Iron Modeler

Can You Really Go Home Again?

“My first job, I was in-house at a fur company, with this old pro copywriter. Greek, named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is ‘new’. Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of... calamine lotion. But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. It's delicate... but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, ‘nostalgia’ literally means, ‘the pain from an old wound’. It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.” -- Don Draper (Jon Hamm), “Mad Men”

Hi, all…
I’ve been meaning to write this ever since my 40^th High School reunion in 2022. Given that I recently began my 61st personal solar orbit, I’ve been running ideas through my head, and I think I finally will be able to put something coherent together…

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Have you ever been bored and in an attempt to entertain yourself, you type in an old address, the name of your old school, or an old place you used to go, into Google? You click on the map and zoom in to a place you knew like the back of your hand—unless it has met the fate many places like that do and been razed and replaced…

Take the house you lived in as a kid. Go to Google Maps, find the house, and zoom in. Look at the neighboring houses. Try to look at them as they are, not as you remember them. Is that possible?

Many times, you might think, “I wonder what that house is like now?” In one of those strange moments, you might even think something like, “If it went on the market, it would be fun to walk through it.” And, in a crazy minute, “What if I was to buy it?”

Snap out of it.

These thoughts are a sure sign that nostalgia has bitten you. Hard.

Here’s the truth: Nothing is as it was. It never will be. It never can be.

Why? That thief we call Father Time dictates that things will never be the same, except in your memories.  Places change.  You have changed.

Ever since I moved to the Greater Upper Midlands Co-Prosperity Sphere in 2001, friends from South Florida would ask me if I miss the old stomping grounds. Based on a visit made a mere three months after I left, my answer shocks them.

I told them that I miss people (some who have departed this world) and I miss places that were no longer the places I knew—if they still exist at all. For instance, for several years our Friday Night eating establishment of choice was 3 Guys from Italy on University Drive just north of the I-595 interchange. In my return at the end of 2001 (again, three months after I left), it was gone, closed and reopened as (IIRC) some sort of taqueria.

Our other Friday night spot after closing the hobby shop used to be the Applebee’s at University Drive and Peters Road next to the Albertson’s. Don’t go looking for it. It is now a Charles Schwab office. And the Albertson’s is now a Publix. And the old hobby shop is gone—destroyed when the building exploded four or five years ago.

The yardstick I use tends to be hobby shops. I know, you’re shocked. But I take a look at what was then and what was now. None—and I mean zero—of the hobby shops I frequented in my South Florida days remains today. They’ve all been closed for a least a decade, some even longer. The same goes for restaurants, craft stores, grocery stores, movie theaters, golf courses...

Even during my brief travels out and about in town when running to and fro for reunion duties during my visit in 2022 proved to me that the Ft. Lauderdale I knew lived only in my memories. Even if a building or an establishment was still there, it wasn’t the same as it was when I left 23 years ago.

Well, except Lester’s Diner—that place is a time capsule.

Lest you think this is a phenomenon of big cities, ask my wife about her small home town, and how it has changed over the years.

No, these places we knew in our youth are, in the here and now, vastly different.

Our nostalgia makes us want to believe that they are the same—that, if you could go back to that house of your youth, you could stand in the same place in the family room and watch the sunset stream through the windows the same way they did when you were a kid. That is an illusion, created by the effect of mist of time on your memories. It is what we want to see, because humans tend to remember the very good things we’ve experienced in vivid detail while allowing the really bad experiences to fade.

And yes, sitting here at my desk, I can close my eyes and imagine a cool fall day in Ft. Lauderdale, standing in the family room of that house, and noting how much softer the light is compared to the summer time. I can sense the difference in how the shadows fall at various times of the year. The air is cool and dry—not the humid hot air of summer.

I miss those days, I miss that experience...

But in the 30+ years since I moved out of that house, changes have taken place that make those visions I have impossible to duplicate.

It is best to leave them as memories and move on.

“This device isn't a spaceship. It's a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the Wheel. It's called a Carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around, and back home again... to a place where we know we are loved.” -- Don Draper (Jon Hamm)

Even though the subject of the “Mad Men” episode quoted was a Kodak Carousel slide projector, each of us has our own mental Carousel. Replay the memories, because you cannot truly re-live them in the present.

