Chipping Medium issue

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

Hi all,

I’ve just sprayed a few light coats of Model Air ‘Dark Earth’ over Vallejo Chipping Medium, and after 12 hours drying, the paint is all cracked anywhere it’s sitting on areas where the chipping medium is applied. See photo.

The layers in the order I painted them:

  1. Vallejo Black Primer
  2. Vallejo Dull Aluminium
  3. Tamiya Clear
  4. Vallejo Chipping Medium
  5. Vallejo Dark Earth

Why has this happened? Can I fix it? I still need to do more coats of Dark Earth.

2

If you just put the clear and chipping paint in the area you want to chip, I’d guess a reaction to the clear, since a different brand from the rest.

Probably going to have to sand down to at least the silver, or end up stripping the area and feathering the edges

3

Gosh it’s a nightmare of random product incompatibilities!

4

First off Vallejo is not a good paint to chip with as it really really reacts to water and therefore it will come off in much larger areas than you want. Second, you have to clear coat over the paint you want to NOT chip, then apply the fluid, then the paint you wish to chip.

The hairspray chipping method works exceptionally well and is far cheaper than chipping fluid. If you want good results chipping use hair spray in two very light coats over the clear coat. Then apply a paint like Tamiya over that and you will have excellent results.

I say this from personal experience with Vallejo paints and chipping. I paint mostly with Vallejo but found I cannot get control over the chipping because Vallejo overreacts to getting wet where Tamiya chips the way one would like.

If you keep using the chipping fluid apply it in light coats only, too much will not work well.

BK

After re-reading you post I can see that your Dark Earth reacted to the chipping fluid. Choose another paint, other than Vallejo or Mig to chip with. You will not have the same reaction. Again, Tamiya paints are awesome to chip with.

5

Thanks for the reply.

like I said, it’s a nightmare of product incompatibilities isn’t it?

how could anyone know in advance that Vallejo’s paint doesn’t play well with their own chipping medium? I will write to them and see what they say…

so, how do I fix this? I imagine I could probably just use water to get the cracked paint off…

6

I first would attempt to use water, warm even better, to remove the fluid in bad spots and “chip it out” and then wipe it down. You can remove Vallejo with windex quite easily and it won’t harm anything. At the very least you will have to respray the last coat.

BK