Ten millilitre bottles make this one of the most widely used enamel ranges on European benches, mostly because the numbering leaves nothing open to interpretation. The prefix carries the sheen: X shades are gloss, XF shades are matt, and the number after it is simply a catalogue position. A small bottle also matches how the paint is used, mainly on detail, where it lasts across dozens of models.
The same paint brushes straight from the bottle, sprays once thinned, and serves as the base for a home-mixed panel line wash when thinned much further. The sections below sort out which job wants which.
The code is logical once you have the key. X means gloss: bodywork, clear lenses, polished metal detail. XF means matt and carries the bulk of camouflage and interior work. The number itself is sequential, so XF-62 and X-22 have nothing in common beyond the series they belong to. Nothing in the code describes opacity, which is why clear tints and solid colours sit side by side in the gloss list.
Tool stowage on a mudguard, track links, instrument panels, webbing: small areas where a 10 ml bottle lasts years. This wants fine model paint brushes with a point that springs back.
Thin to roughly the consistency of milk for airbrush equipment. Two thin passes beat one heavy one, which floods the engraved panel lines you spent an evening rescribing.
Heavily thinned enamel creeps into recesses and shades rivet lines on its own. Ready-mixed versions of the same trick are in panel line washes if mixing your own holds no appeal. Whichever route you take, the paint underneath has to be sealed first, or the thinner attacks it instead of flowing over it.
Pigment settles to the bottom of a small bottle faster than it does in a large one, and a 10 ml bottle is easy to under-stir. Work a stirrer along the base for a full minute; a shade that goes on translucent is almost always a shade that was not mixed properly rather than one that lacks opacity.
For another bottle size, a different binder or shades mixed to a national standard, step back up to enamel model paints or browse the whole model paints section.