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As I type this, I have “My Mix” on YouTube playing. In the time it took me to type this, I’ve heard songs from my formative years, ranging from mid-1970’s Blue-Eyed Soul (Robin Trower’s “Too Rolling Stoned”) to early 1980’s Genesis (“Home By The Sea” and “Keep it Dark”) to 1990’s Girl Group rock (The Donnas’ “Take it Off”). Right now, Al Stewart is singing about strolling through a crowd like Peter Lorre, as a girl comes out of the sun, silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain (how I adore the imagery in the lyrics for “The Year of the Cat”)...

This music evokes the same memories—remembering where I was and what I was doing when I heard them for the first time...or the hundredth time…

As we get older, the experiences of youth seem to come rushing back, in sharper detail than they ever had before.

My advice? Enjoy the ride. Soak up the vision of days past. What if one of those experiences that makes you cringe hits you? Enjoy that, too. Because all of those experiences are part of the person you’ve become over the years.

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Thanks for reading. Be good to one another, and, as always, I bid you Peace.

The Hows and Whys of Post-War United States Military Air Power

Howdy, all!  Today (28 March 2024, to be exact) is a rare day--I'm making multiple posts on the same day for your reading enjoyment.  Sit back, relax, and enjoy...
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Today, let’s examine how the creation of the United States Air Force as a separate branch of the military created the military’s air power structure. This is a much larger brief than I had planned, but it answers a friend’s questions of “Why doesn’t the Army or Marines operate the A-10” and “How did the military air power structure get the way it is?”

Several names to remember—these acts of Congress, conferences, memorandums, and agreements shaped the United States’ post-WWII air power doctrine:

• The National Security Act of 1947

• The Key West Agreement of 1948

• The Pace-Finletter Memorandum of Understanding of 1952

• The Howze Board of 1961

• The Johnson-McConnell Agreement of 1966
  

It is a tangled tale, and if you really want to start at the start, it goes back to 1907.

The U. S. Army got into the aviation business during the Civil War, actually, but things began in earnest when the Aeronautical Division, U. S. Army Signal Corps was formed in 1907. The Aeronautical Division began acquiring aircraft in 1908, purchasing one nonrigid airship and one Wright Model A airplane from the Wright Brothers. The dirigible was delivered in July 1908, and the airplane came along in September. It was this airplane that also caused the first military fatality related to the new machines, when, on 17 September 1908, a propeller split, severed a guy wire, causing the airplane to crash. Killed in the crash was LT Thomas E. Selfridge, one of the early officers of the Division…

As the years went by, the Aeronautical Division would be replaced with the Air Division, which became the Aviation Section of the U. S. Signal Corps, which was in turn replaced by the U. S. Army Air Service in the World War I years. In 1926, the Army’s aviation group became the U. S. Army Air Corps, a title it would maintain until 1941, when it was changed to the U. S. Army Air Forces. The Air Corps still would exist in the army, relegated to battlefield observation and liaison duties, while the USAAF would handle the ever evolving concept of strategic and tactical air power.

Things got interesting. Since the early 1920’s, there had always been a faction of the USAAC/USAAF who believed that the service should be separate and independent from the Army. In 1947, the National Security Act did just that—in among many items that discussed intelligence gathering, a National Military Establishment, and security, President Truman ordered the creation of a United States Air Force as an independent branch of a revamped Department of Defense. In part, the duties were broadly outlined:

“In general, the United States Air Force shall include aviation forces both combat and service not otherwise assigned. It shall be organized, trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and sustained offensive and defensive air operations. The Air Force shall be responsible for the preparation of the air forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war except as otherwise assigned and, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of the peacetime components of the Air Force to meet the needs of war.”

At the same time, the U. S. Navy realized the importance of aviation, and began to develop their own organic air arm for the Fleet, as well as for the United States Marine Corps. Indeed, through the better part of two World Wars, the Navy’s investment in aviation paid off, much to the chagrin of long-time “Black-Shoe” officers. As aircraft became more capable, they would replace the big guns of the Navy’s battleships and cruisers. They became the eyes and ears of the Fleet, and they employed it quite effectively. The one drawback to post-war Navy aviation was that the early jets caused some issues. They were slow, thirsty, and early jet engines’ performance made them less than ideal from operations from a carrier deck.

At the end of the war, the United States possessed nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons of the day were large, and required large aircraft to deliver them—aircraft that were in the USAF inventory. Naval aircraft, operating off carrier decks, could not carry and deliver the nukes of the period. As a bit of a sop to the Navy, Truman promised the Navy that they could build their “supercarrier”, the USS United States (CVA-58), and allowed them to maintain an aviation wing of their own—for tactical, not strategic functions.

