Acrylic Paint - Railroad Colors - Model Railroader Magazine
richhotrain
....Once Testors discontinued its Floquil Polly Scale line of acrylic railroad colors, it seemed a little depressing to lose my paint of choice after 10 years of usage.
I agree...seems sorta like gettin' the old one-way ride out into the country.
Model Masters paint is okay, but it's certainly not Pollyscale, even if they're offering Pollyscale colours. It doesn't seem to have the shelflife of Pollyscale, either, and it comes in a smaller bottle. It is brushable, but I find it less satisfactory for brushing than Pollyscale.
richhotrain
....Incidentally, I use these paints with a hand brush, no air brushing for me.
A lot of paint sold nowadays is also "airbrush ready": fat lot of good that is for those preferring brush painting, and really, how many of us are capable of masking figures for airbrushing?
Besides that, the bottle of pre-thinned paint obviously now contains less actual paint. According to Pollyscale's old website, an acceptable thinner was...wait for it....distilled water! Ooh, a gallon of that will set you back what, a buck or two?
I tried Badger's Modelflex a couple of times, but wouldn't use it again even if it were free.
I started in the hobby in the '50s using Floquil, and even though its formula changed several times over the years, it was a good paint up until near the end. That's when Testors changed it for the last time, making it next to useless. I suppose leaving that bad taste in our mouths made it less distressing when they later dropped it entirely.
I still have a fair amount of Pollyscale paint on hand, although white is in short supply. In my opinion, it was one of the best model paints that I've ever used.
I've bought a fair amount of Scalecoat I, and will probably use it to paint the dozen-or-so steam locomotives I still have to do. It's a very tough paint, but for me, it's main drawback is the slow drying time, even when thinned with lacquer thinner. With Pollyscale, it's possible to airbrush all the different shades of black on a steam locomotive in one session, and then immediately do the brushwork for the small details.
It's also a very tough paint: I'm scratchbuilding a boxcar using some unusual materials, and was planning to prime it with Floquil's Grey Primer, then paint with the finished colour in Floquil, too. However, test swatches on the material revealed that Floquil, the primer or the finish paint, scrapes off easily, while the Pollyscale, even without primer, sticks much better.
For anyone looking for replacements for their favourite, but no-longer-made paint, I wish you luck, but would also suggest that you ignore the manufacturer's choice of name for the colour, and instead, simply shake the bottle and look at the colour.
Wayne
