Can someone explain Tamiya's paint lineup to me?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'm trying to find a good gray to use for an unspecified railroad's MOW color (it doesn't have to match any prototype, just look generally "MOW equipment gray").

I like Tamiya paints generally. But I'm perplexed that they don't seem to offer the same colors in different bottle sizes and spray cans.

I'm looking at White Rose's selection:
https://www.whiterosehobbies.com/collections/tamiya-paints

Between their 10ml brush paints:
https://www.whiterosehobbies.com/collections/tamiya-flat-acrylic-paints-10ml-bottles

23ml brush bottles:
https://www.whiterosehobbies.com/collections/tamiya-flat-acrylic-paints-23ml-bottles

Aircraft spray cans:
https://www.whiterosehobbies.com/collections/tamiya-as-model-aircraft-spray-paint-and-color-chart

And non aircraft spray cans:
https://www.whiterosehobbies.com/collections/tamiya-ts-plastic-model-spray-paint-and-color-chart

I don't see many of the same colors replicated from format to format.

Am I missing something?

Is there some sort of method to this madness?

[chessie system fan]

I can confirm that the 10ml and 23ml are the same, just differently sized glass bottles.  There are a handful of colors that only come in the 10ml bottles.

[peteski]

Being that both are Japanese companies, Tamiya like Kato seem to do  things that defy American logic.   
Also then there are the seemilgly crazy laws when it comes to importing paints to USA.  THere are lots of hoops to go through and depending on paint chemistry, some paints might not be imported.

BTW, spray cans contain organic-solvent-based lacquer paint while most of the glass bottles contain pseudo-water-based acrylic enamels. I say pseudo, because they are alcohol based, so you can't compare sprays with glass bottles. Although when I was in Japan, they also had paints in small bottles like the small square Testors bottles, and those paints has organic-solvent-based  paints (probably enamels too). Not sure  if those paints ever got imported  to  USA.

Confusing? Yes!

[nkalanaga]

I have seen, and bought a few, Tamiya organic-solvent paints in small round bottles.  I don't remember where, and haven't seen them recently around home.

[peteski]

I have seen, and bought a few, Tamiya organic-solvent paints in small round bottles.  I don't remember where, and haven't seen them recently around home.

The round bottle paints (10 and 23ml) are pseudo-water-based acrylic enamels.  The organic-solvent-based paints I bought when in Japan back in 2005 were in tiny square bottles, which looked just like the ubiquitous Testors PLA enamel bottles.

I just went to Tamiya USA website  ( https://www.tamiyausa.com/shop/paints/bottles/ ) and the pseudo-water-based ones are called Acrylic Paint (10 and 23 ml bottles) while the solvent based bottled paint is Tamiya Color Lacquer (10ml).  None are in those little 10ml square bottles, but I see that the sell empty square bottles.  Item 81043.  I guess the paints in square bottles I have are now packaged as Tamiya Color Lacquer in the 10mm round bottles/jars. Then they also have sprays, which are organic-solvent-based lacquers.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

The thing that gets me is that they don't have the same color lineup across formats though.

Like I'd expect to find "Light Ghost Gray" in spray, 10 and 23ml, but nope! Spray cans only.

Is there a paint line that actually does that?

[Dave V]

And even when they do match by name between spray and jar, they don't always match match.

Tamiya's Nato Brown is like the perfect match for the reddish-brown trim color on RGS buildings, and it comes in spray, in enamel, and in acrylic. And they're three ever-so-slightly-different colors.

[Sokramiketes]

Yeah.  The best grays, especially warmer ones, are in the Aircraft line.  But no bottles to match.  I've gotten pretty good at spraying everything... with the occasional touch ups with whatever else I have laying around. 

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Yeah.  The best grays, especially warmer ones, are in the Aircraft line.  But no bottles to match.  I've gotten pretty good at spraying everything... with the occasional touch ups with whatever else I have laying around. 

I think that's what I'm going to end up doing

[davefoxx]

The thing that gets me is that they don't have the same color lineup across formats though.

Like I'd expect to find "Light Ghost Gray" in spray, 10 and 23ml, but nope! Spray cans only.

Is there a paint line that actually does that?

Don’t be afraid to decant that spray can.

This guy has an interesting method to get the paint out of the can safely.  Go to about 2:45 in the video.

DFF

[StarCruiser]

Tamiya does have enamel paint in bottles - it's just starting to show up here. It's been around for about 50 years but, never sold outside of the home market until fairly recently.

https://www.tamiya.com/english/products/list.html?genre_item=e_504020

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Don’t be afraid to decant that spray can.

This guy has an interesting method to get the paint out of the can safely.  Go to about 2:45 in the video.

DFF

Meh. Way more effort than I want to put into this aspect of this.

I found a color I liked and had almost enough.

So instead... I used Krylon

[nkalanaga]

Mine are LP-12, item #82112, "IJN Gray (Kure Arsenal)", and LP-27, item #82127, "German Gray", both in 10 ml bottles.

[peteski]

The thing that gets me is that they don't have the same color lineup across formats though.

Like I'd expect to find "Light Ghost Gray" in spray, 10 and 23ml, but nope! Spray cans only.

Is there a paint line that actually does that?

The name to me implies  a Federal Standard (FS) military color.  The other lines of colors are not geared specifically to military model modelers.

Back in the day when Testors was one of the main hobby paint suppliers, they had an entire line of FS colors and their spray can paint matched the bottled paints (since both were enamels likely manufactured at the same time) .

And as others have mentioned, sometimes the bottled paints colors do not match the spray paint colors (even in the same line of paints), even if both have the  same name.

[gi-depp]

Light Ghost Gray its a colour of the USAF FS 36375.
TAMYA XF-19 is very close to it.