Billing Boats Paint Line First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Billing Boats USA recently sent us a set of their hobby paints to try out. We not only tried them out, we've added their colors to our color database, and I'll get to that shortly.

These are 1/2 ounce (14.7ml) bottles with 32 releases in the series so far. As you might imagine, these are good colors for the wooden and ABS plastic boat kits also produced by Billing Boats, but there are a few colors in the line that hint at other markets (like ours).

The paint in the series include:

• BB01 White
• BB02 Duck Egg Blue
• BB03 Emerald Green
• BB04 Orange
• BB05 Tan
• BB06 Hull Red
• BB07 Sea Blue
• BB08 Brunswick Green
• BB09 Bright Red
• BB10 Matt Lemon
• BB11 Black
• BB12 Pale Gray
• BB13 Trainer Yellow
• BB14 Matt White
• BB15 Silver
• BB16 Gold
• BB17 Clear Poly (Gloss Coat)
• BB18 Mediterranean Blue
• BB19 Matt Aircraft Blue
• BB20 Satin Brown
• BB21 Crimson
• BB22 Flat Black
• BB23 Copper
• BB30 Dark Ad Gray
• BB32 Lime
• BB33 Matt Mid Green
• BB35 Signal Red
• BB36 Mahogany Stain
• BB37 Navy Cool Gray
• BB38 Cobalt Blue
• BB39 Primer
• BB40 Thinner

I shot every one of these colors through my Iwata airbrush with a .3mm (fine) needle without thinning. Each one went through without problem and coverage was quite impressive. I shot the Duck Egg Blue over Black and didn't require a second coat to hide the black underneath. The paint applies very smoothly to the surface, dries smooth and fast, and stays put afterwards. I haven't tried using this paint over/under acrylic or enamel paints yet, but that is coming soon.

One of the reasons I shot each color was to create paint chips to measure the color values for our online color database. While many of the usual hobby paint sources produce similar colors as everyone else (RLM, selected FS595, etc.), I am interested when there are colors that go outside those bounds. When I ran these colors through the VVS (Soviet Air Force) database, I found one of the greens to be a near-perfect match for the green used for wheel hubs as well as radomes on 1970/80/90s fighters. The Matt White matches up with the dielectric white for radomes/antenna fairings. The orange is perfect for the Eduard MiG-21MF in Egyptian colors. We'll be matching these paints to other standards to see what other gaps we can fill.

What is somewhat unusual is that these paints are thinned or can be cleaned using Acetone. There are now odorless acetones available now as this paint shares its chemistry and ruggedness with a different paint usage - finger nails! As many of you married modelers know (and have smelled), finger nail polish/colors are also acetone-based. What I found interesting was when I cleaned the airbrush between colors, I simply dropped acetone into the paint cup and watched the paint dissolve. Enamel-based paints don't clean that effortlessly or quickly. I clean acrylics with Windex (with Ammonia) and acrylics dissolve about as quickly as the Billing paints do in acetone. The only exception to the acetone cleaning solution is BB36 Mahogany Stain. It is much thinner and oil-based (as I understand) so it is perfect for wood surfaces.

If you're looking for some new colors or rugged colors that will stick to a wide variety of surfaces, give the Billing Boats paints a try!

My sincere thanks to Billing Boats for these review samples!