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions…

In March 1947, the service chiefs met in Key West, Florida to come up with specified duties for each branch of the United States armed forces. The documents that resulted from these meetings have been collectively called the “Key West Agreement of 1948”, formally Functions of the Armed Forces and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The largest outcome of the meetings was an outline on how air assets would be deployed. The aforementioned Supercarrier and Naval Air Arm were indeed part of the discussion, but the largest discussion concerned the new USAF. Because they felt they were in the strategic airpower business, the USAF wanted to be the sole branch to conduct strategic aerial warfare. The truth be told, Curtis LeMay, USAF Chief of Staff, thought the USAF should be the sole service branch to operate any form of aircraft—or, as he put it, the Air Force should operate “everything that flies, right down the last puddle jumper.”

In the end, the Key West Agreement specified that the Navy (and by extension, the Marines) needed to have their own tactical (but not strategic) air power, and were permitted to develop the same. The Army was sort of left out in the cold in all these talks, and the aviation duties left within the Army structure at the time of the National Security Act were more or less kept as-is. The Air Force’s specific areas of operation were kept a bit vague at the time the Agreement was signed.

The papers, and the resulting memorandum, was sent to the Joint Chiefs in March 1948. A few months later, the Agreement was amended, and specific duties for the USAF were outlined:

• Gain/maintain air superiority

• Air defense of the United States

• Strategic air warfare

• Interdiction of enemy land power and communications

• Close combat and logistical air support

• Intelligence (including tactical intelligence) and aerial photography

• Airlift, air transport and resupply, and support for airborne and amphibious operations

• Interdict enemy sea power

• Antisubmarine warfare and shipping protection

• Aerial mine-laying

At the end of the day, the Army got to say their piece. The Agreement was said to bind the Armed Forces together into an “efficient team of land, naval, and air forces”. The USAF was to provide CAS, airlift, resupply, reconnaissance, and infrastructure interdiction. The Navy was given responsibility for developing and maintaining a tactical air arm. The Army could retain aviation assets for battlefield reconnaissance and medical evacuation (Medevac).

In 1948, this arrangement worked given the equipment then being fielded. However, time and technology stand still for no man…

In 1952, a memorandum of understanding was drafted and signed by then-Secretary of the Air Force Thomas K. Finletter and then-Secretary of the Army Frank Pace. Called the Pace-Finletter Memorandum of Understanding, it accomplished two objectives.

The first objective was removing the gross weight capacity of the Army’s rotary wing aircraft. As helicopters developed and could carry more and do more than simple battlefield observation and short-distance medevac tasks, the Army would find ways to use them to their advantage. The Pace-Finletter MOU codified these changes, to a certain extent, by allowing the Army to operate larger helicopters to serve their combat needs.

At the same time, the MOU imposed a 5,000-lb. empty gross weight restriction on the Army’s fixed-wing assets. This limited the types of aircraft the Army could use, mostly directed at the liaison and administrative types in use.

This MOU also placed limits on what the USAF could do with their own helicopters. They could be used for airlift and medevac purposes to support combat operations using either fixed- OR rotary-wing aircraft.

It also stated the following:

“Army organic aviation will consist of aircraft primarily utilized by the Army within the Army combat zone as an integral part of its components for the purpose of expediting and improving ground combat and logistical procedures, subject, however, to the limitation that such aircraft will not duplicate the functions of the U.S. Air Force in providing the Army, by fixed-wing and rotary-wing type aircraft, close combat support, assault transport and other troop carrier airlift, aerial photography, tactical reconnaissance and interdiction of enemy land power and communications.”

But wait, there’s more!

By the early 1960’s, the Army (and, to some extent, the Marines) were developing what would become known as the Airmobile concept. One of the tenets of this new way of thinking was that the Army would use specialized helicopters to provide organic Close Air Support to their troops in the field. The war in Southeast Asia was beginning to create a lot of friction between the Army and Air Force. The Air Force pointed to the Key West Agreement and the Pace-Finletter MOU and bluntly told the Army to:

A. Stop using armed helicopters for CAS

B. Stop arming the new Grumman OV-1 Mohawk Battlefield Surveillance airplane

C. Terminate the AC-1 Caribou program.

As discussed, LeMay firmly believed that the USAF should be the only service branch to operate any type of aircraft. And, to LeMay, that meant strategic air warfare doctrine developed around the deployment and use of nuclear weapons. However, the Key West Agreement and Pace-Finletter MOU challenged that notion.

Enter the Howze Board. And enter more fuel to the fire.

