Tru Color brushable paint tips?

[squirrelhunter]

Has anyone tried the Tru Color line of brushable paints? I picked up a few colors recently because they were good matches for some colors I needed to touch up some freight cars.

I tried using the concrete color to paint the foundation of a building last night was got really poor results. I'll try to take pictures tomorrow, but the paint went on thick- like think Testors enamel straight from the bottle thick. Brush marks everywhere.

I had some tru color thinner on hand and tried to see if mixing a bit of paint in with it would do the trick. No luck with that or with using different brushes. I tried a micro brush, and the paint gummed up so fast when I used the thinner to clean it all the bristles came off when I rubbed of a paper towel.

Any suggestions? I'm going to email tru color to see if they have any tips. It's frustrating to spend $6 on a bottle of paint and get results similar to what I used to get when I was 14 and drybrushed $2 testors enamel straight from the bottle.

[garethashenden]

I've had brush marks from their standard paints, so I'm not surprised that you're getting brush marks from thicker paints.

[C855B]

...when I used the thinner to clean it all the bristles came off when I rubbed of a paper towel...

Not a surprise. Tru-Color's solvent base is acetone, which is aggressive and dissolves a lot of things... including CA glues. The thinner likely dissolved the plastic the micro-brush tip is made from (for grins I might try this myself later today).

I've not used the brushable formulation yet, although it occurs to me I may have an unopened bottle or two on the bench for an upcoming project. You may or may not have read my travails with regular Tru-Color, ruining an expensive Shapeways shell trying to brush touch-ups. I love the way this paint sprays and covers, and clean-up is lightning-fast, unlike acrylics. However, given its zero tolerance for errors and the brushability problems, I'm about ready to revisit Scalecoat and see if I can get past the issues I was having spraying it with the new airbrush.

[dmidkiff]

I've found a couple ways to help Tru Color brush better.

• Use multiple light coats to build up the color, don't try to get that touch up in one pass
• Leave a small drop of paint out on a palette so it thickens up a little bit, this is relevant to the spray colors, I've never used the brushable bottles. I then dip my brush into lacquer thinner and pull paint into the bristles rather than trying to pick up paint directly.

Like Mike mentioned, the acetone base is very aggressive and will ruin things in a hurry. With just a little paint, and thinner if needed, you can get away with touch ups if you go slowly and with multiple coats. Of course they still never look as good as the spray finish.

Good luck.
Doug

[squirrelhunter]

I'd forgotten about this post- I ended up emailin Tru Color and got the response below from them-

"
Thank you for your email.  The TCP-800 series is very thick paint, intended for a paint brush. You can add a eyedropper or 2 of thinner to decrease the  viscosity of the paint and see if it flows better with the paint brush. Use a flat tweezer, a plastic sprue from a model or similar item to stir the thinner into the paint and then shake. You can apply multiple thin coats. Suggest drying time of 45-60 minutes between coats."

Sounds reasonable but I haven't had time to try it yet. I have a spare MT rib side boxcar body I plan to test the brushable boxcar red on next time I get a chance.

[nickelplate759]

I actually sprayed  True Color flat once - 'cause I wanted a flat tan interior for some passenger cars.  I had to thin it a lot - at least 50% - to get it to spray.