Luftwaffe colors

[GMahaffey]

I'm in the US and I was wondering who makes the full line of RLM colors. I'm about to start a German World War 2 plane. The LHS (Local Hobby Store) carries Model Masters, Tamiya, Mr. Hobby enamel, Humbrol Enamel, TruColor, Vallejo Model Color, and Mission Models. The plane I am going to work on is a late war plane, around 1944-1945.

[Stokesy44]

I'm in the US and I was wondering who makes the full line of RLM colors. I'm about to start a German World War 2 plane. The LHS (Local Hobby Store) carries Model Masters, Tamiya, Mr. Hobby enamel, Humbrol Enamel, TruColor, Vallejo Model Color, and Mission Models. The plane I am going to work on is a late war plane, around 1944-1945.

Vallejo do RLM sets. I think Hataka also do.

[AlexBB]

Vallejo do a Model Air set #71.193 for RLM colors.. Comes with a color chart and includes the following;

71.055 Black Grey RLM66
71.258 Grey Green RLM74
71.259 Grey Violet RLM75
71.257 Light Blue RLM76
71.264 Brown Violet RLM81
71.022 Light Green RLM82
71.011 Dark Green RLM83
71.103 Grey Blue RLM82
71.042 Dark Brown RLM61
71.104 Green RLM62
71.260 Light Grey RLM63
71.255 Light Blue RLM65
71.021 Black Green RLM70
71.015 Dark Green RLM71
71.044 Grey RLM02
71.078 Yellow RLM04

[sheppsea]

Mr Hobby also do RLM colours

[Cymru]

Mr Hobby also do RLM colours

And Humbrol!

[digger303]

Not sure if I'm on the right track, but how about " real colors " by AK.
http://www.akrealcolors.com/

[Paul]

Akan does about the best range imo followed by xtracrylix

[colonelmustard]

All depends of if you are going to airbrush the paint on or use a paint brush. Personally I use an airbrush and use Vallejo paints which are acrylic. Late war Luftwaffe aircraft had RLM66 cockpits but Rlm02 for the wheel wells and wheel struts. Very late war aircraft changed from RLM65 TO RLM76 blue for the underside Topside seen a change from RLM70 and RLM71 to RLM 81, 82, 83

[Jens]

MRP (Mr Paint) certainly have a rather good, if not complete, selection of RLM.
http://mrpaint.sk/farby/lietadla/Luftwaffe

They even do armour nowadays and I bought the whole RAL German WWII paint range two weeks ago to give it a go, replacing my Tamiya paints.

MRP is a lacquer paint in case anyone didn't know. Acrylics take forever to dry where I live - and I'm not the most patient person, so MRP suits me really well and as long as you've done a good prep the results are fantastic!

I don't know who's selling MRP in the US but it's a really popular paint for air planes here in Europe and now they've released a lot of armour paints too.

[digger303]

MRP (Mr Paint) certainly have a rather good, if not complete, selection of RLM.
http://mrpaint.sk/farby/lietadla/Luftwaffe

They even do armour nowadays and I bought the whole RAL German WWII paint range two weeks ago to give it a go, replacing my Tamiya paints.

MRP is a lacquer paint in case anyone didn't know. Acrylics take forever to dry where I live - and I'm not the most patient person, so MRP suits me really well and as long as you've done a good prep the results are fantastic!

I don't know who's selling MRP in the US but it's a really popular paint for air planes here in Europe and now they've released a lot of armour paints too.

being a very volatile paint, what are the containers like. Do they seal well enough to prevent shrinkage. They have to be able to have a shelf life of at least 2 years given they are 30ml bottles.
I had some volatile glue in a very similar bottle. The whole lot evaporated.

[Cymru]

I would heartily recommend MRP. I have had bottles on the shelf here for just over a year with no problems, the top seals very well and you will be surprised at how much coverage you get, so they are not as expensive as it may first appear.

[Jens]

being a very volatile paint, what are the containers like. Do they seal well enough to prevent shrinkage. They have to be able to have a shelf life of at least 2 years given they are 30ml bottles.
I had some volatile glue in a very similar bottle. The whole lot evaporated.

My two weeks isn't exactly enough for a statistical analysis but those who's been using MRP since the start haven't had a single problem with their bottles what I've heard and that counts for something!

The bottles are made of glass so the chance of developing a kink or similar that causes an air-gap is zero and the paint is so thin that I doubt it would have a chance to build up along the rim? I use pipettes to dispense paint and that's the recommended method since lacquer paints are very "wet".

I took some convincing to drop Tamiya paints but apart from the smell MRP is the best paint I've used so far and their colours are very well made and very consistent! This was one of the reasons why I got fed up with Tamiya since they weren't even consistent within the same batch and it could differ quite a lot between batches...
Also Tamiya paint only exists in 10ml jars here in Europe so you quickly have a mountain of empty jars whereas MRP has much larger containers!

I doubt you find many, if any at all, bad reviews of MRP out there?!

[digger303]

I would heartily recommend MRP. I have had bottles on the shelf here for just over a year with no problems, the top seals very well and you will be surprised at how much coverage you get, so they are not as expensive as it may first appear.

Having a good seal on the top is what's needed. Although some substances will pass through some plastic walls over time.
I am heartened by what both of you have said.
Two products that I have used "Art Spectrum -- artist turps" and " Delux Materials -- Rocket Blaster " both had glass bottles and I experienced evaporation from and that's why I posed the question.

[Jens]

I would heartily recommend MRP. I have had bottles on the shelf here for just over a year with no problems, the top seals very well and you will be surprised at how much coverage you get, so they are not as expensive as it may first appear.

Having a good seal on the top is what's needed. Although some substances will pass through some plastic walls over time.
I am heartened by what both of you have said.
Two products that I have used "Art Spectrum -- artist turps" and " Delux Materials -- Rocket Blaster " both had glass bottles and I experienced evaporation from and that's why I posed the question.

I've now spoken to people who's been using MRP for a very long time and they've not experienced any evaporation at all.
In fact the bottles aren't sealed when you get them, just the lids screwed on. The inside of the cap has some kind of cone shaped gasket that seals it well. At least that's what I think it does? It's kinda hard to look inside the bottle with the cap on...

Anyhow, no leakage/evaporation has been reported and they wouldn't recommend it if there were any issues with it.

The only negative thing I can say about MRP is that it requires a bit more from you as a painter. I love Tamiya paint because you can practically scoop it on with a spoon and still get a perfect result! MRP require you to be a bit more thorough than that, first a fine mist coat before you build it up with a couple layers - which is fine because it dries in seconds!
When you're done and you see any minor surface variations you just mist spray some Mr Levelling Thinner over the model and it self levels.
I was recommended to do that as part of the cleaning procedure

Another negative thing about MRP is that it's much harder to do hairspray chipping because water doesn't seep through the MRP lacquer - but I've seen it done so it's not impossible but I haven't tried it myself yet.

It's a hot paint which means that it dissolves the previous coat as you spray. This means that it doesn't work so well to spray MRP on top of Alclad2 metallic paint - but this could also perhaps be turned into some sort of effect?! Who knows...