Humbrol new acrylics 14ml dropper bottles review

[gavingav1]

so i got some of the new style 14ml Humbrol paint to try, i have used tamiya and vallejo for the last 15 years finding humbrol products to be sub par and generally unusable so i wanted to test these as i still know paints the H numbers, any matt black will forever be 33 .

 

They spray very well when thinned with Isopropyl, they are very dense paints and take a lot of thinning but they don't seem to bobble on the plastic and very little tip dry, very easy to get fine lines , this paint is a massive improvement on what has come before, on the jar it is claimed to be made in UK, i may well start to switch to this paint .

 

First test spray

 

laying paint on an old test model, nice even coverage with little effort with highly thinned paint .

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by gavingav1

[Gorby]

Have they changed the paint? When I've tried spraying Humbrol acrylic a couple of years ago it clogged however much I thinned it. 

[gavingav1]

yes they have changed the paint, every so often i tend to pick up a jar of humbrol to see if it has improved,  i last bought humbrol a couple of years ago in the 12ml screw off top bottles and it was unsprayable and clogged the airbrush but this stuff is completely different paint and made in the UK .

[Bonhoff]

I concur with your observations - Have started buying the new blend acrylics but have only brush painted them up to last night.

 

Sprayed H165 Medium Sea Grey using Vallejo thinners first then with Humbrol thinners.

 

In both cases they laid down smoothly but I did have a bit of tip drying to contend with.

 

Otherwise pleased to include them back on my list of paints to use, as the old screw top ones were brushpaint only as far as I was concerned, hopeless at spraying and pebbly once dried.

 

IanJ 

[Tim R-T-C]

Dimension-wise, are the bottles the same size as Vallejo 14ml?

 

[gavingav1]

12 minutes ago, Tim R-T-C said:

Dimension-wise, are the bottles the same size as Vallejo 14ml?

 

No, the bottle is a centimetre shorter or so and the tip design and cap are completely different, Vallejo are 17ml and Humbrol is 14ml but these Humbrol paints are much denser in pigmentation than model air .

[Tim R-T-C]

3 hours ago, gavingav said:

No, the bottle is a centimetre shorter or so and the tip design and cap are completely different, Vallejo are 17ml and Humbrol is 14ml but these Humbrol paints are much denser in pigmentation than model air .

Thanks. How about the footprint? Just wondering if these will fit my Vallejo shelves.

[gavingav1]

44 minutes ago, Tim R-T-C said:

Thanks. How about the footprint? Just wondering if these will fit my Vallejo shelves.

yes they do fit with just a little more space around the bottle compared to the standard Vallejo bottle

[sapperastro]

Is the top easy to get off for stirring?

[gavingav1]

4 hours ago, sapperastro said:

Is the top easy to get off for stirring?

No, the tops feel rubbery and are very hard to grip, it was difficult to remove them once so i use stirring balls in the jar, the pigment does not seem to separate very much though, i have had the paint sat on my bench for 4 days and it has not separated in the bottle .

[janneman36]

@gavingav thank you for this nice report, it sounds very promising!

I hope that there will be someone in the Netherlands that is going to stock it!!
For now it is impossible to buy Humbrol acrylics over here...🙄

 

cheers, Jan

[sapperastro]

On 8/7/2020 at 2:32 AM, gavingav said:

No, the tops feel rubbery and are very hard to grip, it was difficult to remove them once so i use stirring balls in the jar, the pigment does not seem to separate very much though, i have had the paint sat on my bench for 4 days and it has not separated in the bottle .

 

Thanks Gav,

 

What balls do you use in them? I have never really gotten many dropper bottle paints before, so what type and size do you normally get?

[gavingav1]

1 hour ago, sapperastro said:

 

Thanks Gav,

 

What balls do you use in them? I have never really gotten many dropper bottle paints before, so what type and size do you normally get?

 something like these are good -- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/50-200pcs-Stainless-Steel-2mm-4mm-6mm-Bikes-Bearing-Ball-Bearings-Replacement/124243108194?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D225076%26meid%3D08bbcfc02d974ad6ab4d3ac10093a2c1%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dco%26sd%3D183906021391%26itm%3D124243108194%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv5PairwiseWebWithBBEV1Filter%26brand%3DUnbranded&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

 

 6mm are the best size .

Edited August 10, 2020 by gavingav1

[PhantomBigStu]

To add as one of the resident brush painters I had my first test this morning having ordered 3 of these on Monday, they are excellent, comes out thinner then Vallejo color and brushed on nicely and in full opaqueness in three coats. I can see me using much more Humbrol long term particular if they expand the range and my Humbrol supplier actually gets them. 

[Matthew1974]

When the Humbrol Acrylics first came out, I really liked them for both airbrush and hairy stick.  Then something changed in formula or otherwise and they became unusable.  I switched to Vallejo (mostly content with this paint), but I am happy to see Humbrol keeping the line and making it useable again.

[Timn]

I was just about to post about seeing these on another site, then saw this post. I will probably try some olive drab before i buy more of them. Since their Acrylics took a nose dive and enamel recipe changed, I went over to Tamiya.

