Compucolour Paint

[Nigel Heath]

Does anyone remember this brand of paint? I think its from the late 1970's / early 1980's:

Edited August 2, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[SPerx]

Yes, in fact for a short while I repped it on behalf of the distributor - Celsia Hobbies in West Drayton.

As I recall the USP for Compucolour was the use of computer analysis of paint samples to get exact colour matches. The production also used very finely ground pigments.

The downside was that in use it took too long to dry and adherence was not very good.

I still have a few tinlets in my paint stash.

[dwh]

I still have the complete range of colours for the United Kingdom all unopened, a very good range of colours but as previously stated some colours took a long time to dry.

Colours were very accurate to colour charts.

Re appeared a couple of times after they ceased trading, firstly as Compucolour2 then as DBI paints,(DBI were sold in jars as opposed to tinlets), still have a vast amount of the DBI paints again all unopened, again these also take a long time to dry even after a thorough mixing.

One good service they did offer though was that they would mix paint to individual modellers requirements on production of a colour sample or the necessary colour reference.

I had the Green for Hunter XE531 mixed specially along with other colours, the cost was only £1 per tin extra,

The Dayglo and orange /Reds are sensational..

Another good range of paints available at the same time was Precision Paints, again a good colourm range catered for the unusual colours especially Royal Navy Helicopters.

Derek

[Test Graham]

Precision Paints are still available trading under Phoenix Precision paints.

Compucolour appeared shortly after the disappearance of Gloy, which were also very good matches - was there any connection between the two (eg Ian Huntley)?

[greycap]

compucolour /compucolour2 xtra colour were the start of the trend to thin, airbrush friendly paint .I mourn the loss of gloy ,airfix paint and early humbrol.

the modern trend seems to be to get as little pigment per tin as possible. as for acrylics the less said the better from my point of view.

1/72 the one true scale.old fashion enamel gods own paint.

regards.

greycap

[dwh]

Precision Paints are still available trading under Phoenix Precision paints.

Compucolour appeared shortly after the disappearance of Gloy, which were also very good matches - was there any connection between the two (eg Ian Huntley)?

The Phoenix Precision paints available now do not cover the complete range that they used too,not such as large a range,indeed gloy was a very good range of paints with good coverage and drying time, sadly they were difficult to obtain as a lot of shops would not stock both Humbrol and Gloy.

I believe that Ian Huntley was a technical advisor both both Gloy and Compucolor.

Early Scale Aircraft Modelling magazines had a rear page advert promoting Gloy paints with a picture of Ian Huntley, on the Compucolor side,Ian Huntley actually produced a colour chart relating to Post War RAF/ROYAL NAVY/ARMY AIR CORPS colours which included colour chips from the Compucolor range.It apparently was going to be the first in a series of charts,but sadly because of the demise of Compucolor this was the only chart produced.

Derek

Edited July 1, 2013 by dwh