The Howze Board was convened at the behest of Secretary of Defense McNamara to discuss a working plan for integrating helicopters into a coherent unit. It also wanted to explore the use of helicopters as Close Air Support aircraft, something the Air Force was vehemently against. After all, one of the tenets of both the Key West Agreement and the Pace-Finletter MOU was establishing the USAF’s responsibility for fielding CAS assets, and the stipulation that the Army should not develop aircraft in parallel to the Air Force for the same mission.

Tangent: For those who want to point at the USMC’s use of their own CAS (from the use of F4U Corsairs in Korea to AV-8B Harriers in modern times), recall that the Key West Agreement allowed the Navy and Marines to develop and field “tactical” aviation assets. Loophole? Yeah. But the fact that the Air Force was split off from the Army as a separate, mature force was much different than the way the Marines were always a paired service with the Navy, and developed their own air arms together.

The result of the Howze Board was the formation of the 11^th Air Assault Division (Test) in 1963 at Fort Benning, Georgia. The subordinate units of the 11^th Air Assault Division planned and tested various concepts until they found a workable formula. In 1965, the 11^th Air Assault Division (Test) was merged with the 10^th Air Transport Brigade and the 2^nd Infantry Division. The Division was then inactivated and the personnel and materiel were assigned to the 1^st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). They were sent to Vietnam in July, 1965, and began to prove the Airmobile concept to the Army leadership. The Army was satisfied that organic Army units could indeed carry out any mission that the situation called for.

This is where what would be “another story for another time” needs to be told now. The AC-1 (later CV-2) Caribou was a deHavilland Canada cargo airplane designed at the request of the U. S. Army capable of short field operations. The Army saw these aircraft as ideal for carrying troops and cargo into the battlefield. The Air Force, however, insisted that the Fairchild C-123 could carry more for a longer distance. What rankled the USAF was that, with the acquisition of the Caribou and the OV-1, the Army was building an organic tactical air arm.

Incidentally, the Caribou proved to be a better aircraft in theater, but the USAF was still not happy. So…

In 1966, Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson and USAF Chief of Staff John P. McConnell came to an agreement, called the Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966. The result: The Army agreed to give up the Caribou, which were transferred to the USAF in 1967 under Operation RED LEAF and re-designated as C-7. The agreement stated that the USAF was required to maintain the C-7 and were required to confer with the Army before replacing or retiring the type.

The Army was allowed to retain the OV-1. They continued to arm them, much to the chagrin of the USAF.

At the same time, this agreement made the USAF relinquish all rotary wing aircraft used for intra-theater transport and other Army-related missions. This was specifically aimed at the USAF use of the Sikorsky CH-3A as transports. The USAF’s use of these aircraft were to be limited to Special Air Warfare and Search and Rescue use.

And the Air Force adopted the Navy's Vought A-7 (as the A-7D) for the close air support mission.  After evaluating that aircraft's combat performance in the skies over Vietnam, they began the A-X program, which resulted in the selection of the Fairchild-Republic A-10 as the USAF's next CAS aircraft.  It boggles the mind that the final example of the 715 A-10's built left Fairchild's Hagerstown, Maryland facility in 1984--40 years ago.  The venerable Hawg, the airplane the generals didn't want (until it proved itself, then they only wanted it when it was convenient because it wasn't a sexy, pointy-nosed, speed demon of an airplane) is now in the twilight of its career, sadly, but as I've said before, technology and time stand still for no man...

When the Army developed the Hughes Helicopters AH-64 Apache beginning in the early 1970's (to replace the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne cancelled in part to free up funding for the A-10 and AV-8 Harrier), there was some growling from the Air Force, but by then the Army was going to do what was good for the Army, Air Force arguments and the patchwork of inter-service agreements and memorandums be damned.

So, here we are. What did we learn? Intra-service rivalries are not exactly a good thing…even though the various agreements specified no overlap of assets, this is what happens. It is expensive. But is there an alternative?

In one of those “chew the rag” sessions at the hobby shop, a discussion about the various military forces around the globe started. One thing led to another, and the conversation shifted to something along the lines of, “What would happen in the U.S. if the individual branches of the military were combined into a unified force (such as the unified armed forces of Canada)?"

But that truly is another story for another time.

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Sorry to be so long, but it is a story that few people even know about. And again, if I got some of the details not quite correct, let me know.

Thanks for reading.  As always, be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.

Paint for Scale Models – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly…

Hi, all! Welcome to the latest edition of “There’s another paint fail…”

I’ve documented my recent searches for a good model paint.

