The Little World

If you want to be nervous but don’t like dark houses or cobwebs, try a walk down the paint aisle of your local hobby shop. You’ll find enough there to fuel all your anxieties.

I did recently and encountered racks filled with products from nine different chemical manufacturers – eleven if I counted the off-market makers of paint accessories. I’ll bet a bigger hobby store would rack up even a higher score. They are all packaged well and all for sale, and all better than each other…

I suspect that they can sometimes be very similar products in different jars, and I have no problem with that. Ford and Chevrolet both make cars that work fine and the market is big enough for both of them. What really does worry me are is the difference that can exist between the basic chemistry of one well-stocked brand over another…and their difference in turn from a rack of colours over the aisle.

This is sharply pointed out when we make a decision to mix and match colours or chemistry and then discover that the paints and finishes ruin each other in succession – often at the very last stage of the modelling experience. I’ve scrood up planes, decals, and finishes galore as I experiment and discard ideas. And unfortunately there has been no cogent guidance from the paint and finish makers to warn me or put me right. I’ve found out through the internet or through ruining models.

I’m happy to say that some professional scale modellers do share good advice – and some share dodgy advice. And it’s hard to tell which is more realistic until you start to mix. I’m currently wondering if Humbrol enamels can be thinned with Mr. Color Levelling Thinner to any degree, or indeed to any advantage. Fortunately $ 6 or $ 7 dollars of paint and materials plus a careful hour of experimentation should tell me the truth. I have listened to the experts tell me something of this but I am still suspicious.

The other problem is not chemical, but operational. Some things work, and might work well, but do so only through a small window of skill and procedure. Get it wrong in dilution or air pressure or distance or humidity or the number of mice in a grain sack, and  what works for everyone else makes a roaring failure for you.