Model Railroading > SHORK Hobby paint ?

Has anyone used this hobby paint from China ? It is manufactured by  YAKAICHEM co in Donghua,  Yingde City, China.
it has a range of colors like SCALECOAT and smells like SCALECOAT.
SHORK C-86 is an exact match for SP Dark Gray - SHORK C030 is SP Scarlet and SHORK C077 is SP lettering white
the paints  I was made aware of came from an  theft of items thrown of of a container train in Dunsmuir, CA and abandoned on the right-a-way.
they are in 1 OZ bottles
Original

A photo of product. I heard about the Dunsmuir find

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Dave - -where are they sold ?

It's Lacquer based paint. The only place I could find on the net is here:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809594459445.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa4itemAdapt
$6.86 a bottle 

I've wondered what all our models that are made in China are painted with. Could this be it?

Remember that lacquer paints are considered toxic so take precautions or change to non-lacquer paint.

The take-away being if theres a market for toxic hobby paint for a specialty market why can;t we get a Scalecoat replacement?

If Scalecoat, Floquil, Testors, Model Master, etc. were established companies and couldn't make an economic go with model railroad paints, why would anyone want to step in?

Especially when the customer base tends toward the nit-picking and could blow them out of the water by broadcasting that a color isn't the way they "remember" it.

VintageMac Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If Scalecoat, Floquil, Testors, Model Master, etc.
> were established companies and couldn't make an
> economic go with model railroad paints, why would
> anyone want to step in?
>
Likely because those paints were manufactured in the United States, whereas SHORK is Chinese, with microscopic labor costs in comparison.

This is ALL supply & demand driven and nobody wants to state the obvious:  The number of people actively involved in the MR hobby is a fraction of what it was when Floquil & Scalecoat were successful.  The fact that many are happy with the elaborate RTR models being sold today is certainly part of it, but overall, there are just tremendously fewer folks enjoying the hobby today and there will be fewer tomorrow and fewer every day thereafter.

Well, there's another complementary piece to this puzzle. No question that we're in a much smaller market than 30-40 years ago.

But... somebody in Asia is making paint for new plastic models of all types, not just model railroading. So this "brand" could be a side hustle from the OEM suppliers there. That satisfies the supply-demand issue. Other than small package sizes.

Just a thought...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/26 08:13 by RichM.