In case you were not aware, last year Squadron joined up with Scale Colors to release a line of paints that include sets as well as individual colors. These paints are acrylic and are best thinned with a 50–50 mix of water (I prefer distilled water) and isopropyl alcohol or using the Squadron Scale Colors Thinner (product SCW001). This set is designed for use with an airbrush, and I would highly recommend it.

Set Details

This set is for use with “modern” aircraft carrier models which includes the Midway-class, Forrestal-class, Kitty Hawk-class, Enterprise, Nimitz-class, and Gerald R. Ford-class. I first found Jeff Herne with his Scale Colors paints at an IPMS-USA Nationals event a few years ago and decided to try out his modern US Navy paints at that time, and I really liked them. I was glad to see that he joined forces with Squadron for what is now a tremendous number of offerings for modelers (15, 60, and 200ml options in some 400 colors and currently 11 paint sets). This set includes the following colors in 15ml bottles:

• USN Modern Haze Gray
• USN Modern Deck Gray
• USN Modern Flight Deck Gray
• USN Modern Hull Red
• Bright White
• Boot Top Black

The Evaluation

To try out these paints, I wanted to use parts from an actual aircraft carrier kit, as I am not big on wasting paint to just cover things to try them out. My approach is to let the paint succeed or fail on a kit. For this review, I pulled my Magic Factory 1/700 scale USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), kit 6401, from my stash and selected parts that would need to receive each color in the set. My only deviance was with Boot Top Black as I could not paint that stripe on the ship yet, so I tested it on a sprue label to at least match the type of plastic used in the kit. I applied a single layer of paint on the bare kit plastic without the use of a primer for each of the colors.

I started with the Bright White paint, and I did my initial spraying with paint straight out of the bottle using my Badger gravity feed Renegade Velocity. The airbrush had the Fine needle and nozzle installed, and I set my air compressor to about 20 psig. The paint seemed to come out a little pebbled, so I added one drop of Scale Colors Thinner, and the paint went down smoothly after that. For the remainder of the paints, I stayed on the course and added a drop of thinner to the paint, and all performed very well. One layer of paint provided adequate coverage over the kit's gray plastic, but I will likely apply a second coat when I actually build the ship.

Cleaning

Cleaning the airbrush after Bright White paint, I used Alclad Airbrush Cleaner, which worked, but it seemed to react with the paint, causing some clumping to take place. For the remainder of the evaluation, I first cleaned the airbrush with Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner, then did a final cleaning with the Alclad, and this worked great. Squadron recommends using their Thinner or Isopropyl Alcohol to clean your airbrush immediately after using it or using their Squadron Scale Colors Paint Stripper if the paint has dried.

"About Our Paint"

Squadron provides a nice “About Our Paint” page on their website that gives several tips on how to best use their paints. While the paints are intended for use with an airbrush, they can be applied with a paint brush for small touch-ups, but they are not recommended for applications on large areas with a paint brush. While I applied a single coat of each paint for this review, Squadron recommends two or three coats and allowing one to two minutes of drying time between coats, which is much faster than most paints.

Hits for this Set

As far as my hits are concerned, the paints worked very well with my airbrush, and I look forward to building my carrier so that I can fully utilize these paints on the entire ship. I appreciate that the gray paints all include a Federal Standard (FS) number on them as a reference. The paints dry in a semi-gloss finish which allows adding decals and weathering without having to put a gloss coat over the paint immediately. As mentioned on the website, the paints can settle, but as they include a stainless-steel ball, about a minute on my paint shaker and I was ready to go even after a couple of months in storage. I had no misses for this paint set.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I highly recommend this paint set for anyone building a modern aircraft carrier. The colors all look accurate compared to photographs of the real ships, and having served aboard a couple of Nimitz-class ships, they sure look close to me. My sincere appreciation to Brandon Lowe and Squadron for providing this paint set to the Review Corps, who I thank for letting me conduct this evaluation.