Model Railroading > Tru-color paint

I am going to try Tru-color paint but before I do I was wanting to know if anyone here has ever tried this brand of paint? How was it to thin? A ratio to thin? How did the paint cover? Did you have to use a primer and if you did, did you us Tru-color primer?

Thank you for any input at all..

Posted from iPhone

In talking to my customers they all seem to do it different. Some spray the Tru-Color straight from the bottle (it is designed for such), one adds enough thinner to a new bottle to almost fill the bottle and sprays from there, another thins about 30%. Most of them seem to use the Tru-Color primer and thinner.

Jeff Smith
Lakewood, CA
RailMaster Hobbies

I tried it and wasn't terribly thrilled with the results, though to be fair, I don't think I experimented enough.

It definitely needs to be thinned. I couldn't get it to flow at all straight from the bottle. Since it's called an "acrylic solvent based paint" I had no idea what to thin it with, so I tried everything! Lacquer, Isopropyl Alcohol, acrylic thinner. None of them worked well, some caused considerable problems by gumming up the airbrush.

I'm planning on eventually getting a bottle of Tru-Color's thinner to try, that's probably the best route to go, unless someone else here knows what is correct to use and where to get lots of it for cheap.

- Chris

I used some SP&S paint on a highliner shell (and a kato sd70mac), (I did thin it a tad with their thinner) and it turned out nice though I found that it sprayed thin but the end result was good and im happy with it. Definitely takes some getting used to

I've used their primer and engine black and really like the way it sprays and levels out. It dries quickly with a gloss finish just fine for decaling. I used it to paint a brass steam engine. I thinned it with Acetone.
Only problem I had was the wheels/driver tires had a shiny nickle finish wouldn't hold the paint. It peeled off very easily. I've talked with them and they are working on it. In the meantime, I sprayed Scalecoat I on them.

Tru-Color has a similar formulation to the old, well revered SMP Accu-Paint (see the first item in their FAQ at http://www.trucolorpaint.com/index.php?p=1_7_FAQ). SMP Accu-Paint thinner was a mix of several solvents, but was mostly Acetone, and therein lies a problem with the paint. Acetone is hydroscopic - it absorbs moisture. If there is any humidity, the paint and it's thinner will draw moisture out of the air, causing it to blush - give it a foggy appearance.

P-B-L sells "Star Brand Paint" that also claims the same roots - using the same paint source SMP Industries used for it's Accu-Paint line. P-B-L suggests using it's retarder to combat blushing in high humidity environments.

As to the confusion over the acrylic name - I hear you there! There are two types of "acrylics." The first is when acrylic pigments are used. This is common in automotive finishes, and I suspect this is the "acrylic" refereed to in Tru-Color's literature. This isn't the same kind of acrylic we've come to know in our other hobby paints, like Polyscale, Tamiya Acrylic, and others. These acrylic paints get their name by containing pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylic_paint for a brief description.

I have no experience with Tru-Color paint, but a lot with SMP Accu-Paint, and some with P-B-L's Star Brand paint. Star Brand paint requires thinning, while Tru-Color claims it doesn't. FWIW, my bottle of Star Brand paint smells identical with my old bottle of SMP Accupaint thinner - very strongly like acetone. The nose is no match for a gas chromatograph, though, so other than reading the MSDS, I couldn't tell you what's in it. I have successfully thinned Star Brand paint with ordinary lacquer thinner (Klean-Strip brand available at most big-box and hardware stores). I live in an area that's normally very humid, so I'm reluctant to use any more Acetone than I have to. So far, between the dehumidifier in my garage and the lacquer thinner, I haven't had a problem with blushing (knock on wood!).

BTW, do not confuse SMP Accupaint with AccuFlex (made by Badger and then Testors - no longer available). Completely different animals!

I hope this helps.

I shot an Intermountain reefer in TruColor white a while back and was very impressed with how it covered and finished. At least with this color, the paint seemed to be a nice cross between Scalecoat and Accu-paint; it dried glossy like Scalecoat, but covered nice and thin like Accupaint.

Here's a pair of quick close-up iPhone pics of the car - it's hard to see the gloss finish, but note how well defined the rivet detail remains after the paint. This was shot directly on bare gray plastic, no primer, and it covered very well. No clear coat on the car yet (and obviously the underframe remains in bare plastic - guess I need to finish this project someday...).

Happy customer on this end, for what it's worth.

-Rick

Rick Selby
Redmond, WA
Pacific Northwest RPM

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If it was still readily available, I would still be using what I used for many years and loved. It was DuPont Jet Black nitrocellulose auto lacquer, DuPont light gray nitro lacquer and plain old T33 thinner. I would mix a bit of the gray primer in with the black to kill the high gloss and lighten the black just a skosh. After I sprayed the engine (I painted steam only) there would be some overspray in the corners and I would overspray with clean thinner which would dissolve the overspray and cause everything to flow out really nice. Always good to decal and very durable. I had kind of a "dirt" color that I would overspray a thin coat on after lettering and then a dullcoat. Painted hundreds of engines like that and never had a complaint.
Everything is Acrylic now and I've tried acrylic lacquer and it sucks. Doesn't flow nicely and just doesn't spray well with an airbrush.

In my Opinion Tru Color is one of the best model paints I've ever used in 45 years of model railroading.

Granted I mostly brush paint it-which works excellently!

Mike Bannon
St Catharines, ON