Airfix paint

[GordonM]

My mother had recently moved into a care home due to dementia, yesterday they had a Memory Cafe. The local museum took in loads of photographs etc of Cambridge to show and try and record memories from those who still remember the 'good old days'. Amongst the laminated sheets of photos was an Airfix double sided catalogue/list dating from 1968. Apart from the fact I learnt my first Dogfight Double (Mosquito/Me262) would have cost my dad 5/2 the most interesting part was the list of Airfix paints. I'd forgotten the old glass bottles - square shaped and tapering. I don't know about the residents, but it made me all nostalgic! M1 Brick and 'Duck Egg Blue' anybody? I know there are some old tins of Humbrol being used, anyone still got any Airfix bottles they either use or have stashed as mementos?

[malpaso]

No bottles, but do have a few of the Airfix tinlets still. Opened one last year it was the best matt black ever, brushed beautifully.

My first Airfix paints were in the glass jars, I only had silver and gloss brunswick green so that was what I used on my first JEJ Spitfire. I also had an Airfix paint set for their kits that consisted of 5 or 6 little glass test tubes of red, yellow, blue, black and white with corks. The card had mixing instructions for various colours but then the tins came along before I really got into painting my kits.

Cheers

Will

[Graham Boak]

One problem I remember with the jars was when the caps stuck on. They would break up rather than come loose again, wasting all the remains of the paint. I still have a few Airfix tins - I was using one of them on a Malta Spitfire fairly recently (in years). But a better matt black than Humbrol 33: surely not? What sort of heresy is that?

[old thumper]

I have a number of old tins of Airfix paint that I picked up cheap a few years back, these are mostly biege green and velum. Unfortunately these paints although still factory sealed contain small lumps that won't mix in, I never liked Airfix paints myself and would always try to buy Humbrol when possible. .

Glass jars were mostly gone by the time I started model making in the seventies but I remember seeing some of the more unfashionable colours still lurking about on the shelves.