Folquil, and Polyscale Discontinued

OUCH!

I guess I need to  go by the LHS and stock up on some of the basic colors.

Thanks for the heads up.

Richard

Rich, you guys should check out this outfit as well. They appear to have an extensive line of model RR colors.

Pete

Being as they are owned by RPM Rustolium, my bet is the corporate bean counters who know nothing about the hobby or the products drove the decisions due to being too small a segment of the overall business.

Steve

I just bought some other non-paint model railroad items from these folks and their service was very good.....and they sent a paint catalog FYI for me. I have not used the paint but seem like good folks.

Some years ago I talked to the owner of Microscale, to inquire on when some O scale decals would be back into production. He told me most likely never, and he continued that O scale decals do not sell. I asked about some popular class A railroads, and he said, no even those don't sell enough either to justify making them.

Now I believe the owner of Microscale is a train guy, or at least very knowledgeable. But he explained business is business, and if a product doesn't sell in sufficient numbers, it's not going to get made.

Nothing personal Steve, but the phase "bean counter" has been used on this forum before in other threads in what I think is a negative slant. The reality is everyone on this forum is a bean counter: everyone has a household budget and needs to bring in as much money as they are going to spend. How many times do you read a post here like "where can I buy this at the cheapest price?" Or "I'd like to get that, but I'm not paying that much money for it."

I don't know the real specifics about Folquil and Polyscale being dropped. But I do know other train product companies that have folded and they were run by guys who were train guys. Any product you can name needs to be profitable for the individuals or company making it, or it won't be made again.

In addition to the reasons given by Richard, it could also very well be that the company sees the other paint lines as filling the void. Many companies have been streamlining for years, and have been dropping products or services they view as either repetitious or unprofitable.

I am very disappointed to hear this.   In my opinion, Floquil-Poly Scale "Special Oxide Red" is the best match for PRR Freight Car Red we could get.   I have used it a lot in the last few years.   I have also been learning to use more Poly-Scale recently and I am starting to do well with it.    Now what?

I  have thought that Floquil was the big supplier for Model RR paint and the others such as Scalecoat had a smaller market share.   I guess they will get it now.

Its obvious, a company has to make a profit to stay in business. But if profit is their only motive and not customer service, the end will not be far away.  I spent many years working for a pharmaceutical co. After a larger company bought them, the bean counters suggested the company discontinue some marginally profitable products. Those products required no additional investments in development or production equipment, The only result was they collectively lost a tidy profit and it didn’t free up resources for other ventures.  The creative accounting methods used by the bean counters eventually caused problems with customers, suppliers, the DEA and the FDA. The company eventually collapsed and their bones were picked over by competing pharmaceutical companies.

That just flat out sucks. I've used RR colors for 20+ years. Guess it's on to ScaleCoat now.

I sent them an email this morning and they gave me a very quick reply:

Dear Hobbyist,
There are many changes taking place at The Testor Corporation.  For
over 80 years, we have provided premium paints and finishing systems to
the craft and hobby industry.  Recently we announced that we are
transforming our business in order to more effectively address the
changing needs of our consumers and their interests.

We’ve made the decision to exit the following businesses within the
Testor ® Brand family - Pactra®, Floquil®, PollyScale®, and ColorArtz®.
This will enable The Testor Corporation to return to our foundation of
success – providing premium, innovative product that inspires
creativity.  We will continue to accept orders and ship product for a
limited time based on available quantities.

Going forward, the following brands will be critical to our success and
development - Testor®, Model Master®, and Aztek®.  These brands will be
infused with marketing support, innovation and operational
efficiencies.

In support of this, we have announced a consolidation of operations at
our Rockford facilities.  Our commitment to the Testor brand has never
been stronger.  By implementing these changes, and the ability to
leverage all of Rust-Oleum’s world class services, we are more
strongly poised to take our business to the next level through product
and merchandising innovations, and increased customer understanding.

If you have further questions, please feel free to let us know.

We appreciate your business!!

Best Regards,


The Testor Corporation
Consumer Affairs Department
1-800-837-8677 (1-800-testors)
M-F 8:00 A.M - 4:00 PM CST

Place your online order at:
www.testors.com

Keep up with all of the Testor's activities by liking us on Facebook
and following us on Pinterest?

Corporatespeak, in spades. The translation, I think, is that RPM International Inc., the large multi-national holding company that owns Testors (along with Rustoleum and many others), has decided there isn't enough money in railroad model paints (in their language, they've decided "it's no longer core to their business"), and so is cutting out most of those lines. (They can spend the money putting more Rustoleum spray cans on Home Depot shelves, among other things.)

It's also about job elimination and consolidation that will result. Another story about it:

Posted May 17, 2013 @ 03:20 PM

Testor Corp. consolidating operations, cutting jobs

Third post on the subject

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...-my-local-hobby-shop

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...ow-out-of-production

That is a very good analysis of the likely situation. With so many brands under the Testors label, it's not cost-effective with respect to inventory, labeling, packaging, marketing ("competing" brands from the same manufacturer) and distribution. To that end, it makes sense.

That said, though, it would be a simpler approach to consolidate the various model paint lines into a single product line. Testor's Email response (Spokes-hole speak aside) implied that the Model Master line would remain. If the railroad colors were consolidated into that line (and easily usable as before) then the effect of losing the original brands would be negligible. The only problem is that the colors could still get discontinued if the sales didn't support keeping them.

Working full-time on the distribution end of the hobby, I can tell you that this has been expected for over a year. Testors (RPM) has been discontinuing colors, and has had some real supply and quality issues ever since RPM took control. My guess is that the railroad colors may account for five to ten percent of Testors business, tops. While I sell quite a bit of Floquil and Poly, it is nowhere near what the volume was ten or even five years ago. I suspect that RPM has found these lines to be too specialty oriented and not enough return on their investment dollars. Pactra really does surprise me since they (and Tamiya) are the main suppliers of the type of paint required for the lexan bodies used by the R/C industry. For example, my two general hobby stores sell 10 times the amount of Pactra as all of my railroad accounts combined.