In my model building years, I started (as did most modelers in the 1970’s) with either Testors PLA Enamels or the Pactra equivalent. I stuck with Testors, since it was what I could find at most of the local places that sold models and supplies for them.

When I discovered modeling magazines and dedicated hobby shops in the late 1970’s, I also discovered the Pactra Authentic International Colors. I used them in 1981 to paint an Otaki F6F Hellcat, and I was smitten. I found that when thinned with Aerogloss Dope Thinner, the paint laid down very thin, dried very quickly, and gave an almost eggshell finish. Of course, that meant that the paint was on its way out—indeed, Pactra had discontinued the line. No matter, a change was coming…

When I went off to college and resumed my model building activities during my second semester, I decided to give my dorm neighbors a break and switch to something more friendly. At the time, there was only one acrylic paint for models, that being the OG of modeling acrylics, Polly-S. I continued to use Polly-S (with one exception) until that line, too, began to be phased out. Polly-S was a strange paint—it was a latex paint that could be brushed without leaving brush marks, but it was tricky to airbrush. You could thin it with water or alcohol, but it took some trial and error to see which one and how much would do the job. It seemed to me that no two bottles were the same, so I got used to making changes on the fly. In hindsight, it was merely okay, nothing stellar, but I had decided to be kind to my neighbors, so I was stuck with that decision...

For those of you who just “gotsta know”, the exception was in 1983, when I built the then-new Monogram 1/48th scale F-105G. Since the Polly-S representations of the SEA colors weren’t available to me at the time, and because I wanted to see what the fuss was all about, I used the new Testors Model Master paints. I used them also on a Monogram 1/48th scale F-100D and a kitbashed ESCI/Monogram A-7D. They worked really well, but they came with all of the issues of a solvent-based paint—namely, how do you dispose of the thinners used to clean out the airbrush (I used an empty thinner can) and what to do with the thinned paint (not a good idea to return it to the bottle, as it would cause the paint to jell more times than not)…

In the meantime, two new acrylics came into view—Tamiya Acrylics and the then-Gunze-Sangyo (now GSI/Creos) Aqueous Color Range. The paints were similar in chemical composition, and early on I could get them to work quite well. But back in the day, there were frequent changes in the paint chemistry for the Tamiya paints, and accordingly I had to learn how to use it all over again with each change. In the case of the GSI Aqueous paint, I liked the way it sprayed, but it seemed to take a lot of paint to cover, and that a jar didn’t seem to go far.

I took a side trip into the 1992-era Floquil Enamels for about six months, then Floquil/Polly-S graced the world with a new acrylic paint: PollyScale. I loved this stuff, and couldn’t (still can’t) understand the negativity surrounding the paint. It thinned with distilled water (it said so on the jar AND in the literature available for the paint), sprayed nicely, and dried to a tight layer of color. It feathered out well, too, and I could mask it with no peeling/lifting issues whatsoever. I have a feeling that those who had problems with the paint were busy playing home chemist and using some strange concoction to thin the paint, which caused all the problems mentioned. Hint: Windshield washer fluid is good for removing dirt and bugs from glass. I doubt it was designed to thin paint. As I said in previous paint discussions, use the thinner recommended by the manufacturer—in this case, that thinner was distilled water, period. I was reminded of this sometime later, when I would add Future to the paint and thin with either alcohol or the Testors Acryl Thinner—the paint would give me fits. Once I went back to plain old distilled water added to just the paint, those issues went away.

Of course, in time RPM International (the parent company to Testors, Floquil/Polly-S, Bondo, Zinsser, and a handful of other companies) killed off both the Floquil enamels and PollyScale lines (and the Aeromaster Warbird Colors and Acrylic Warbirt Colors, which were checmically identical and manufactured by Floquil/Polly-S).

In response, Testors introduced a new acrylic line that was supposed to combine the best features of PollyScale and the Pactra Acrylic line (that was also fairly nice paint—I only used it once or twice, and I don’t recall any issues). This new line was called the Testor Model Master Acrylic line, and it was the Shop Vac of suck. The pigment settled hard at the bottom of the jar, so it took a powered stirrer and a good deal of shaking to mix the paint. It would clog the airbrush at the drop of a hat, it didn’t cover well, and when you could get it to spray, it would dry with a rough, chalky finish.

Another pair of new acrylics that popped onto the scene briefly were the Niche Paints (they had two lines, one featured WWII Luftwaffe colors and the other was a line of modern Soviet colors) and the Monogram ProModeler paints.

