Another Paint Manufacturer Bites the Dust - ScaleCoat Paint - Model Railroader Magazine

OK... I'll let a little bit I know about hobby paints out of the bucket...

In December, 2012 I visited the factory of an American gaming manufacturer that makes their own line of paints. At the time, they were transitioning from one line of paint to another.

I'll just call them "advanced", and "expert" lines. The advanced line was being replaced by the expert line.

I saw their molding, design, and packaging systems for figures, then I saw where they "make" their lines of paint. This is a highly regarded line of water-soluable paints for miniature figure painting.

What I saw, was five gallon pails of Sherwin Williams paint being blended with some additives to extend drying time and improve flow, then being packaged into this company's trademark 1/2 ounce bottles.

All their hobby paints were just modified Sherwin Williams house paint being repackaged as hobby paint.

Their new "expert" paints used a better line of SW product, and they were phasing out the other line because SW reformulated the base for that paint and it did not work as well.

The Worldwide leader in Gaming is Games-Workshop based in the UK. Their old line of (bolter round) paint was made in France, and it was also manufactured by a company that made house paint. I do not know where their new line of paint is made.

This is all OK. Sherwin Williams is not going to make gaming color paint in 1/2 ounce bottles. We need someone to do it in bulk. With some additional modifiers added, this is great hobby paint.

This brings me to Scalecoat. There was a gamer friend of mine that lived in Sarasota and had a business providing high-end automotive paint to body shops. He smelled the Scalecoat paint and swore it was actually an automotive paint made by DuPont. He said "I would know that smell anywhere".

This would not be surprising. Repackaging high quality automotive paint into convenient one ounce bottles is a good service for model railroaders.

I can't say for sure that is what Scalecoat paints were, but given what I know about other specialized hobby paints, it could be.

-Kevin