MCW Enamels and Lacquers?

[Maletrain]

Saw this in another railroad list:

"MCW Finishes is joining the Model Railroad paint suppliers by adding Railroad colors to their extensive (and popular) line of automotive colors for the scale model car crowd.  They are duplicating the original Floquil colors.  They have an original paint chart (not the Rustoleum/RPM colors) and are color matching original PPG and SW paints as well.  On their website, there is a Railroad setion, which only lists two colors, but in the Enamels section are all their current railroad colors.  This link takes you to page 37 where the RR colors start, at the bottom.  They continue on to page 38.
 
https://mcwfinishes.com/shop/ols/categories/enamels?page=37&sortOption=ascend_by_name " posted by a member "Tracy Reynolds"

Plus there are some lacquers available at this point - see https://mcwfinishes.com/shop/ols/categories/train?sortOption=ascend_by_name

Does anybody here know more about these paints and the company's plans for railroad colors?

[peteski]

MCW paints (automotive colors) are used by members of https://forum.modelcarmakers.com/ . Personally I have not used them.  You could also contact MCW directly to get the status on those RR paints.

I also have the original pamphlets with the genuine Floquil and Polly-S paint chips. 
I'm pretty sure Floquil paints were enamels.  A big clue is that once they partially hardened (due to some solvent evaporation), they could not be revived by adding more thinner.  Lacquers can be brought back to usable condition by adding thinner.

[nkalanaga]

Floquil paints were enamels.

[robert3985]

Floquil paints were enamels.

I don't know about that.  The ones that used Dio-Sol as a thinner needed "Barrier" applied first to keep them from eating plastic.  I'd say that was something other than enamel.
(Edit) I didn't like Floquil's paint system.  First, for plastic models, you had to apply "Barrier" first so the paint wouldn't eat the plastic, Second you airbrushed the main colors, Third you applied "gloss" so the decals would settle properly, then Fourth you applied either "flat" or "semi-gloss" to finish it off.  That's four coats of paint and on N-scale models, those four coats definitely obscured fine details and thickened things such as separate grabs, handrails etc. etc.  Also added to the expense.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[peteski]

Not all enamels are like the Testors PLA enamel Bob. There are plenty of enamels utilizing solvents which are hot enough to attack and craze plastic.  I'm sure you also realize that Floquil paints were first introduced to the market (in 1oz. square glass bottles) when the modelers using them were still making their model RR equipment using wood and metal.  And the smallest scale at that time was H0 (so no worries about paint thickens).  Floquil later introduced their REV.1 (why 1 and not 2 I do not know) version which used milder, plastic compatible solvents.



Then of course other railroad colors paints came to the market, like Scalecoat and later Accu-paint.  Those were glossier and easier to deal with and plastic safe (although Scalecoat was also  originally a "hot" enamel until the Scalecoat II line was introduced).