Touch-up paint

[TiredIronGRB]

I know most of us get our colors matched at Lowes or Home Depot but it never really matches perfectly, the color, sheen or texture is always a little off. I for one would be interested in a 3-5oz bottle of the actual paint used by the factory.

[dkalwishky]

I would also be interested in that.

[AkumaZeto]

Yup me too

[RRHandy]

Me also four

[Prowler901]

Now that is an excellent idea!

[Gilatrout]

Yes please

[Alpha]

We'd love to provide something like this. We've looked into this several times in the past, and unfortunately it's a larger challenge than it might appear from the outside. I suspect that's why the other foam airplane companies like Horizon Hobby, Hobbico, don't offer foam touch up paint for their foam aircraft, either.

Here's why:

1) The paint sprayed on at the factory is not your average paint. Without getting into too much detail, it is formulated to be sprayed with an industrial spray gun. It cannot be shot through a typical hobby sized airbrush, and it does not brush on well. Sometimes a foam part will arrive with a bit of "touch up"; I'm sure some of you have seen this firsthand. The brushed on area never truly matches the painted on area, despite it being the exact same paint, in terms of sheen, texture, and evenness. What's more, the factory paint is not always completely opaque.

2) Even if we were able to formulate a brush-on or airbrush-capable paint that matches the factory color and sheen, and somehow make an economic case for that initial investment, the largest hurdle would be importing that paint. Importing foam and electronics is one thing, but paint is an entirely different category because it is a liquid chemical. If I could only disclose the huge amount of time and money we spend annually on insurance and logistical challenges regarding the importation of batteries!! It makes the economics of bringing in a few jars of paint, unfortunately, untenable.

3) We've looked at domestic sources for paint, but again, the projected unit cost always ends up considerably higher than the ol' pint at Home Depot.

Where possible, we try to select colors for new planes that use off the shelf colors, so pilots can use Tamiya or Testors from their local hobby store. But until the challenges cited above are mitigated, I'm afraid we're at an impasse. If any of you have any ideas, as always we are all ears!!

[Prowler901]

Thanks for the details, Alpha! That all makes sense from the business position. Would it be an option to share the paint codes? Or, mixture ratios to get the color matches? That way we could take that to say the local "paint store" and have them mix it up for us. Of course different paints and sheens are going effect the color, but at least it would be in the ball park.

[StormyDog1962]

Not to mention that many times planes will vary slightly from lot to lot as the person mixing the paint may not measure exactly the same each time so even if we had some touch up paints it may still be off a bit. Taking them in to have the color matched up works pretty good in most cases but also look at Model Masters and Tamiya paints for some good options.