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Goodbye to Humbrol Enamel???


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2 hours ago, Six97s said:

there is no way MEK can decompose to produce carbon tet. 

On the other hand carbon tet in the presence of heat in air will produce phosgene whose effects are well recorded.

 

Edited by Circloy
duplication within post !
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2 hours ago, Circloy said:

On the other hand carbon tet in the presence of heat in air will produce phosgene whose effects are well recorded.

 

 

Hundreds of degrees...   and who has carbon tet at home anyway?   I don't want to get into whataboutery.  My point was, there is no possibility that MEK will end up producing carbon tetrachloride, that's just completely false.

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MEKO has various names in the industry.

The email I have had says there will be no general product recall, but traders are to remove it from shelves and not sell it as of March 1st 2022.

The issues with this are;

Meko is an anti skinning agent, it works by stopping the drying process in spirit based paint

The issues with MEKO have been known since 2013

It has been banned for hobbyist use, but not professional use.

Humbrol only issued an availability warning to wholesalers two weeks ago, a further email was sent to wholesalers yesterday (30th March) saying that the paint had to be withdrawn from sale from 1st March 2022, a whole month.

Humbrol have offered a credit on all paint purchased from 1st January 2022.

That suggests they knew about this then, and didn't inform the trade, again using the delay to clear stocks and shift as much as they could to the end user, before the cut of date.

 

No-one really knows hwo much time Humbrol were given notice of the ban, some are suggesting that it could be up to two years, and as a trader certain Humbrol paints have been hard to get for some time, the cynical amongst are thinking Humbrol used that time to clear their shelves of a toxic but then legal product, that is not the action of a morally correct manufacturer.

 

Unlike Humbrol, I have morals, and I hate to be mislead, personally I feel I have been mislead by Humbrol and Hornby, I will not stock any  HUMBROL products again, and I am seriously considering removing Airfix from my shelves as well.

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On 3/24/2022 at 6:23 PM, Six97s said:

 

I still use MEK - much cheaper to buy a litre than specialist hobby products.  I don't disagree that it should be treated with respect, but there is no way MEK can decompose to produce carbon tet. 

And on the brightside, MEK is great for getting rid of Wasp nests......

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  • 4 weeks later...

Has anyone heard any more on this? Hannants, Jadlam, eModels etc still showing stock and available for order?

 

Edit: Humbrol website no longer listing enamels...

Edited by IT_Man
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14 hours ago, IT_Man said:

Edit: Humbrol website no longer listing enamels...

 

Seriously? I wonder if they are clearing out of the enamel business then. Strange that there has been little to no fanfare about this at all. None of my local hobby shops here in Aus know a thing about it. On top of that, their acrylic range is pretty anemic to say the least, with huge colour gaps in that range.

 

I remember this happened with Testors too. One minute they were available (though there had been quiet colour drops as the years went by), next minute there was a rumour they were getting out of the business, sure enough some people got email replies that they were getting out and dropping most of their line and boom. Gone. No fanfare, nothing.

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3 hours ago, sapperastro said:

None of my local hobby shops here in Aus know a thing about it

As it's an EU regulation, its probably still legal to sell in Aus (and maybe elsewhere). Perhaps you'll benefit from surplus stock that can't be sold elsewhere. As Humbrol can't sell the current formulation in Europe they would have to remove it from the website. Whether or not they will produce a replacement formulation is another matter - but the longer they leave it, the more they will lose customer base to other brands. In the UK, Revell is now the only enamel you're likely to find in an LHS

 

Cheers

 

Colin

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We still comply with some legislation pending producing our own versions - though in many cases it will be practical to keep the same standards so we can sell into Europe.

 

Brexit didn't mean we tore up all the existing rules (as in many cases we didn't have anything to replace them with). I'll stop there to avoid a slap on the wrist!

 

Cheers

 

Colin

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8 hours ago, sapperastro said:

I wonder if they are clearing out of the enamel business then

Don't think so.  One of the other threads about this (there are two, if memory serves) said Humbrol had pulled its enamel range while it reformulated it with a kosher skinning agent and would re-introduce colours as they became ready.

 

3 hours ago, sapperastro said:

If it's an EU regulation, why does it affect the UK?

So that UK companies can sell their goods in the EU, surely?

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1 hour ago, IT_Man said:

So are we to assume that where stocks are available, they are reformulated?

No.  I was speaking to the staff in an art shop not long ago and they'd heard nothing about this.  So we have to assume either Humbrol's not been putting out the message properly (not a great surprise) or people haven't been listening.  Or, of course, they're gambling that actual enforcement is going to be something between trivial and fictitious, and will sell off their old stock while saying nothing.  The way they're being treated over refunds, I couldn't blame them.  You can only bank on stock being new and non-toxic once Humbrol have announced it's back on the market.  Then, it should be a matter of checking stock.  Even if nothing on the tin says New! Improved!, the amount of dust should help.

 

This applies in the UK only.  As you're halfway round the world and may not have an equivalent rule, your existing shops' stocks shouldn't be affected.  And then, over time, the new stuff should start to filter through.

