GEN: Floquil paint - new vs. old incompatability??
Bill Schmidt
I started painting an Italeri Crusader III tank last night (nice kit).
I sparyed on some Floquil RR colors Roof Brown (#110070) thinned with
Dio-sol. It was from a bottle I've had for a few years. It went on
fine, dried normally.
I masked this off and then mixed together some Foundation (#110084)
with Dio-sol and about 25% Roof Brown to darken it to paint the road
wheels and lower portions of the hull. Well, it's now 24 hours later
and the paint is still wet! The Foundation was recently bought and
has the new-style label. It dosen't mention thinning with Dio-sol but
with "Floquil airbrush thinner". Are the old and new paints not
intermixable?
No, I didn't mix the water-thinned and solvent-thinned paint together
by mistake but I will admit that was my first thought.
Bill Schmidt
Treasurer/IPMS Long Island Scale Model Society
PSC
Bill Schmidt wrote:
Well, it's now 24 hours later
> and the paint is still wet! The Foundation was recently bought and
> has the new-style label. It dosen't mention thinning with Dio-sol but
> with "Floquil airbrush thinner". Are the old and new paints not
> intermixable?
Bill:
Probably not.
Floquil paints have gone through a couple of iterations - I have rail
paints in "square" bottles over 20 years old through the currently
available rail, military, and marine paints.
Basicly, Floquil "transformed" their paints from lacquers to enamels
over the past few years for safety reasons.
The old paints thinned with "Diosol" which was similar to lacquer
thinner and contained Xylene/Xylol and Toluene/Toluol. These must be
thinned with the old "Diosol" or lacquer thinner, and are a bit
grainier and more prone to air drying than the newer paints. These can
be recognized by the words " Contains Xylene vapor harmful" or "Contains
Xylol and Petroleum Distallates" or "Contains Toluol and Petroleum
Distillates" on the left hand side of the label.
The new "Enamel" paints have the same "part #" but say "Contains
Petroleum Distillates". These thin beautifully with standard "Odorless
Mineral Spirits" ( probably the same chemically as Floquils Airbrush
thinner) available at any hardware chain.
The new paints are possibly intermiscable with the old if you use the
hotter lacquer thinner. To avoid air drying, you probably need to add a
bit of Floquil Retarder to slow down the process - a drop or two of
Floquil Glaze or even ordinary turpentine will also work and smooth the
flow ( this is also a good idea with the new formula).
I try not to mix the old formula with the new - I'm convinced that the
new is also more finely ground, and certainly safer than the old - but I
always wear my respirator !
One thing you should do is to fully mix the paint in the bottle and then
use an eyedropper to take the paint from the bottom of the bottle and
transfer it to my mixing jar. If I fail to do this, I sometimes do not
get sufficient "flatting agent" ( talc?) and the paint is somewhat
glossy and takes a LONG time to dry. I also always use 2 to 3 parts
thinner to one part paint - Floquil will cover with the thinnest
imaginable coat and not obscure detail.
The new formula will also handbrush very well thinned 1:1 with mineral
spirits.
Pete Chalmers
Bill Schmidt
PSC <pcha...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Thanks for your help Pete.
The bottle labels read as you expected. Ya know, I've seen references
on this NG lately about "Floquil enamels". I though this was just
someone who thought that anything that wasn't a water-borne acrylic
was an enamel so I didn't bother to correct him. One of the major
reasons why I use Floquil was because they WERE lacquers, not slow
drying acrylic (or alkyd) enamels like other "hobby paints". Now I
see they went and switched on me!!
Funny - I just bought a bottle of Reefer Orange to paint a Bell X-1
and the lady in the hobby shop asked me if I needed any Dio-sol!
Little did I know that my answer of "No" was right but for the wrong
reason!
I guess I'll have to switch over to the water-borne acrylics.
Meanwhile, the tank paint is drying.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
I guess I'll have to start another kit.
Bill Schmidt
Treasurer, IPMS/Long Island Scale Model Society
PSC
Bill:
Don't switch !! The new "enamels" dry only slightly slower than the old
"diosols".
The "Classic Military" paints (303*** series)- even the "first edition"
still containing Xylol, work fine with mineral spirits and are in every
way better than the old paints. It's only when you go back 10 years or
so that the "hot" Floquils appear. The Xylol was removed from the very
latest formula for EPA reasons, but Floquil had already "cooled" the
formula when they introduced the "Classics" so that it would not "craze"
plastic if brush-applied - and I have mixed 1st/2nd batch "Classic"
paints with no problems. They also "cooled" the Rail/Marine series at
that time, but you can only be sure by checking the labels.
There was an older "Military Color Series" (300*** series) which was
hot, but the current "Classic Military Series" is not - and is
compatible with Aeromaster (90** series - made by Floquil) , Rail
(110*** series) , and Marine (818*** series)colors - 300 plus shades in
total - nothing even comes close, IMHO.
Just wear a 3-M "Easi-Air" or similar respirator and read the labels
before intermixing.
Your paint will eventually dry, BTW. The new formula paints dry to the
touch almost immediately and cure in less than 24 hours when mixed with
mineral spirits. You did not mention if your slow-dry paint had a
somewhat glossy finish - if so, insufficient mixing as I described
earlier may be more of your problem than the thinner you used - in
addition to not enough flatting agent, you probably didn't get enough
resin for the paint to cure quickly enough. The gloss paints in the
range also dry just about as quickly, so "resin shortage" is probably
much of the problem.
I have not tried the very old "hot" paints with mineral spirits, but I
bet they might work if properly mixed.
Pete Chalmers