, is not spirit based, and covers well.

With nostalgia, one forgets what a PITA it could be thinning enamels to just the right consistency matched with pressure, to have a paint session go well.

Bill

GMorrison

 

 

the Baron

 

 

Tanker-Builder

...Keep pulling selection and desireability and lower quality to save money and eventually create a negative market, then kill a product!...

 

 

 

I think that in this particular case, you have it backwards.  Demand fell first, and they responded by gradually scaling back the product, until finally taking the decision to discontinue the product.  I suspect that Model Master's core customer base is made up of older American modelers in their 50s or older, and that base is dying off.

 

 

 

 

That hurts, man.

 

But I agree. I'm trying AK Interactive. There is now a generation of paint that works in the a/b straight from the bottle, is not spirit based, and covers well.

With nostalgia, one forgets what a PITA it could be thinning enamels to just the right consistency matched with pressure, to have a paint session go well.

 

Bill

 

Don't let it hurt-I'm in that group, too, vintage 1964.  But I really do think that the market for MM has been in decline for a long time, and newer (younger) modelers entering the hobby have been using other brands and media, increasingly.

I think there is overlap between the core customer base for MM as for Squadron, again, because Squadron was the mail-order hobby supplier, when we were younger.  For most modelers, if your local hobby shop didn't have what you were looking for, you sent away to Squadron.  And that nostalgia or custom is still powerful today, though probably not powerful enough to keep the core buying from them.

I find a lot more consistency with enamels for airbrushing than for acrylics. This brand tip dries, that brand runs... grrrrrr...  It is what it is. I’ll miss their color selections, some of them at least.

Its a shame that they could not get their acrylic formula to be good quality. At least not the Model Master Acrylic formula. Their original Acrylics were superior.

I was a die hard fan, but I got so frustrated with the short shelf life, and I was having issues with even their thinner when airbrushing. I've never been an acrylic fan except for hand brushing, so I turned to Gunze lacquer. I really enjoy those. I will airbrush any brand if I need to, but I like staying with one brand for consistency. 

Just for fun, I pulled my copyright 1998 Model Master Modeler's Technical Guide from the shelf. What a differance a couple decades makes!

Back then, they owned the market for model paints and set the standards. Why that went away is, like others have commented, a combination of market factors and company decisions.  Of all the products, I'll miss the color choices of MM enamels and their consistent quality, and then there's the nostalgia for Pactra...what a great line of brushable paint that was!

Modelling is enjoying a wealth of new paint products and I'm looking forward to trying new brands as my old stock is depleted but I can't help but remember when MM enamels were the best you could get, right there at your local hobby shop.

Hi Mr.Mike!

 Yeah, the reason I liked Pactra, I was the atypical workin man's kid. School, Chores, and Homework. Then model building . All day Saturday with my friends! If I mowed the lawn and did the cleanup, Dad would raise my allowance by a Buck. Shoot, Revell got a lot of that through my LHS!!

 We wanted our cars to look good so we used pactra. " No Brush Marks". Plus they had some gorgeous colors like Electric Teal and Chinese Red( Which was more like a " Royal Wine color")

    I used the little square Testors and Added Talcum Powder to get a semi-gloss type coating .To much Talc and it was good for making Mud on armor and nuttin else. The "Squares" were 8 cents! Pactra was in the M.M. sized bottles and it was a whole dime per bottle.

       After the service I discovered a new paint. Thanks to my LHS. It was called Polly"S" Acrylic. Washes off your brush with soap and water! My first very large Model was Revell's 1/32 Mosquito Bomber. Brush painted that puppy and also all the markings. No tape pull-off and the colors went on with no Brush Marks either!

      Then Humbrol, ad Infinitum; So where does that leave me now? Living in a houshold where I am the only one without serious allergies, I cannot spray unless it's outside. So the paint has to be Low Odor, LowV.O.Cs, Easy Cleanup etc.

 The additives like Tamiya's retarder HAS to be odorless! I am going to, when I really get low, try some of the crafting brands. Some have Great Brushability and many have the same selections M.M. had. You just have to look for it! Oh, and it's not labeled DunkelGrau etc.! It will be Grey Green.

        I have gotten some Mig Jimenez and Vallejo colors and suprisingly they brush okay! I use that on my figures!

Testors sent me an email today:

stikpusher

 

 

Don Stauffer

They are still making enamel paints, however.  They just are no longer making specific military colors.  They have actually brought out some new metal tones.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, they expanded their square bottle line of enamels quite a bit a couple years ago. But mostly in colors useless to military modelers. At least those enamels will still be around. I do hope that they continue to make their enamel airbrush thinner. That is good stuff.

 

scigs30

Testors sent me an email today:

ROProductSupport (roproductsupport@rustoleum.com)To:you Details

 

Hello David,

Thank you for contacting Rust-Oleum Product Support.

Yes this is correct that we are discontinuing the Model Masters and Aztek products. Unfortunately due to the lack of support for these product lines we made the difficult decision.

The Testors line of paints, both enamel and acrylic, are still being manufactured and there are plans to expand the color lines.

 

If you have any additional questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

Thank you,

Geoff

 

 

I glad I stocked up with colors I would for use ship building.  During these hot San Antonio summers I use only Model Master due to paint drying on the AB tip even though the house is air conditioned.  I believe enamel paints perform much better than acrylic paints for durability and ease of use.  I stop using Vallejo primers and use MM flat black as a primer because the Vallejo would just rub off or I just got tired of using their additives to keep the paint flowing a little longer before clogging the tip.  If I use Vallejo in the summer it would be with a paint bush but come winer I will airbrush with it until the cows come home!

Marcus