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5 hours ago, Mike said:

Can't miss what I never used on this side of my teenage years

 

It's a love/hate relationship for me. I know all the colours off by heart and my exact uses and mixes for them, know how they work, always available. When I get a crap tin I will swear and throw the tin across the room then use a flamethrower on it, but then open another and it will paint like a dream. Ah the joys of Humbrol enamel. I have tried countless other brands, and the only ones that have almost turned me to something different have been Polly Scale and Model Master acrylic (but they discontinued them...) and Colourcoats enamel (but they are often out of stock, then I have to wait six months for a new delivery, and the tins have slowly gone up to $7.50 a tin; Humbrol enamel is $4-$3.50 a tin in comparison).

 

Modeling is a tough hobby I tell ya.

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I think for us lot there are a decent number of options about, but feel sorry for retailers who are stuck with £100s (£1000s?) of stock which has become 'illegal' overnight. Especially those small (high street) shops.

 

Seems like Humbrol aren't being great about it and have continued to supply right up to the last minute, knowing this was coming. I generally use Tamiya acrylics but do use the odd humbrol enamel from time to time but would certainly think twice if my assumptions above turn out to be true

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On 3/4/2022 at 7:14 PM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

Almost certainly. MEKO is typically just an anti-skinning agent added to help stop it skinning over inside the container as the name suggests. There are other options, although they can cause yellowing of the paint with time which is why MEKO was hitherto a preferred choice from a purely paint performance perspective.

 

Aha! So that's why my Humbrol paints last so much better than they used to last century. Thanks for that, Jamie. I had wondered what had changed and thought it was my tidier habits!

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On 3/4/2022 at 1:33 PM, Trenton guy said:

One thing to consider when talking about these kind of issues. The studies that support these kinds of governmental or quasi-governmental regulatory actions are based on occupational exposures (ie, continuous significant exposure 8 hours a day, 5 days a week). The typical Modeller experiences nothing like that, and exposure is the issue. I have been modelling for 70 years and have used nothing but enamels, except for some recent use of acrylic lacquers in the wake of the disappearance of my beloved Modelmaster. At 80 years young, I am feeling just fine thank you.

 

Regulations can be inflexible things (I know, I wrote and enforced them for all of my working life). Of necessity they look at worst case scenarios. Carving out exceptions for less hazardous uses quickly becomes administratively and technically complex, so we paint with a broad brush and the modeller’s occasional use gets swept in with the guy in the industrial spray booth.

 

Maybe I should quit while I am ahead but I won’t. This kerfuffle reminds of the silliness over air shipment of enamel hobby paints. Now enamel paints do pose a significant fire hazard. The most common method of mitigating such hazard is small quantities in small containers. That approach is taken to mitigate hazard when such materials must be handled in industrial settings. Without prudent approaches such as that, it would not be possible to manufacture electronic devises indoors ( there is some really bad stuff in your cell phone). Can you imagine a better example of that kind of mitigation than a few tiny tins of Xtracolor in an airmail package.

Thats the problem, alot of the studies are based on "if i make a 2 ounce lab mouse sniff this chemical at a rate 2,000% higher then what is actually sniffed by a human using this product, how long until it grows a third ear?"

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17 minutes ago, masterKamera said:

Thats the problem, alot of the studies are based on "if i make a 2 ounce lab mouse sniff this chemical at a rate 2,000% higher then what is actually sniffed by a human using this product, how long until it grows a third ear?"

Maybe the new Humbrol formula could include something that would cause me to grow a third arm

 

Cheers

 

Colin

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9 minutes ago, ckw said:

Maybe the new Humbrol formula could include something that would cause me to grow a third arm

 

Cheers

 

Colin

Honestly i doubt the paint will show an effect on us before sniffing the solvent would. 

 

In the USA they banned an artificial sweetener in the early 1990s for cancer causing in lab mice, but the amount fed to said lab mice would have required a 200 pound adult to eat about 400 pounds of said artificial sweetener in a single day.

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6 hours ago, ckw said:

Maybe the new Humbrol formula could include something that would cause me to grow a third arm

That could actually be handy when putting some things together ;)

 

17 hours ago, sapperastro said:

Modeling is a tough hobby I tell ya.

Feels that way some days :boom:

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  • 3 weeks later...

From Models2U's latest newsletter:

 

You may have read in the press about Enamel Paints containing MEKO, a substance commonly found in enamel paints as an anti-skinning agent. This substance has been reclassified in the EU, meaning that it cannot be legally sold in the EU after March 2022. In the UK, the reclassification of MEKO was adopted but the restriction.of sale to the general public has not been adopted at the current time.

 

Revell have been phasing this substance out of their Enamel Paints for the last few years, with just a few colours being unavailable at present whilst we await re-formulated stocks.

 

Humbrol are in the process of re-formulating their range, and only expect a sizeable range of their products to be available by Autumn of 2022. There may therefore be disruption to supplies of some colours in the short term.

 

Humbrol's statement to retailers included "MEKO is not currently restricted from sale in Great Britain, so Humbrol Enamel can be legally sold in Great Britain".

 

Note: Revell AQUA and Tamiya Acrylic Paints are not affected.

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  • 2 months later...
On 31/03/2022 at 21:48, Test Valley Models said:

It has been banned for hobbyist use, but not professional use.

 

wierd, given the exposure level and frequency in hobbist use must be a fraction of that in a commercial environment 

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