The Niche paints were rumored to be custom shades of regular eggshell finish interior house paints. I’ve only used it a few times, but I can almost buy the rumor. It wasn’t around long…

The ProModeler paints came along in 1999-2000, and were touted as the first hobby paints to be certified Non-Toxic by some US government entity. I used it once. The paint took forever to dry—if it dried at all. Again, they didn’t last long…

Anyway, I had to find another go-to paint line in the early 2000’s. Since PollyScale went away, I have tried the following:

• Testors Acryl

• Vallejo Model Air

• Lifecolor

• Hataka Orange Line

• Mission Models Paint

• AK Real Color

• ICM Acrylics

In addition, I have renewed my acquaintance with the chemically similar GSI/Creos Aqueous and Tamiya Acrylic line.

So, what did I experience?

Testors Acryl

When I first used it, I wasn’t too thrilled—PollyScale, back in the day, was a superb acrylic paint that could be thinned with distilled water, airbrushed well, hand brushed well, and had good adhesion. As I started to switch from PollyScale to Acryl (the writing was on the wall—RPM was discontinuing PollyScale), I learned to work with it, as I have done with every single brand of model paint I’ve used since way back in the early 1970’s. After a while, I reached a point where I was comfortable in how the paint behaved. It became my go-to paint brand for several years, until RPM once again decided to cut back on their product line and killed the Acryl line off.

Verdict: It is a shame that RPM killed it off, since it was head-and-shoulders better than the previous Model Master Acrylics. The color fidelity was good, and the paint performance was good and predictable.

Vallejo Model Air

With the demise of the Acryl line, my next stop was Vallejo. The learning curve was steeper, since it really didn’t like to spray to my liking. Once I learned to use their thinner, things went better. I wasn’t thrilled about using a paint that required a primer—and I did use it without primer many times—but my bigger gripes were with color accuracy and shelf life.

Vallejo’s idea of color accuracy is to get it somewhere within city limits; i.e. FS36622 gray will be gray. Whether it comes close to FS36622 or not is a matter of personal choice, but usually it did not. Which is okay, I can mix colors. But when I use a small amount from a bottle and close the bottle tightly, I don’t expect the remaining paint to turn to thick goo in a month. Also, they almost always required a primer, and the “hotter”, the better, which sort of defeats the purpose of using an acrylic paint, no?

Verdict: Not a full fail, and their Metal Color paints are still my go-to for bare metal finishes. And I’ll still use it for hand brushing. But for airbrushing camouflage schemes, nope, this ain’t it. And their shelf life is still hit/miss.

Lifecolor

I used Lifecolor for the orange patches on the Sea King I built several years ago, and I was impressed. It laid down smoothly, with no orange peel or other issues. I was so impressed that I bought their ship colors and their version of Air Superiority Blue for when I get around to building my original-issue Revell 1/72nd scale F-15 as one of the prototypes. It does require you to use their thinner, but I’m good with that. See my take on PollyScale above…

Verdict: I like this based on one use. We’ll see how other colors behave, but I’m optimistic.

Hataka

My experience with the Hataka acrylics was not good. They clogged the airbrush, no matter what I did. I used their thinner alone. I added some flow aid and retarder to the mix. It would still clog the airbrush. I wound up using the colors I had to paint terrain, where I could use a brush.

Verdict: Fail.

Mission Models Paint (MMP)

This stuff was being pimped as the greatest paint ever* (*IF you use their primer, their reducer, their poly-mix, and strictly follow their application procedure to the letter). I painted two 1/72nd scale F-16s with it, following their instructions to a ‘T’. And when I went to apply the decals, as soon as I put a wet decal on the surface of the model, the paint began to run like watercolors.

I ran some further tests on styrene card. No matter what I did, the result was the same—a fragile paint that would run when a little water was placed on top of the paint.

Verdict: Fail. Big fail, given the advertising hype. And yes, I know people who have been able to make it work. The bigger point here is that I shouldn’t have to go through a Graduate-Level course on how to use their paint and get it to yield a permanent, durable finish...

AK Real Colors (AKRC)

I was reluctant to use this product for two reasons—one, nobody could tell me whether it was miscible with AK’s acrylic thinner as well as their “High Compatibility Thinner”; and two, AK has, in the past, stepped on their ding-dongs with golf shoes in their advertisement department—promoting the Holocaust and other forms of forced slavery to sell books and then, when getting called on it, brushing it off as it was not a big deal.

