When Testors dropped their newly acquired Floquil line of paints, my jaw dropped. How would I replace grimy black spray? I still have some in jars, but after hoarding and finding all of the grimy black spray in this area and beyond, I finally ran out. I have tried similar paints like Testors flat black and Scale Coat, but not great…passible, yes.
Today in a craft store I came across Krylon Chalky Finish anvil gray. It is dead on, three times the volume, and half of the price of what Floquil was offering.
If any of you folks know of other substitutes for grimy black, please share, but anvil gray is great!!
That’s great news and I’m glad as well to have some subsitutes. Joe Fugate just wrote in MRH this month about Micromark’s Microlux grimy black (made by Vallejo) being another “dead on” replacement for Floquil. Microlux is an acrylic obviously. I have the Microlux and have used it, not sure if my eye can tell that it’s “dead on” but it’s very good.
I agree that the color of the dark gray auto primers are nice and I keep a few cans of it on hand but, in my experience, it has a very high solids content, as any of the “sandable” primers will. I use it for spraying roof tops and some weathering where hiding detail is not a problem.
I’ve used the green chalkboard spray for some control panel facings and I look forward to trying out some of the Krylon anvil gray.
Grimy black: black lightened slightly with white or grey, then add green to suit.
Floquil Pullman Green with black added works, too. Can’t see why you’d require an exact colour match for grime - it’s dirt! [:P][swg]
For some reason this reminded me of when my Mom use to tell me to go wash my hands and I would say that I did. She would then say, they are still dirty and I would say ya but it’s clean dirt!
Back when I was a Pennsy modeler, many guys claimed that Floquil Grimy Black was actually the only paint that captured the true color of the Brunswick Green that the PRR used to paint its steam locomotives. Guys would actually add gloss to the Grimy Black when painting their Bowser and brass PRR steam.
My wife has a name for kids like you were/are … trouble! [oX)] My guess is your mom called you that too! Well, TBH, my wife still says that to me now and then. She said before I came along she had a quiet life and then I came along and dragged her a cross the pond and modernized her. Now she has a CC [X-)] and can drive! Oh my.
Ok to be fair, after working as an environmental geologist for many years cleaning up contaminate sites, I have learned there really is such a thing as clean dirt. So well, you can tell dear old mom you were right after all.
Just a guess but Howie probably knows that better than most of us, it just took that long before he ran out of his scavanged supply of Floquil grimy black!
I still have a bottle of it floating around myself along with some others I’ve stored for some time.
riogrande5761,
“Newly aquired” was about 25 years ago. That’s all I was sayin’. I was basically making the point that Testors didn’t buy Floquil and Polly and then turn around and shut them down. They ran them for a long time before giving up on both product lines.
There was an article, decades ago in MR or perhaps RMC, about a guy who used a rattle can and a sheet of cardstock to “bounce” weathering paint from rattle cans on his models. I have tried it. Good results are unpredictable and it takes more practice than I am prepared to allocate to the method.
And it is possible to use the same styrene or cardstock template that many guys use to weather the ends of tank cars to capture the two parallel lines of mud thrown up by the wheels with rattle-can paint, although not as fine in control as with an airbrush. DullCote which itself it weathering of a sort (and the first step in weathering using either the brushed or misted alcohol/india ink mix or chalks and powders) can certainly be applied using a rattle can. And wheels and trucks can be painted a non-dead black color using rattle can paint, and that itself is a form of weathering.
Wayne,I made my grimy black for special weathering projects except I started with Poly-S grimy black…I add 2-3 drops of white and IIRC 2 drops grey.Been several years since my last small project batch.
