help with vallejo paints

[cgw]

Picked up a sampler kit of vallejo paints.  neat little dropper bottles.    but the million dollar question is how do you spray the stuff  tried to thin it with tamiya thinner and that was a disaster The paint just gummed up the airbrush.  Tried the windshield washer fluid route and it gummed up again.  I guess alcohol is a no no with the paint.   With what do you dilute the paint with for airbrushing and how much to you dilute the paint .  What pressure and how do you spray this stuff?

[Chris333]

I bought some for the first time and it sprayed great with plain water. I thought the bottles were crap though... how do you get theleftover paint back in them?

[peteski]

I still can't get around airbrushing water-based paints.  If I use them it is for hand-brushing. If you don't mind the smell, I would recommend the Tru-Color paints.  Solvent-based and they airbrush like a dream.  They just started coming out with flat finish color too.

[ednadolski]

If you don't mind the smell, I would recommend the Tru-Color paints.

Don't be smelling it, use a paint booth.

Ed

[wmcbride]

The easiest way to spray them is to use the Vallejo Air version which is thinned in the bottle and ready for the air brush.

[dmidkiff]

Like Chris I used plain water, distilled actually, to thin the Vallejo paints. I actually mixed them a little bit thicker than you would with PollyScale or Badger and sprayed them about 20-22psi. The first time I used them, I thinned like I normally would and the stuff went on really wet and ran under my masking.

The dropper tip is a press fit in the bottles, so you can wiggle them out to pour paint back in.

Doug

[Hyperion]

I use them extensively in armor modeling.

The thing to remember is that they really are formulated for brush painting.  They have a seperate ModelAir line for airbrushing.  It absolutely doesn't mean you can't airbrush them, it just takes a little more work than many other brands.  They are, by their nature, VERY thick paints with heavy pigmenting -- especially the lighter colors which I have a hell of a time airbrushing, even after thinning extensively the already-thin ModelAir line.

Plain distilled water is the best thing to use with Vallejo paints.  Even when airbrushing.   I also recommend using their gloss or satin varnish if your application allows it, mixing a bit of them in as a form of thinner.  I find the paint goes on smoother and much, much harder.  The amount of thinner it takes varies considerably, from a lot to an awful lot.  It's generally way more than you may be used to.  The color being used seems to play a large role in how much thinner it takes, as some of the colors come out of the bottle extremely thick.  When mixing, depending on how much thinner it takes to get the consistency right, I'll use anywhere from just a tiny drop of varnish to as much as maybe 20%.

I'd also recommend putting something into the bottle to help mix the paints.  Being thick, it takes a LOT of shaking to properly mix the paint -- we're talking minutes of shaking and kneading the bottle to break up the settled pigments.  Most people do only a few seconds at most.  A bead or a nut helps this a great deal.  You can use a non-ferrous nut that won't rust, but what I personally use are beads.  I picked up a whole string of lava beads on Amazon for a few bucks, and it's enough beads to last me hundreds of bottles.  Use a pair of pliers (or your fingers if you pull hard enough) with a paper towel around them to gently pry the dropper lid off the bottle (just give it a few light twists back and forth each direction, it's just held in place by friction), drop a bead in, and close it back up nice and tight.  In theory a bead could prevent you from getting paint out the bottle once it gets low enough -- I've never had an issue with that yet.  If I did, the bottle woudl be mostly empty, I'd just pry the lid off and get whatever I needed out of it.

[arbomambo]

Since I spray Acrylic paints almost exclusively, I'm very interested to hear other modellers's experience with these...My favorite Pollyscale line is 'no more'...and Tamiya just doesn't have the range of colors I need.
A very nice article in Model Railroader, a few months back, provided a list of existing paints; remarking that there were two seperate lines of vallejo paints as stated above-one developed for brushing and a separate line formulated for spraying (pre-thinned)...I'm curious to view and hear about anyone's experience with the ones formulated for spraying.
Bruce

[Hyperion]

Since I spray Acrylic paints almost exclusively, I'm very interested to hear other modellers's experience with these...My favorite Pollyscale line is 'no more'...and Tamiya just doesn't have the range of colors I need.
A very nice article in Model Railroader, a few months back, provided a list of existing paints; remarking that there were two seperate lines of vallejo paints as stated above-one developed for brushing and a separate line formulated for spraying (pre-thinned)...I'm curious to view and hear about anyone's experience with the ones formulated for spraying.
Bruce

I've sprayed a fair bit of the ModelAir line.

Overall, I like them, but they can be finnicky.  I do find that thinning a bit more doesn't hurt, it really depends on the color.  I've had the best luck mixing them with some the Vallejo gloss or satin varnish, it'll yield a rock hard finish in my experience and ready to go for oil weathering right over it.  The only problem I have with them -- and with most any acrylic -- is that they dry way too quick.  Tip-dry is a big issue as can working too far from your model, it's really easy to get a rough finish.  You gotta be right up on it and with light coverage so you don't get paint runs.  I've been experimenting using a retarder from Liquitex (not cheap at $15 a bottle, but it'll last a lifetime a drop at a time), and it helps, but perhaps too much as the paint runs extremely easily; I need to experiment some more with the right mixture.

I, as a I briefly alluded to above, have never had much luck with their really thin colors though.  To get coverage they're still pretty thick.  The pigments in the whites are practically visible chunks, I almost feel like I should be straining out the paint first.  I've gone half water, on a lineup pre-thinned, and still the airbrush clogs within seconds.

Some Hobby Lobby's carry the invidividual bottles, as do many LHS' for scale modelers.  I'd encourage you to buy a couple colors, maybe like a white and a green or something, and see how you like using them.

Honestly, when it comes to spraying acrylics, there's no beating Tamiya thinned with Gunze self-leveling thinner (which will turn Vallejo into glue, FYI).   It's just they are out-of-stock about as often as Atlas Code 55 stuff and they don't have a very wide breadth of color options.

[Pete Steinmetz]

I quit using anything from testers about a year before they discontinued their paint.

I switched to Vallejo Model Air and Micro Mark Microlux paint.  The Model and Micro Mark do not need to be thinned for airbrush.  You can even brush them if it is put over primer.  It might take a couple of coats.

Vallejo Model Color is thicker and needs to be thinned for airbrush.  I start with about 30% thinned.  I control the paint with the air output on the compressor and brush.

This paint lays down so well.  Both Model Air and Microlux lay down the same.  Micro Mark has Vallejo make the paint for them.

For those of you that are more comfortable when the paint bottle says Box Car Red or Grimy Black, buy the Microluxe. For the rest, take your Floquil Bottles and hold them up to the paint rack.  There are matches in there.

I rely like the Vallejo Paint.  It is easy to use and covers well.

For the person that wanted to get the top off, it will come off with a little careful wiggling with a set off pliers. 

I have a bunch of Floquil and some Poly Scale.  I can't sell it.  Nobody is interested.  Modelers are realizing there are much better paints out there than Poly Scale and Floquil.