Delta Ceramcoat paint

Don Dellmann is your man. He uses the stuff for everything. Don? Tell the man.
Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

I've been pretty mixing a little #2090 Hippo Gray with #2404 Sandstone to simulate concrete; straight Sandstone seems a little too yellow for me. Just looking at a Ceramcoat color chart , #2488 Mudstone looks like a pretty good straight match for concrete. I will check it out.
I think it stands up well.
The biggest shortcoming for me is that I can't get good airbrush results (compared to true modelers paints such as Modelflex), which I guess is understandable since the paint wasn't really formulated for that use.
For a starter point, try #2404 Sandstone. Once dried, darken it with a thinned wash of #2506 Black. Here's the effect achieved by an artist far better than me: For new raw wood consider starting with #2435 Trail Tan.
As far as location to buy Ceramcoat, you can get 1 oz. bottles at Wal-Mart for about $0.70 - $0.90. But I've found that my local Michael's craft store carries a much larger portion of the entire Ceramcoat colors (plus it seems that every color is always available in stock), so I've been buying them there at about $1.29 a bottle when I need new colors. Besides, my pre-school daughters enjoy to go along on a craft-shopping trip. You can never have enough craft supplies when you're that age.

The greatest thing since sliced bread With Ceramcoat who needs DCC?
Seriously, the only place it doesn't work well is on metal. Resin is OK, but the casting needs to be VERY clean (which is true of painting resin with ANY paint.) For wood, styrene, plaster, cardstock, it covers well and is very durable.
I have not airbrushed with it, although I know people who have.
As far as mixing colors, there is such a variety and it's so cheap just try a bunch of different colors and experiment with own mixes. You don't need a lot, just a squirt of color on an old AOL CD and mix it right on the "pallet". (Thanks to the "gizmologist for that tip, I use the tops from soda bottles, milk jugs, etc. for "paint pots" a lot too).
Don
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What do you use to thin it?
My best results have been with Windex, but I can't use my Badger Paint Mixer to blend it -- it just makes a frothy mess!

That's probably the ammonia. Most glass cleaners are water, alcohol, and ammonia plus a few added ingredients.
Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

I use Liquitex airbrush medium. It looks like skim milk, but seems to have no effect on the resulting color. I get it at Michael's or Craft Warehouse. I suspect that plain old distilled water would work, too. Most places have too much "stuff" in the water to use tap water.
I just added a stall add-on kit to a 5 stall Heljan roundhouse someone gave me (in pieces he salvaged from an older layout). Naturally, every piece was a different color, plus the bricks had a sheen on them like ceramic kitchen tile. The new roof pieces glistened. I mixed up a mess of 3 parts oxide red and 1 part white, plus Liquitex to match and it now looks great. The roof got a similar treatment and now just looks black and sooty. I shot the whole thing (an 8 stall Heljan roundhouse is LARGE) without a clog of my Badger 200, and that's after not being able to find my filter screen. I mention that because others have knocked Ceramcoat as being too thick to shoot and the Badger is a finicky brush.
Several of the roof pieces were warped and were fried with a heat shrink gun so I could bend them flat 24 hours after painting. My fingers weren't happy at all, but the paint held up fine. I had left the back-most roof pieces off (just laid in place) to enable the occasional poke of a reluctant loco, so I hadn't noticed the warped pieces until after it was painted.
Jim
-- Jim Sherman xROADKILL snipped-for-privacy@zYAHOOa.COM < remove lower case letters, then use what's left AS lower case
The hurrider I goes the behinder I gets; which makes sense because the older I gets the more behind I gets. And I is gettin an old behind!

I've used the Liquetex as well and have had no problems with it. I would caution that you want to make sure that you don't get small flakes of dried paint into the mix. They cause problems. : (
A paint store owner friend of mine tells me that if you use a lot of water to thin latex paint, that it will adversely affect the paint's adhesion abilities. He said that a little will be OK, but certainly not 1 to 1 which is about what I use for airbrush thinning. BTW, sometimes I use 5 parts paint, 4 parts Liquetex and 1 part plain old tap water. This mixture seems to work well and saves a little of the Liquitex; it gets expensive.
dlm

I'm not really sure just what Liquitex really is. 50-50 with Ceramcoat seems to work fine. They sell a thinner for their paint that looks exactly like Liquitex. I do know that regular water in some places is very likely to leave a deposit which is visible. Our water in Florida was so hard that a drop would leave a deposit you could feel. I got in the habit of using distilled for decals and anything else that needed water and would show. -- Jim Sherman xROADKILL snipped-for-privacy@zYAHOOa.COM < remove lower case letters, then use what's left AS lower case
The hurrider I goes the behinder I gets; which makes sense because the older I gets the more behind I gets. And I is gettin an old behind!

