I am using vallejo on my Hasegawa P-38H. This is the first time I used them and will be switching to them exclusively.
The color is spot on and dries absolutely dead flat, just great. They thin with water and very little is needed. I have been thinning about 1 part water to 5 parts paint and that enough for me. Any more water and I shoot a sloopy, runny wash. Again can’t tell ya how flat these dry, really noticable.
Clean up is a little more though, everything has a catch. Run alotta water when cleaning, when this stuff dries its a bear. I follow it with windex, good amount too. That’s inbetween colors. A bit of work I know but the results warrant it in my appinion. When you tear down which you should do after EVERY sitting with these paints, forget water or windex, go straight to the STRONG laqcuar thinner to get it. I tear down completely and drop the various nozzle, tip and other stuff in a shallow tub of laqcuar, again the strong stuff (don’t forget the lid while they are soaking, you don’t need to breath this stuff). I let it soak for a good time…20 minutes or there abouts. I then take the brush body and a dropper and run thinner through the body, looking through it with my light on the other side so I can see through it. Using various small airbrush cleaner brushes and small flat wooden toothpicks I get any paint in there.
I then pull out the parts from the thinner tub (again the strong stuff) and with a few Q-Tips with thinner on them I clean this stuff all out, all of it. Once I am satisfied with the cleanliness of everything I put it all back together and spray some air through it to make sure everything is hitting on all cylinders.
Again I stress this cleaning everytime with this paint as it really gets in there and wants to stay there. Oh don’t forget to leave the head assembly slightly loose so you don’t shorten the life of the O-Ring there.
I know this is a bit of work but the paint is sooo good it is well worth the effort on my part, besides you spend a good chunk of small change on your brush, it should be well taken care of right?
Sorry for the 4th grade kinda instructions to this, but this is from my own experience with this paint, a paint I feel should be used for WWII planes as the color, flatness and coverage are tops. Plus I just want you all to be happy with using this stuff.
Air brush used was an Thayer & Chandler Omni 4000G
I would advice against taking the airbrush apart every cleaning session.
Why not just spray lacquer thinner through the Omni when finished each time?
I use Model Master Acryl and find that it too sticks like glue to the color cup so I use a little lacquer thinner in it and follow it up with some of the mixture I have mentioned here before of 2 parts water, 1 part Simple Green, 1 part Windex.
I then flush it with filtered water after that.
What works well is to get about a 1/4" wide paintbrush and use that to clean the color cup. Put thinner in the color cup and rub the brush down at the bottom of the cup and it will break loose the paint around the needle and at the bottom of the paint reservoir. Spray it out, put in some more thinner and do it again.
Then I put some more thinner and backflush it, spray that out and then some more thinner sprayed out. I like to crank the pressure up to 50-60 psi when cleaning.
good point, my little compressor doesnt hit that kinda psi though and it gummed up bad enought that I had to use a pear of small needle nose pliers to CAREFULLY remove the needle lol, scared me half to death.
Correction to the thinning ratio, its 2.5 to 3 parts water to 5 parts paint at 10 Psi.
I hope you grabbed that needle with the pliers from the back end of the airbrush. [:0]
If that ever happens again and you have to use pliers, grab the needle at the back of the airbrush and instead of pulling it really hard, just twist the needle right then left a couple times to break the bond that is holding it. Then you can pull it straight out the back. [:D] [;)]