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Floquil paint


PeteJ

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I was working on my entry for Nat's and broke out some of my old Floquil enamel paint(engine black).  I had forgotten how great these paints were to use with a brush.  Nothing at all like todays acrylics.   Even flow, no brush marks, full coverage with one pass,  absolutely perfect flat finish.  Man these were good paints. Unfortunatly, they are long gone.  Anybody out there know if there is anything that comes close??

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10 hours ago, PeteJ said:

I was working on my entry for Nat's and broke out some of my old Floquil enamel paint(engine black).  I had forgotten how great these paints were to use with a brush.  Nothing at all like todays acrylics.   Even flow, no brush marks, full coverage with one pass,  absolutely perfect flat finish.  Man these were good paints. Unfortunatly, they are long gone.  Anybody out there know if there is anything that comes close??

I personally love Humbrol, an excellent enamel. And now that Revell enamels are bing imported to the USA, you may want to give those a shot as well. I’ve bought some in Germany and brought them back here. They work great as well. 

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1 hour ago, Stikpusher said:

I personally love Humbrol, an excellent enamel. And now that Revell enamels are bing imported to the USA, you may want to give those a shot as well. I’ve bought some in Germany and brought them back here. They work great as well. 

I was wondering about Humbrol.  Heard of them for years but never tried them.  Looks like it is about time to get my hands on a couple of tins.  What do you thin them and clean up with?

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Pete, Humbrol has a long pedigree and has been around since the 1960's. I have used it many, many times and found it to be an excellent product. I would suggest you obtain their dedicated thinner as it is formulated for their enamels if you are looking to airbrush as well. For normal brush cleanup, white spirit will work ok and is relatively inexpensive.

Humbrol has been a stalwart product for UK modellers down the years. In the US of course you are more used to Testors, Floquil and Pactra having been the main brands in the past.

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5 hours ago, noelsmith said:

Pete, Humbrol has a long pedigree and has been around since the 1960's. I have used it many, many times and found it to be an excellent product. I would suggest you obtain their dedicated thinner as it is formulated for their enamels if you are looking to airbrush as well. For normal brush cleanup, white spirit will work ok and is relatively inexpensive.

Humbrol has been a stalwart product for UK modellers down the years. In the US of course you are more used to Testors, Floquil and Pactra having been the main brands in the past.

Thanks Noel.  Just what I wanted to know.  Will order some soon.  None of the local shops carry them or I probably would have tried them some time ago.  One last question.  I've never kept paint in a tin before.  It kind of looks like a miniature paint can. Does it seal well?  I have used Tamiya paint mixing jars for other paint and they seem to do better than just about any other container, but they are almost as expensive as the paint itself.  Worth using them or keep them in the original tin?

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Pete, the tins seal well as long as you keep the lid & lip clean before closing. Wipe those areas as you would with a bottle threads and cap before closing and you’ll get many years out of a tin. Which leads to my next point, stir them thoroughly for mixing, rather than shaking them, to insure proper mixing.

As far as thinning and clean up goes, for the past several decades, I had been using Model Master & Testors enamel airbrush thinner for airbrushing. But now that this particular product looks to be discontinued, I’m looking at switching to lacquer thinner for that purpose. The Testors/Model Master stuff gave it more “bite” for adhesion. For clean up, I use standard paint thinner from the hardware store. 

Ive been using Humbrol as my go to enamel since the late 80s, and it’s always my first choice. I still have a few tins from those years… and they still are usable!

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Yeah, I acquired a couple box loads of Humbrols from a Distressed Kit Auction one time some years back. I've been using them more and more. In fact, aside from the grey and white, all the colors on the An-124 are Humbrol. I would like to try those Revell colors but so far I have not seen them.

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I have 60-year-old tins of Humbrol, and they are as fresh as the day they left the factory. It is necessary, however, to keep the rim of the tin and its lid clean before sealing it after use. I thin mine with a 50-50 mix of lacquer thinner and mineral spirits and use mineral spirits for cleaning my airbrush.

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Hi Pete,

Carlos, Mark and Michael, have pretty much submitted the reply that I would have given so there is nothing I can really add to the sound advice that they have offered you.

I wish you well with using Humbrol and am sure that you will not be disappointed with their products.

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