I just found this on the Ceramcoat site: Q: Can I use Delta Ceramcoat® Acrylic Paint in a watercolor method or with an airbrush? Yes. When the acrylic paints are thinned with Delta Ceramcoat® Acrylic Thinner, it reduces the paints to a proper consistency for watercolor and airbrushing techniques. When the acrylic paints are dry, they cannot be "lifted" like watercolors. Thinning acrylics with water causes them to lose their vivid color and appear flat after drying. With airbrushing, too much water can cause the acrylics to lose their bonding and covering ability. Mix equal parts of Delta Acrylic Thinner & Ceramcoat Acrylic Paint for use in an airbrush. Add additional Thinner until desired consistency is achieved. Clean Airbrush following the manufacture's directions.
So my 50-50 mix is even potentially low.
Jim -- Jim Sherman xROADKILL snipped-for-privacy@zYAHOOa.COM < remove lower case letters, then use what's left AS lower case
The hurrider I goes the behinder I gets; which makes sense because the older I gets the more behind I gets. And I is gettin an old behind!

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 07:36:30 -0800, Jim Sherman shared this with the world:
That or Delta's Ceramcoat thinner (2nd from the bottom of the page.)
I have used both, and haven't noticed a difference in effect on the paint. The Liquitex medium is available in larger bottles, and is a better price/ounce.

Liquitex Airbrush Medium is specifically formulated for thinning acrylic colors for airbrush application. Mixing colors with Airbrush Medium will ensure that the colors do not lose their flexibility, durability and adhesion. ...
Dave.

I use it for all applications in modeling that I have. The only challenge is matching colors, but that's a challenge with the "name brand railroad paints" as well. :)
Cut it with distilled water or the Liquitex thinning product and go for it. Just bought some last night at a going out of business sales for 50 cents for a small bottle, which is enough to paint a lot of engines / cars. It's great for buildings and scenery as well.
Once it dries it's tough as nails.
Good luck Greg

I've tried lots of different thinning materials while experimenting with Ceramcoat, including water, isopropyl alcohol, ammonia, Golden Airbrush Medium, and Windex -- based on different advice I've seen on rec.models.railroad, all with varying levels of success. I felt I got the best results with Windex and a 0.70 mm nozzle on my Aztek A320 airbrush. But I've only had my airbrush for a few years and people's skill change over time (hopefully for the better), so maybe it's time to revisit things again and see if I can get a better method for airbrushing Ceramcoat.
As for the dried paint flakes -- that's a good point, the craft paint bottles tend to gather a dried up glob of paint at the cap over time. But it's not hard to remove.

That's one of the reasons I use the filter screen on my Badger - just in case.
Another thing. The Ceramcoat paints give a decidedly flat finish which under certain conditions (thickness and distance of spray and so on) can give a visible "grain orientation". I try to use very light, thin applications of this paint and that seems to prevent it. Believe me - I'm no expert either. I also have used a hair dryer to speed up the process a bit. It's not to actually dry the paint, just to get to the flat look so I can see if I've goofed and produced a pattern in the paint like I just described. Hold the brush too far away and the paint'll dry on the way to the model (and look pretty bad afterwards unless you like pebble grain finish), too close and you get too thick a coat with its' own problems.
I'd really like to get a mix for aged wood, myself. I'm color-impaired (one reason I model the C&O - I can see the colors).
Jim -- Jim Sherman xROADKILL snipped-for-privacy@zYAHOOa.COM < remove lower case letters, then use what's left AS lower case
The hurrider I goes the behinder I gets; which makes sense because the older I gets the more behind I gets. And I is gettin an old behind!

Your comments on "too far" or "too close" apply to ANY paint, even solvent paints like the old Floquil.
Don
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There is also a special fluid a acrylic thinner available from delta especially for airbrush Greetings Ben

I think Jim Sherman already mentioned "Delta Ceramcoat Acrylic Thinner".
Paul