While I agree with the comment about bean counters, RPM had to know what type of market they were getting in to when they bought Testors, so my question always was, why buy the line in the first place?

There is some possible good news up ahead, there are two possibly more parties interested in all three lines. More on that when we hear something concrete.

Off to sell more paint before we run out!

Regards,

Randall

IAWTP!!!

Two of the most wonderful people I ever encountered in my life are accountants.  

There's always Tru-Color Paint.  Similar if not exact to the old Accu-Paint. Made in the USA.  Dries in 15-20 minutes.

http://www.trucolorpaint.com/

It takes a little getting used to, but leaves a semi-gloss finish that can can have decals applied without further prep.

Rusty

With regard to the "bean counter" comments - Robert Townsend, the Avis CEO who commissioned the wildly successful "We try harder" ad campaign, once said, "Listening to your accountants will make you go broke - slowly." He was referring to the tendency of accountants to dump any product line that didn't produce, on its own, a certain level of return, and to oppose any investment that did not have a guaranteed payback of five years or less. In practice, this means that break-even or slightly profitable product lines that contribute to overhead and act as feeders for more profitable products get dropped, often damaging more profitable product lines. The opposition to risky investments destroys entrepreneurial spirit and puts the company on a downward spiral - without taking a chance on the future, you get locked into existing, declining markets and product lines. And he was dead right! GM in the 1970's is a classic example. GM drove away much of its best engineering talent when finance specialists and lawyers became more powerful than engineers and product designers. We all know the results - virtually everything GM made between 1970 and 1990 was junk, and despite a strong comeback it eventually was rescued from bankruptcy by the Federal government. 

I've seen this close up, first hand; I used to be a cost accountant for a well-known Fortune 500 company. I learned in college the math that accountants use to kill entrepreneurship. That's why Silicon Valley gets its money from venture capitalists rather than banks. The Robert Townsend quote is from his book, Up the Organization, which I recommend highly. 

Corporate America at it's finest! It never ends!

Just my opinion, but I really think all this "no more model RR paint" and "no more O Scale decals" is all generally related to fewer and fewer folks actually MODELING. Very few kits are available any longer, because folks just want to "open the box and run it".

need RR paint, made in the USA...

www.weavermodels.com

RPM acquired Testors in 1984.

Ferengi Rules of Acquisition......   ( A little off topic but need to explain Richards comment.  This is just the first 18 of over 200)  Forgive me Rich....

1. Once you have their money ... never give it back.
2. Never pay more for an acquisition than you have to.
3. Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity.
4. A man is only worth the sum of his possessions. (From Enterprise, episode "Acquisition"; sloppy script-writing, as rule 6 (see above) was already given in DS9)
5. Keep your ears open.
6. Small print leads to large risk.
7. Opportunity plus instinct equals profit.
8. Greed is eternal.
9. Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.
10. A deal is a deal ... until a better one comes along.
11. A contract is a contract is a contract (but only between Ferengi).
12. A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all.
13. Satisfaction is not guaranteed.
14. Never place friendship above profit.
15. A wise man can hear profit in the wind.
16. Nothing is more important than your health--except for your money.
17. There's nothing more dangerous than an honest businessman.
18. Never make fun of a Ferengi's mother ... insult something he cares about instead.

I would think that there were ferengi in the ancestry of vanderbilt, and company.

Interesting comments.

Seems pretty obvious that the Floquil line was no longer profitable, as in not many people are purchasing it. The choice would be to raise prices, which the few purchasing it would cry about, or discontinue it. They chose to discontinue it. I don't see an evil cooporation, evil lawyers, or evil accountants.

The fact is it probably cost more to make than what it could sell for.

They have "raised prices" over the last ten years! Have you checked out the price of a VERY small bottle of Floquil paint lately?

Yes. Pretty much doubled and Poly Scale jumped up a good bit, too!

Without going into the blah, blah, blah about folks having less time these days, there's also another reason for the decline of kit building.

Back in the day (50's - 90's) most factory paint jobs were adequate at best.  Even with my 6 buck Badger airbrush (circa 1976,) can of Propel, Micro-Scale or Champ decals and my modest modeling skils, I could churn out better paint jobs than Athearn back then:

Nowadays, the factory paint jobs from most companies are considerably better than anything I could do:

And the factory detail's better, too.

So, the need have to build, paint and decal everything has been lessened.

I still do some painting and lettering, but usually for freelance roadnames.

Rusty

Interesting comments Randall. I still use Floquil and Poly, I do hope someone buys them and gives it a go. hot water noted that many folks do not build kits anymore, agreed, however there seems to be a whole cottage industry of wood building kits in all scales.

I am an operator of my trains so they get bumps and grinds.  I need the floquil to do touch up work.  I am going to stock up.

I bet their sales go up because of this topic being post!

...keep the rails polished...

Other than the colors available, is there any difference in the present formulation of Floquil paint and Testors Model Master? They both use the same thinner. To me they seemed to spray the same with an airbrush and brush on the same.

I quit using Floquil years ago for painting engines and rolling stock. Scalecoat II being glossy is a better base for decals and just seems to spray and level better. However, I've still been using Floquil colors for painting structures and I will miss those colors.

Ken

Good point.

Modelflex by Badger offers a large variety of railroad (colors) acrylic paints. Also check your crafts stores such as Michaels or Hobby Lobby for acrylic paints. The craft stores usually carry a wide selection of colors/shades.