Old Enamels

Chaz Gordon
Ditched my enamels years ago, they are a complete pain to use for a brush painter
1: They are a pain to open & close the tin
2: Any half used tin that is not used for a little while will be dried up and solid when you go back to it
3: even if it only forms a skin that can be removed, this changes the pigment levels
4: Clean up is a pain - White spirit costs money and need to be stored carefully, getting a brush truly clean means having at least 3 jars of spirit for clean up
5: Clean up often strips the varnish off your brushes
6: Enamel metallics are terrible for brush painting
7: Enamel Glosses are terrible for brush painting
8: decanting from the tins always results in a mess
9: Officially they must be disposed of separate to general waste

That said, I am about to embark on using AlcladII enamels, as I have yet to find a suitable acryllic chrome/candy combo, but that will be airbrush only, and I have extraction.

Danny Meer
Totally true they are a pain in the #$$ lol I'm not using the can's in the photo's, some of them are more museum pieces 😄
I was starting to use Revell acrylics but don't like them very much. So maybe i'll try Tamiya colors to see how that works for me. Already have the Alclad II chrome with the primer and love it

Rui S
Well, your right. But i still have lots of humbrol tins and i plan to finish tem all before ditching them. I Also use Tamiya but the humbrol Matt is the best, airbrushed or brushed. I dont like waist, so... For me, from all Isues the main reason of pain is the huge time i waist mixing them. But hey i'm old fashion😢

Danny Meer
Lol Rui, used some of the old can's that came with a stash of truck kits, but some can's that I opened couldn't be called paint anymore 😛 I'm buying paint per kit when needed. some of the can's I have used cuz they are still okay for brush painting small stuff 🙂

Danny Meer
@Chaz Found an old Humbrol #5 and as you can see it's not the same as the Revell #71. did Humbrol changed colorcodes over the years? cuz the revell is darker then the humbrol as you can see in the picture

David Taylor
Hi Danny,I agree but I have always used Humbrol but I believe the tinlets have now been tweaked for spraying.Tried Revell and Tamiya but keep going back to Humbrol,creature of habit I suppose.

Chris Greathouse
I found a site calling the #71 color Gloss Iron Grey (REV71) . aviationshop.co.za/f...asp?idproduct=21113 But I couldn't find a cross brand reference, I even looked to color info in the late 90s/00s.

Ever think about using it just because it's grey? Lots of projects need grey. Slap some grey on there.

Danny Meer
It's strange that Revell didn't come with an follow up can for that color...and what is that 25 R..rupees? 😄

Augie
I never had issues with brushing enamels, the new ones are shockingly poor I have to admit, but its just a case of thinning them right.

Oddly, I find most usable paints I have are the older ones in fact Humbrol authentic's are superb.. and older than I am.

Chris Greathouse
It's a South African site, and the currency is Rands.... I just go where the info takes me.

Danny Meer
😄

Chaz Gordon
@Danny, if you are using Matt Colors, skip the Tamiya, and go straight for Vallejo. I use the Model Air and Game Air range for brush painting, they are thinner, but have finer pigments than the Model color range, which need to be thinned. I get better results all round with the Air range than thinned model color. Plus you can shake and pour into an airbrush without needing to work out how much you need, because you can pour any excess back into the bottle.

Chaz Gordon
The Tamiya Glosses are pretty good, and Vallejo doesn't really do Gloss, most vallejo users use a matt & clear approach for gloss paint, the Game air range is great for that. Sadly, there is not much in the way of metallic colors for vehicles, mainly metal colors like brass, bronze, steel etc

Danny Meer
Thx for that info Chaz

And Chris, the paint from that african site would be an old stash and not sure if that paint is still ok to use. return to sender wouldn't be an option cuz of the costs

Danny Meer
@Augie it is really stunning how good some of the old can's still are.
But some can's the paint went bad and in some other cases the dry time is around a week lol
And they used other stuff as pigments then nowadays, now it's all synthetic stuff 🙂

Chris Greathouse
I was looking for reference/info on the can. Not a place to buy. And pulled the info of the Gloss Iron Grey name.

Danny Meer
👍 😄

Łukasz Gliński
I have a collection of old enamels too 🙂 Mostly Humbrols and Revells (including the red and yellow Airbrush editions).
Still hesitating to throw them away, I even spray them sometimes - the only comparable (in terms of spraying comfort) are the lacquer paints. The only issue is drying time, I used to wait 24-48hrs, just to be sure.
Beware of the Revells, they seem to add some sort of accelerator. The surface dries rather quickly, but they're still soft underneath.