The human touch - Colourcoats manufacturing
Colourcoats paint is all manufactured in the UK. That means every tin you buy is supporting a UK based business.
Colourcoats paint is produced in small batches which are then hand poured into our retail tins. Our usual tin size is 14ml to suit the majority of scale model builders, however, we have branched out into larger sizes of 125ml upon request to suit large scale builders and RC builders. Our range supports this whenever we have requests for specific colours or availability in the batch. We do offer custom size batches as well and have provided paint for many full-size restoration projects allowing these pieces to be refurbished in their accurate colours (contact us directly through email for any specific paint requests).
Image of open tins filled with paint
Each batch being hand poured gives our product the human touch - and the occasional human error of a spot of paint on the outside of the tin (check out our workbench in a photo below with all the spilt paint!). We like to think of that as a reminder that everything we do is by hand and in the UK through our micro-business rather than mass-produced in a factory.
Image of sprayed lids on a board held up by member of the team
Our batches produce an average number of tins which sometimes can be slightly greater or fewer. We spray each tin lid with the paint from the batch that will fill that tin based on this average, and with each colour having a slightly different composition due to pigments or flattening agents, this is sometimes more or less than the average. When this is less than the average - we have excess lids that need to be stripped and cleaned to be reused for another colour. We do not like waste and will always ensure to reuse and make the most of our stock. When this is more - we do not have full sprayed lids to use so you may find that some of our tins have partially brush-painted lids as seen below. Spraying another few lids would incur time that would mean the paint would dry before being lidded, thus these lids are hand-painted with that batch immediately to preserve the quality of our paint. This process also means that the colour on the lids is still the exact colour inside the tin.
Image showing 2 different styles of painted tin lids
So next time you get your order and you spy a couple of tins with partially painted lids - you now know why and you can enjoy the hand painting skills of either myself (Gill), Jamie or Stew!