[sapperastro]

Just a question for the UK modelers here. These dropper bottle paints still haven't surfaced in AU. Some of the 18ml pots have, and the stuff in those is decent, but after looking at the paint line for these droppers I noticed a huge amount of colours missing. Can anyone over there confirm if the colours in the dropper bottle line are it? All the other colours have been dropped (including the RLM line)?

[lesliegl]

where abouts in Oz did you buy the 18ml Humbrol acrylics??

[treker_ed]

On 7/15/2021 at 4:09 PM, sapperastro said:

Just a question for the UK modelers here. These dropper bottle paints still haven't surfaced in AU. Some of the 18ml pots have, and the stuff in those is decent, but after looking at the paint line for these droppers I noticed a huge amount of colours missing. Can anyone over there confirm if the colours in the dropper bottle line are it? All the other colours have been dropped (including the RLM line)?

They seem to be running both types sided by side - so it could be that they could move over to the dropper type with all the colours eventually. I've seen the other style of bottles on sale still in other model shops quite recently whilst on holiday in the UK.

 

They maybe seeing how they sell before moving the rest over!

[gavingav1]

9 hours ago, dickbarton99 said:

are they any good like model colur

Yes they are very good paints and i would heartily recommend them, the 18ml jars are the same high quality paint too .

[PhantomBigStu]

10 hours ago, treker_ed said:

They seem to be running both types sided by side - so it could be that they could move over to the dropper type with all the colours eventually. I've seen the other style of bottles on sale still in other model shops quite recently whilst on holiday in the UK.

 

They maybe seeing how they sell before moving the rest over!

Believe that’s the plan, hoping we see a load more in nexts years announcement, excellent quality. 

[James88]

9 hours ago, gavingav said:

Yes they are very good paints and i would heartily recommend them, the 18ml jars are the same high quality paint too .

I've just caught this thread as I've started airbrushing more and even with thinned Humbrol enamel I can sometimes have to do a full strip just to change colours, not ideal so looking at acrylics. 

Just a couple of quick questions, would you advise using thinner and flow improver just to try and prevent any tip drying? 

Until now I was just going to go down the standard Vallejo route but if the Humbrol acrylics are now getting good reviews I might try them and guess it's a good direct comparison against the Humbrol enamel.

[sapperastro]

On 7/17/2021 at 10:07 PM, lesliegl said:

where abouts in Oz did you buy the 18ml Humbrol acrylics??

 

Don't bother. It was a hobby shop I found online in South Australia. They seem to have vanished just before last Christmas.

 

Just looking at these 18ml bottles, they are the exact same as the Coat D'Arms paints I occasionally buy. Similar paint too. I wonder if the Humbrol Acrylic is made by HGM as well. I think I might order a few droppers from the UK and see how they go. Hopefully they will start releasing more colours, because the lineup at the moment is very anemic.

[gavingav1]

On 7/18/2021 at 1:11 PM, James88 said:

I've just caught this thread as I've started airbrushing more and even with thinned Humbrol enamel I can sometimes have to do a full strip just to change colours, not ideal so looking at acrylics. 

Just a couple of quick questions, would you advise using thinner and flow improver just to try and prevent any tip drying? 

Until now I was just going to go down the standard Vallejo route but if the Humbrol acrylics are now getting good reviews I might try them and guess it's a good direct comparison against the Humbrol enamel.

vallejo Model Colour sprays very nicely too when thinned with vallejo thinner, again it used to be a paint that was impossible to spray but  it seems to be made to a better standard nowadays, i use the chemical 2-butoxy ethanol to thin as this is what vallejo thinner is, in the uk it is £10 a litre but you need 2.5% butoxy to 97.5 water!! so a litre goes a long way , you can also thin it too 95% water to make a strong decal solvent, flow improver can be home made with glycerine and water , i would recommend a few drops of a flow improver and retarder in the paint to stop tip dry on humbrol and vallejo or  any acrylic paints

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

16 hours ago, gavingav said:

vallejo Model Colour sprays very nicely too when thinned with vallejo thinner, again it used to be a paint that was impossible to spray but  it seems to be made to a better standard nowadays, i use the chemical 2-butoxy ethanol to thin as this is what vallejo thinner is, in the uk it is £10 a litre but you need 2.5% butoxy to 97.5 water!! so a litre goes a long way , you can also thin it too 95% water to make a strong decal solvent, flow improver can be home made with glycerine and water , i would recommend a few drops of a flow improver and retarder in the paint to stop tip dry on humbrol and vallejo or  any acrylic paints

 

 

It's good to hear you've got these cracked, but if not already doing so please do ensure you keep very good ventilation in your modelling space. 2-butoxyethanol is a respiratory irritant and has some statistical associations with a few other health issues including asthma and is acutely toxic.

 

Not that this requires more care than any other model paints but the general rule is that if it's going to work well as a paint it's going to also need health precautions. There's a bit of a myth that printing the word "acrylic" on the label makes it a healthy choice but we all need to consider the totality of what we're breathing in.