But when I needed paint for my Hasegawa 1/72nd scale A-10A, I decided to give it a try. I had, by this time, been thinning Tamiya acrylics with lacquer thinner, so the first issue was mooted. I still wasn’t thrilled with their advertising gaffes, but I figured I was buying the paint from someone who had already paid AKI.

From a performance standpoint, thinned with either Tamiya lacquer thinner or Mr. Color Leveling Thinner, the paint sprayed very nicely, laid down smoothly, and dried quickly.

From a color accuracy standpoint, there were issues. Their idea of what 34102 and 34092 looked like weren’t in line with what was indicated in the FS595a fan deck I keep handy. It wasn’t close to something I had painted earlier with the PollyScale acrylics. The 34012 was too brown and not olive enough, the 34092 was almost turquoise rather than a deep green with a blueish cast. The 36081 gray was also too light—even if you subscribe to the scale color theory (which I do), it was still far too light.

Verdict: Fail. Not a hard fail, because they performed well. But they failed where it matters most—the paint should be close to what the label says. Talking with friends, this is a hit/miss thing with AK. Some colors are spot on, others are not correct.

ICM Acrylics

I’m building the “Ghost of Kyiv” release of ICM’s 1/72nd scale MiG-29 Fulcrum C. It was given to me as a gift along with the ICM paint set specifically intended for this kit. The kit gives you the gray “pixel” camouflage as decals, but I scanned the sheet and created masks on my Cameo 4.

As I began to paint the airplane, I noted that the paint said when airbrushing, thin “with water or thinner”, the thinner being unspecified. I’ve read a few accounts of folks using X-20A. I also noted that it said to use a primer. So, I primed the model with a coat of Tamiya X-18 Semigloss Black and allowed it to dry for a few days.

I began with the lightest of the gray colors. I used distilled water to thin the paint, and it seemed to go down fairly nicely. I did note that the surface was a bit chalky, but nothing that couldn’t be buffed out when the paint was dry with a microfiber towel.

I let that color dry for a few nights. I then airbrushed the next darker shade of gray on the underside. This time, I used Tamiya X-20A thinner. Again, it laid down okay, but with a chalky finish. Again, it was allowed to dry overnight.

When I resumed painting, I noted some dust that wouldn't simply wipe off, so I dampened a Q-Tip with a wee bit of distilled water—the swab was barely moist. As I tried to wash the dust off, I noted that the paint was dissolving—almost like a watercolor. As I continued, the paint wiped off the model. I did the same thing in several other locations on the model to make sure it wasn’t a localized issue. Nope, the paint—whether it had been thinned with water or X-20A—dissolved and wiped off of the surface.

The final confirmation was when it took a little over 10 minutes’ scrubbing with a toothbrush under the faucet. The paint simply wiped off.

Verdict: I hate to say this, because I think ICM is hitting it out of the park with their kit releases over the past few years, but the paint gets a Hard Fail. I will do some more tests with the paint I have left to see if it wasn’t a “me problem”, so stay tuned. But for the MiG, the paint got stripped and the model will be painted with Tamiya Acrylics, thinned with lacquer thinner. That combination has not let me down for as long as I’ve been using it.

Which brings us to the GSI Aqueous and Tamiya Acrylics.

As mentioned earlier, I used both when they first arrived in the scene. As other paints were available that worked better for me, I didn’t use them that much. But was the other acrylic lines died off, I took another look.

The initial impetus to revisit them was a pair of 1/72nd scale Phantoms in British colors I built, Academy’s F-4J as a 74 Sqn F-4J(UK) and the Fujimi FG.1. British Standard colors are hard to come by in acrylic paints, and I had already stockpiled some of the required colors, so I gave them another go. This time, I used X-20A thinner (this predated my use of Mr. Leveling Thinner buy a few months), and found they worked much better than my previous efforts. The only issue I had was with the decal application on the FG.1, which did weird things to the paint. I blame this not on the paint, but the decal adhesive, as the same paint/clear coat combination worked with no issues on the F-4J(UK). I imagine the paint would work even better with the use of that magic elixir known as Mr. Leveling Thinner, MLT, or simply “Unicorn Tears”…

And so my search ended at the Tamiya Acrylics. I guess I learned that the paint could be thinned with lacquer thinner in the late 1990’s. At the time, I was trying to remain as “hot solvent free” as I could (the exception was using Testors Metalizer Sealer as a clear coat before decals and weathering, as it was nearly bulletproof), so I steered clear. However, as the acrylic lines continued to shrink, I saw what some of my AMPS club buddies were achieving with this combination. So, I bit the bullet and tried it. As far as the fumes were concerned, I crack a window and wear a respirator. I use alcohol to clean the airbrush. So far, the results have been good—and they are repeatable. I’ve painted an Airfix 1/72nd scale Bristol Blenheim I and the Hasegawa 1/72nd scale A-10A (after I abandoned the AK Real Colors paints) with them. I painted all three of the Vermont ANG F-16’s using this mix. I had no surprises down the road when the decals went on.

