In the February MR, Jim Six describes how he built a beautiful grain elevator on his new layout and says that he used flat interior latex paint on the structures. Says that it dries very thin; won't obscure details; leaves no brush strokes and covers better than model paints, requiring fewer coats of paint.

Has any one else had tried this? It sure would be cheaper than purchasing several bottles of railroad colors or even many of the available spray paints. I've got a couple of unpainted plastic structures that won't be used on the forthcoming layout so might give it try myself one evening.

I don't have an answer but the subject is of interest. I use Folk Art and Apple Barrel water-based craft paints now. Intuition would say that the house paint is thicker, not thinner, but of course it can be thinned with water, as can the craft paints. If you try the interior house paint, let us know how it goes.

Gary S Wrote:Intuition would say that the house paint is thicker, not thinner, but of course it can be thinned with water, as can the craft paints.

That was my thinking too, but I forgot to mention in the posting that he says he did not thin the paint, yet it dried very thin. Thinner than the more typical model paints. Guess I'll have to look around the basement and see if I have an appropriate latex paint color to test this out.

I haven't tried the newer latex paint on models, but the newer paint takes 2 coats where the older paint covered in one.
I have been using the Plaid brand acrylic paint and thinning it with alcohol. I haven't painted any models yet, but I have been making different colored "dirt" from screened sawdust.
Charlie

if you try house paint use a high quality (not the cheepest that wally world has) as the lower grades use larger pigment , the cheep stuff works fine for senery but will hid detail on a building or rolling stock.
jim