Introduction

Tru-Color Paint recently announced new colors in their railroad paint product line and sent a sampling of them, and this review premiers them, plus others. Those new matte paints are:

TCP-337 Seaboard Air Line Mint Green

TCP-338 Seaboard Air Line Dark Green

TCP-339 Chessie – Hopper Yellow

TCP-408 Matte Aged Rust

TCP-412 Matte Steel

Tru-Color also sent a bottle of their thinner, TCP-015.

Hosting over 353(!) colors in their model railroad range of solvent-based paints, and 135 colors for auto modelers, Tru-Color Paint was formed by Rick Galazzo and Scott Cohen in 2008 in Phoenix, AZ. Both principals have extensive experience with formulating paint on the commercial scale and decided to branch out on their own in the model paint business.

The paints are airbrush-ready plus a selection (81 colors) designed for brushing. Among those colors are six flesh tones, colors for rifle stocks, leathers, woods, and weathering. Their auto model paints are high gloss and metallic and pearlescent (Air Brush Ready). There are 32 matte sprayable colors in their series Structure, Trackage, Infrastructure, including stuccoes, bricks, rusts, etc. Finally, they make their own thinners, retarders, and clear coats.

Tru-Color is releasing new military colors for land, sea and air subjects of many countries and wars.

To give an idea of just how precise Tru-Color's color selection is, I present this randomly cut-n-pasted selection from their range of Freight Car paints and brushable paints:

TCP-847 Brushable Brass (Not Flat)
TCP-848 Brushable Copper (Not Flat)
TCP-849 Flat U.S. Army Green
TCP-850 Flat Safety Yellow
TCP-851 Flat Engine Black
TCP-855 Flat Weathered Gray Wood
TCP-856 Flat Seasoned Brown Wood
TCP-857 Flat Natural Wood
TCP-181 KCS- Freight Car Brown; 1944-1960's
TCP-182 ACL- Freight Car Brown; 1944-1960's
TCP-184 Frisco- Freight Car Brown; 1944-1960's
TCP-185 Central of Georgia- Freight Car Brown; 1944-1960' s
TCP-186 L&N- Freight car Brown; 1944-1960's
TCP-187 GTW- Freight Car Brown; 1944-1960's
TCP-188 MKT- Freight Car Brown; 1944-1960's
TCP-189 C&EI- Freight Car Brown; 1944-1960's
TCP-190 Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha- Freight Car Brown; 1944-1960's
TCP-191 Wabash- Freight Car Brown; 1944-1960's
TCP-192 GM&O- Freight Car Brown; 1944 forward
TCP-194 B&O- Freight Car Brown; 1947-1949

Tru-Color is becoming so dominate in the model railroad community that Microscale Industries is revising their instructions to include Tru-Color.

Tru-Color paints are available in 1 and 2 oz. plastic bottles, and even 16 oz. bottles.

Use

Tru-Color formulated these paints with acrylic pigments in a solvent carrier. The solvent contains a little acetone, about 5%, per Tru-Color. Clean-up is accomplished with plain acetone.

Years ago I had read old discussions that mistakenly stated that Tru-Color was a lacquer but that is not true.

The colors are ready to shoot through the airbrush right out of the bottle. Tru-Color recommends 28 psi through a medium-size tip.

To demonstrate the aforementioned colors I prepared styrene chips for each, and two railroad cars. I shot each color straight from the bottle, and cleaned the airbrush with acetone between colors. Yellow has always been a problem color so to really give it a stress test, I shot it over a dark brown model. The SAL greens went over a nice white base.

The small chapel was sprayed with TCP-418 Matte Stucco- Cream.

These colors are thin. Fortunately, the paint tends to dry well - fast enough that multiple coats don't run and yet slow enough that they did not "pebble" in flight.

Coverage was very good when I shot them at 30 psi. Lower psi with a couple of colors required multiple passes. It covered completely almost immediately. No detail was obscured.

All five of these paints sprayed without any trouble when I used them as-advertised. However, originally I shot them with a simple 42-year-old diaphragm compressor that maxes out at about 12 psi; Matte Steel clogged the tip time after time. (Fortunately, a squirt of acetone from a pipette cleaned the tip fairly quick.) I asked Tru-Color about that and they replied that the matte paints need about 15-20% thinner due to the additive to make them matte. My do-over with Matte Steel, at 30 psi and blended with four drops thinner to 20 drops of paint, produced excellent results with no clogging. Subsequent use of Chessie Hopper Yellow and three matte colors also sprayed with almost 1-pass coverage and with no clogging. Amazing how well things work when used as directed, huh?

The paint dries quickly. And in spite of the solvent carrier, there was no odor when I returned to the drying area (enclosed) about 20 minutes later.

Quality Control

After the paint had cured overnight I photographed the chips and models in direct sunlight. I have no references to match the SAL or Chessie colors to but they look right by the color images I have found. The dark green looks quite rich. (Aircraft (Japanese) modelers - it looks like a near dead ringer for Kawanishi Green.)

Health & Safety

Now for all the "California-blah blah blah-everything will kill you and the world is ending" warnings. Acetone is flammable, maybe even at 5%; I flunked high school chemistry so I don't know if it is more so than enamels and lacquers. So I did not shoot it into my electrically powered spray booth. Just straight outside and around the corner of my garage. I also wore a NIOSH Approved, OSHA 29 CFR 1910.132 standard respirator, safety goggles, and hospital vinyl gloves, and relished in plenty of fresh air (which is not much different than when I'm airbrushing "non-toxic" acrylics).

I'll say this. Model Master, Floquil, Humbrol - any enamel/lacquer paint - gives me a headache, sometimes even just the overspray that settled back on me. Tru-Color does not.

Conclusion

While I have a bottle or two of Tru-Color from when I visited their store back in 2008 or '09, I was probably scared off by the solvent and I don't recall using them. Now that I have tried them I do like them.

Their inordinately huge color selection is incredible. The paint dries well and, used with the recommended pressure and thinning ratio, airbrushes without complaint. Common inexpensive acetone is the recommended cleanup agent.

These are solvent paints so that may discourage some modelers and yet many modelers, especially professional model railroaders, hardly use anything but solvent based paints. From researching around the 'net, Tru-Color has been winning modelers away from their previous favorite brands; some professional painters advertise that Tru-Color is the only brand they use.

I am quite enthused by Tru-Color. These are definitely professional paints designed for the discriminating modeler.

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