I’m convinced, and it will take something Earth-shaking to change that opinion.

For those who want to know about the Andrea, Ammo by Mig, Citadel, Games Workshop, or the AK Interactive acrylics, I can only speak on the Citadel paints—I use them for detail painting only. Like the Vallejo Model Air and Model Color, they brush on well and I have no complaints. I had pondered using the AKI 3^rd Gen acrylics, but the other factor on paints, for me, is local availability. If I run out of a color, I’d like to be reasonably sure that I can buy a new jar/bottle locally and not have to put together a larger order with one of the online shops (I almost used the phrase “Mail Order”--kids, ask your parents). And in my area, I can get Tamiya Acrylics at several shops. So why would I want to venture too far away from that?

And yes, I said I also liked the Lifecolor paints. But I believe their use will be in limited, specific scenarios such as the Air Superiority Blue for the early F-15A, or the ship colors (unless I mix those, too, from Tamiya colors) because these too will need to be ordered online.

A final word on the GSI/Creos Aqueous line. I’d use them more IF I could find the H3XX and H4XX colors anywhere—these are the colors matched to AN/ANA, FS, RAL, and BSC paint specifications. I’ve scoured the various online shops, and all of them show stock on colors up to the H9X numbers. I contacted GSI/Creos, they say the colors in question are still being made (good thing, since most Hasegawa and Fujimi kits use their color call-outs). Knowing that, I would figure that Hobby Link Japan would have them, but recent searches have come up empty. If anyone can tell me what’s up here, I would appreciate it. And yes, I know I can use the Mr. Color lacquers (or the Tamiya Lacquer Paints, for that matter)—but their smell is much sharper, and lingers much longer, than that of either the Aqueous or Tamiya Acrylics thinned with MLT or lacquer thinner does.

As for the new breed of acrylic lacquers (MRP, SMS, etc.), I have not tried them for the reasons listed above. Some friends have used them, and they think they’re the best thing since bottled beer, sliced bread, apple pie, and Mom. Getting them can be an issue, which defeats the “locally stocked” availability question.

Postscript. A few weeks ago, Ammo by Mig announced a new acrylic line called “ATOM”. They are supposed to combine the best features of an acrylic paint with the best features of a lacquer. Several online shops are showing them as preorders. Just for giggles, I may have to try the line to see whether its performance is that much better than my current Tamiya/MLT mix. I don’t envision any of the local shops rushing out to start stocking ATOM, so it will have to be that much better than my current go-to to make me switch.

This opens another can of worms, one that some friends and I discussed several years ago, when MMP became available and folks were flocking to it. At the time, it seemed there was a new paint line announced every month, and modelers were flocking to them the way the 5-year olds playing soccer all follow the ball rather than playing their position. They never stick with one product long enough to become competent with it, before they run to the next shiny new paint line. I suppose you could say that I did the same thing during my recent search for a replacement for PollyScale and Acryl. I don’t think I fall into the same category, since my go-to lines were going away and I was trying to find a line that worked for me.

The other player at work are the manufacturers themselves. They change the formulations of their paint so often that a user doesn’t really have time to become properly attuned to them before they are gone, replaced by this year’s new darling.

And this is yet another reason I came to the conclusion I did—Tamiya Acrylics have been around since 1983 or 1984, and I don’t seem them going anywhere any time soon…

I have friends who still wish they could go buy some good, old, Dio-Sol/Xylene-laden Floquil paint. Sorry, gang, those days are long gone. With the recent demise of the Model Master paint, the same laments can be seen far and wide on the various modeling boards. Yeah, you can pine for them all you like, but they ain’t comin’ back...

There you go, my take on the State of Hobby Paints.

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I mentioned the 1/72nd scale models (a Hasegawa A-10A, an Airfix Blenheim, and ICM MiG-29), here are some happy snaps of the models. The Blenheim and MiG will be part of a “Small Forces” display at our show in June...

 

 

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The Tamiya 1/48th scale A-10A is almost done, look for a feature shortly.

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As always, thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.