Can anyone recommend a truly "FLAT" enamel paint?

[dantewallace]

After 26 years of using testors flat enamels they no longer do it for me and come out looking semi gloss the majority of the time. Can anyone recommend a truly "flat" enamel paint? I'm talking about chalkboard surface flat. I'm thinking I should get away from Testor enamels completely and move over to model master bottles. Is there something better that I should look into? I want something that lays down thin by brush and airbrush requiring minimal coverage and leaving no brush strokes behind when hand painting.

[Mike Kucaba]

No I can't, as most flat blacks that I used must have been flat enough to my eye. If I were looking for one I would look at a craft store line of paint for ceramics . There are a lot of newer names in the paint industry and they might have something. e.g. MIG, Valleyo etc. Interesting to note is that Tamiya in their acrylic line does not list a flat black, and offer a flat additive to use with their gloss & semi-gloss black. HTH

[shucky]

Krylon flat black is extremely flat.

[zenrat]

Try Humbrol matt enamels. They always seem to come out very flat. Make sure they are thoroughly mixed.

[dantewallace]

Alright so out of curiosity I wanted to do a test using model master flat black and testors's smaller bottle of flat black. I purchased a badger paint mixture which I have wanted for quite some time,it is an absolute must have!!!! I mixed both bottles thoroughly for the same amount of time each and found that the smaller testors bottle had a flatter sheen than the larger model master. Also, I found that the airbrushing these lays down a much flatter sheen than bristle brush. It looks like I am sticking with the paint that I had originally grown to hate. Now with a mixer and air I have no reason to not use it.

[vypurr59]

I used talc powder mixed into my paints to make them appear flat. Only takes a little, or otherwise you will have to thin more.

[chevyfever2009]

I use Krylon satin flat black

[Art Anderson]

I used talc powder mixed into my paints to make them appear flat. Only takes a little, or otherwise you will have to thin more.

I second this! It's an old trick some of us older modelers used back decades ago before Testors and Pactra brought out flat black paint--good old baby powder (which Mom still had a can of in the bathroom from years before when she used it on me. It only takes a small amount of talcum powder to flatten enamel paint colors, and yes, particularly if airbrushing it, you will need to use a tad more thinner--but it does work (even smells nice too! )

Art

[vypurr59]

I second this! It's an old trick some of us older modelers used back decades ago before Testors and Pactra brought out flat black paint--good old baby powder (which Mom still had a can of in the bathroom from years before when she used it on me. It only takes a small amount of talcum powder to flatten enamel paint colors, and yes, particularly if airbrushing it, you will need to use a tad more thinner--but it does work (even smells nice too! )

Art

Thanks for backing me up on this Art. I purposely left out the smelling nice part, so others may find that out for themselves.

[Skydime]

99 cent Walmart flat black. It dries flat as a pancake. It feels a bit rough too.

[dantewallace]

99 cent Walmart flat black. It dries flat as a pancake. It feels a bit rough too.

Yeaaaaah!!! The stuff in the blue can!! I've been using their flat white as primer for years.