Some of us may still be getting over the loss of Floquil and Polly Scale, but Testors just added insult to injury. In the August 2020 Model Railroader (just arrived in the mail), the news section says that Testors is discontinuing Model Master paint. I looked on the Testors website and didn’t really see anything, but this is still bad news. They were easily available to me, but now I have to order paint from the internet with this loss. I guess it’s time to learn how to use some of these other brands. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Well... that sucks. What high quality hobby paint suppliers are left? Basically the Rustoleum Corporation systematically absorbed almost all of hobby paint makers over the past 20 years. By squeezing out the competitors they assured themselves higher prices instead of lower prices... now availability and choices could be problem. Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
See, another example of what I have been talking about recently. Large company buys smaller company, discontinues lower profit items, those items are gone forever. Gone are all the railroad paint colors, and detail parts, again proving you have to snap up a lifetime supply of anything you plan on using down the road.
Military modelers could soon be in as much misery as model railroaders. When I think of Testors paints, I think of my childhood experiences with their thick, tar-like paint in little 15 Cent bottles of bright basic colors. Looking at Testors' website, not much has changed except for the price and packaging. I see only these colors:
Over the last 6 months, I've bit my lip and have been using Badger Model Flex and Tamiya quite a bit. What really stinks is the lack of available paints coupled with the decline of the brick/mortar stores. Gone is spontaneous modeling. Used to be I could get out a model, my airbrush, paintbooth and run to the hobby store in 10 minutes and get a couple jars of thissa and thatta model RR paint. No more. RRay is right. I have to admit when I see a parts or unique model product I think I can apply, I snatch it up. That started when Champ went out of business and in a panic, I think I now own half of the Champ C&O steam decals that were in existence. I'll never u$e them all, but I got them! Also have a bazillion Detail Associates eyelets. Looking around the web, seems I should take them to the bank and put them in the safety deposit box.
Interesting to consider the possibility that they might have expected sales to increase. Reducing availability and increasing prices only drives more of us away.
This strategy seems to be popular in executive offices these days, that if ya can't earn double digit returns on a product line, kill it. Here's the result of such at GE, once a global leader and now a tiny shadow of what it was. They kicked their solid old-line businesses to the curb and overpaid to buy multiple new businesses that brought an avalanche upon earnings. In five years, GE has lost 74% of its worth, while the S&P 500 has grown 52%.
Except now it's like $3.00 for that little bottle!!!!!! Of course now all I use is Scalecoat. Rick Jesionowski
Remember their flagship brand is rust oleum. We the consumer have the power to destroy the company by buying other paint brands.
(Let me recompose myself. I just swatted a water bug after it wandered onto my desk.) Yep. I remember Testor's back in my boyhood days when building plastic models. (Mostly military.) The above discussion is one of many faceted reasons I chose the path I took with The Omega Scale Railway. Not for everybody, I know. But, as they say, it takes all kinds.
Going to be hard to do, RPM is constantly buying companies that make paint and or household repair items thereby becoming a conglomerate in the home building supply industry. At least once a month there is an article in Crains where they are acquiring another company. Testers was just a small cog in their operations so they have no qualms about discontinuing any semi profitable division. Their main office is about 20 miles from my house so they are constantly in our business news. https://www.rpminc.com/leading-brands/ Rick Jesionowski
Are Vallejo model paints another option? I don't think they have model railroad specific paint colours but I wonder if they have ones that you could use. Seems they have decent ones for weathering but I have never tried them.
OK, please don't start throwing things or marching on my house with pitchforks and shovels, but one thing I wonder about is acrylic craft paints. Having recently fallen under the influence of Jason Jensen, I was interested to find that he uses them entirely and has no issues with mixing the paints to obtain desired colors although being an artist, he does this on a "looks right" basis. It does seem like it would be possible to develop and keep track of mixed colors. Of course, the other factor is that he basically works with structures. In the comments under one of his videos, I posed the question as to why he used these paints. He replied that there were two reasons- price and prior experience with them. Further research reveals that these paints can be airbrushed satisfactorily. Use Windex to clean your airbrush followed be spraying water through it to keep the Windex from eating your airbrush alive. This is one of the things I intend to investigate along with mixing colors from Tamiya, Valleo and others. None of this sounds easy, but if need be, it beats those bright, tar thick 15 cent bottles that now cost $3.
Vallejo, as well as Tamiya, are some of the best paints I have used. They don’t have any ‘railroad’ colors, but for basic colors they are great. Model Master and some of th Vallejo Model Master, Tamiya, Vallejo, and Badger are acrylic. Tru-color and Scalecoat are enamel. Model Master also has (had) enamel paints, but I didn’t use them much. I prefer acrylic just because I don’t want to deal with acetone thinners in my airbrush.