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Automobile Paints

A friend of mine suggested using automobile paints (acrylic) for weathering rail, rolling stock, and any other paint application where an exact color match is not necessary. There are a huge number of colors available in automobile paints. He claims that the "micro ground pigments" found in the model railroad paints are also in automobile paints. The savings would be huge considering model railroad paints are $3-4 for a small botlle versus $15 for a pint which could last a lifetime. Is he correct?

This is not the first instance I have found where model railroaders pay a lot of $$$$ for common items. An example is a model railroad scenic material; plaster impregnated cloth. A model railroad manufacturer charges about $0.50-0.60/ sq. ft of material. A little internet searching shows a similar product in art supply houses for

0.05-0.08/sq. ft.

Thanks, Steve B.

Reply to
steveb919
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For some 18 years I ran a mail order custom painting business and probably

80% of what I painted was "painted" with automotive lacquer. The exceptions were an occasional odd-ball or not too common paint scheme and then I would usually use Scalecoat.

BTW, I really believe the best paints for application onto brass was the original Scalecoat back in the 70s. It was originally manufactured by an outfit in Alabama and the label had stamped in red "Contains Lead".

For personal restoration of my Lionel items, I had a local automotive paint store match the colors and mix up a pint of lacquer.

Since lacquer is reduced 3:1 or 4:1 with thinner, it lasts a long time. A quart of black lasted me some 5-7 years.

Ray H.

Reply to
Whodunnit

Quick search came up with this

formatting link

Reply to
evodawg

That is an old idea whose time has passed with the nitrocellouse lacquer paint that is now no longer available. The pigments weren't ground as fine as Floquil paint is ground but, at least for O scale, the auto paint wasn't too bad and was a fair bit cheaper than Floquil. The other thing about auto paint is that it is intended to produce a high gloss finish and thus has a lot of the carrier to get that gloss. With model railroad paints, you don't want as much gloss and you also want to control that level of gloss which can be done by adding gloss to a paint.

-- Why do penguins walk so far to get to their nesting grounds?

Reply to
Bob May

Which looks like $0.69/sq.ft. to me ! or is my maths failing? Keith

Reply to
Keith

Wow, I'd sure like to know about plaster cloth at $.10 per square foot. Do you want to share with the rest of us?

dlm

Reply to
Dan Merkel

Check out

formatting link

Steve B.

Reply to
steveb919

Kind of looks about the same as the WS prodcut, doesn't it?

dlm

Reply to
Dan Merkel

I think it would be kind of neat to do a 500 series Shikansen with that prismatic color-changing paint.

Reply to
Joe Ellis

seventy-five feet at $45... still sounds like about $.60 a foot.

dlm

Reply to
Dan Merkel

The site I mentioned has a roll of 25 yards x 4" which comes to 25 sq. ft. for $3.89. This comes out to about $0.16/sq. ft. If you do some weight calculations you get about $0.05/ sq.ft. for the 20 lb. roll.

Steve B.

Reply to
steveb919

The site I mentioned has a roll of 25 yards x 4" which comes to 25 sq. ft. for $3.89. This comes out to about $0.16/sq. ft. If you do some weight calculations you get about $0.05/ sq.ft. for the 20 lb. roll.

Steve B.

Reply to
steveb919

Wouldn't that be neat....

Reply to
+GF+

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