Thinner for Vallejo Acrylics

Alcohol will make the paint clump into a gooey mess. Try bottled water or Future. The dilution rate below is "part of paint" to "parts of water":

1:1 Minimum rate of dilution used primarily for basecoating. Good solid coverage.
1:2 Thin coatings, airbrushing, outlining and small details. Thin without being transparent.
1:5 Minimum for highlighting and shading. Transparent, base color will show through.

Should be able to find distilled water by the gallon in any grocery store... It's sold there primarily for use in steam irons and vaporizers...

As for thinners, I use rubbing alcohol for about all my acrylics... It evaporates faster than water and doesn't bead up on bare surfaces...

Hans von Hammer wrote:

As for thinners, I use rubbing alcohol for about all my acrylics... It evaporates faster than water and doesn't bead up on bare surfaces...

Rubbing alcohol? Not a familiar term. Which types of stores sell it? What is it used for?

DoC  

I highly recommend against using any alcohol as a thinner for vallejo paints.  Whether it is their model color, model air, or game color line, they 'curdle' in alcohol, and become a clumpy mess.

Any art supply store like Michaels or Hobby Lobby will sell Golden's acrylic flow release.  I use this instead of water for most applications.

Chris

Got some distilled water from the auto shop, and used a couple of drops of liquid diswash soap in it. Seems to work just fine.

DoC

A10wrthg wrote:

water works but I just use Tamiya X-20 thinner for vallejos

I assume X20A? Didn't work for me. The paint gooed up. Not as bad as with alcohol, but enough to retire the brush.

DoC 

Hans von Hammer wrote:

Rather than rubbing alcohol, I'll try some denatured alcohol instead with the airbrush and see if that makes a difference...

Rubbing alcohol may be dilute enough to work without issues, but if your denatured alcohol is as strong as what I'm using (methylated spirits, aka 90+% ethyl alcohol) you may find that it clumps up. Test on a palette, rather than in your airbrush.

I just use plain old demineralised (or distilled) water with Vallejo - it works.

I haven't had to add anything else so far. It seems to work ok as long as you don't dilute it too far.

I think you may have already seen it, but there's a good tutorial here on Vallejo's site: http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/asp-inc/_modelis.asp?p1=ing&p2=modelcolortecnicas#modelcolortecnica01

Though Vallejo have their own thinner, this tutorial suggests using water. I have experimented with an artists acrylic medium in addition to water, but so far it's been a bit variable and inconclusive...

Dr. Coffee wrote:

A10wrthg wrote: water works but I just use Tamiya X-20 thinner for vallejos I assume X20A? Didn't work for me. The paint gooed up. Not as bad as with alcohol, but enough to retire the brush. DoC

To the best of my knowledge the Tamiya Thinner basically IS alcohol, just has a little retarder mixed in.  Probably why it still gooed up but not as bad.

Phil_H wrote:

I think you may have already seen it, but there's a good tutorial here on Vallejo's site: http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/asp-inc/_modelis.asp?p1=ing&p2=modelcolortecnicas#modelcolortecnica01

Ah. When in doubt, go back to basic...

The only thing I noted in the tutorial that I didn't already do, was to shake the paint thoroughly before use. I have shaked it before, but only for a couple of seconds. After I tried shaking the bottle for 15-20 seconds (until I could no longer hear the paint slosh around in the bottle) I got far better results.

Thanks.  

DoC 

You will need to shake the bottle for much longer then 15-20 seconds.

The first rule for using Vallejo Model Color is to shake until you think you've shaken too much and then shake it some more.  I would shake for at least 3 minutes.

If you only shook it a couple of times the first time, you probably only got the liquid off the top of the settled paint, maybe with a minimal amount of pigment.