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Vallejo Metal Color Acrylic Airbrush Paint. Help!


munnst

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I bought a set of Vellejo Metal Color Acrylic paints and have had nothing but grief trying to use them. Every time is a failure.

I put the early failures down to me. Surface not dry. Not prepped. Not clean. Wrong paint, whatever.

But my latest failure leads me to believe I'm just not getting this paint at all?

 

Latest fail.

Model perfectly washed and wet n dried with 3000 grit paper.

Two light coats of Vallejo Grey Primer. Went down lovely. Again sanded back and washed.

Perfectly dry. Perfectly clean.

Tried spraying Vellejo Metal Color Gloss Aluminium shooken (shaked?) by hand and stirred with a cyclone mixer. 

I didn't thin as this paint is air brush paint so assume good out of the bottle (?).

Sprayed at 20 psi. Just pooled and ran on the model. Cleaned off. Dialled back to 15 psi. Again pooled and ran. Tried less paint. Greater distance. Same.

In the end abandoned and sprayed with Tamiya Lacquer thinned with self levelling thinner. Went on perfectly.

 

So what am I doing wrong?

The Vallejo again is at the back of the paint drawer.

 

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From what you've written it sounds like you're allowing too much paint to go down at once, and you're still using too high a PSI.

 

I found when I was using Vallejo Metal Color, and did a Mig-21 using their Duraluminium (not the first or only model I've used it on), that I had to dial my PSI right back to about 10 on the regulator, and put down a light dusting of paint first, then gradually build it up in layers.

 

You can't do one coat and done with it, and you can't blast it on at 20psi like you might other paints, is what I learnt.  It can be a pita but once you get your eye in you can get a good solid coat in a couple of layers. 

 

And as stated by Ratch use a gloss black primer, Vallejo do their own for Metal Color, unless you want a somewhat less than shiny finish.  You also won't need to wash and sand it.

 

Because Vallejo Metal Color is so thin, it's more like using MRP lacquer paints, where I found the best technique was to get in close, extremely low PSI, i.e. 10 or below and put as little down as possible and go along and paint areas, rather than trying for an overall blast.

 

This is how the Mig-21 turned out -

 

62180030-2360193187590342-59491311850650
62607261-2360193200923674-47707994169844

Edited by RobL
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Not sure about the air pressure necessarily being the issue. I've successfully sprayed Metal Color at around 15 psi on to a gloss black primer.  The metallic finish then was robust enough to take plenty of masking.

 

This is ready for decaling:

xxVZClzl.jpg

 

 

I do wonder about the amount of paint hitting the model. What size nozzle are you using?

Mark

 

PS keep at it - these paints produce an excellent finish

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It’s fine for me, any colour primer, normal pressure 15-20psi, but yes to just laying down multiple thin coats, these can be just a few minutes apart. 

52089149439_399bfe57d7_b.jpg

This was VMC aluminum over Halfords Grey Primer, with detail panels in VMC dark and satin aluminums.  Exhausts etc are tamiya mixes.  All H&S Evolution with 0.4 nozzle.
 

The VMC paint is the only airbrush ready paint I’ve found to be actually actually airbrush ready.  Against that the metallic element is very fine and needs a lot of cleaning out after, hence the slight pearlescent finish on my current 370z build! 🤣

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Thanks for the replies. I'll reply to everyone in one go.

Gotcha with the black base however for the model I'm painting I want a duller finish so while I agree black is best for high shine I'm just looking for smooth.

I'll try a lower pressure however as someone stated using 15psi maybe that's not it. But I'll try 10 and lower to see what happens.

Now nozzle is an interesting one. I'm using an Iwata Revolution with a .5 mm nozzle. It's an old brush so I suspect the nozzle is probably more like .6 now with wear.

This brush does put down a nice cover of paint. Maybe too much paint? It's great for Enamels and Lacquers.

I'll try using my H&S with the finer nozzle to see what happens.

Thank you.

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.5 is probably way too big which is why you are getting pooling! .35 or even .2 should be enough. My standard is 0.35, and I get nice smooth even flow and finish. I tend to switch to a .2 when doing any metallics. The only time I get any sort of pooling is when I slip and pull back too far, and "splurge" too much at once. Thankfully, that only tends to happen when priming and doing a lot in one go and getting a tired trigger finger😄 I would definitely advise a much smaller needle and nozzle though.

Edited by treker_ed
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14 hours ago, munnst said:

Gotcha with the black base however for the model I'm painting I want a duller finish so while I agree black is best for high shine I'm just looking for smooth.

I would still recommend gloss black as it will definitely give you a smooth finish (and avoid all that messing around with polishing and cleaning the primer).

 

If you look closely at the P-51 image I posted you may see that the wings are duller than the fuselage - I achieved that with a varnish on top of the metallic finish - I was trying to replicate the look of the paste that was applied to the wings on the real thing.

Mark

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On 5/21/2022 at 9:57 PM, munnst said:

Now nozzle is an interesting one. I'm using an Iwata Revolution with a .5 mm nozzle. It's an old brush so I suspect the nozzle is probably more like .6 now with wear.

This brush does put down a nice cover of paint. Maybe too much paint? It's great for Enamels and Lacquers.

I'll try using my H&S with the finer nozzle to see what happens.

I also think this could be the issue! When I'm spraying Vallejo Metallics I use my H&S Infinity CR+ with 0.2mm nozzle. This works like a charm! I also make use of the "Quick Fix" at the back to stop the needle from travelling too far. This really helps with not getting too much paint at once. And as @Mark Harmsworth said: Keep trying! When you get the hang of it it's an excellent paint!

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