Mixing Tamiya and Vallejo Paint

[AndyFettes]

Hi all, let me tell you about this technique that Ive come across by accident

I wanted a particular Tamiay colour lightened and I reached for my jar of Tamiya white only to find to my horror that it was a solid lump of Tamiya white grinning at me from the depths of the jar :facepalm it was suitably lobbed into the bin at speed

What was I to do ? :idonno

Well I was in the process of hand brush painting some items and I didnt have any other light colours in the Tamiya range to hand

I heard a noise from the paint drawer and I opened it and a small bottle of Vallejo Tan was jumping up and down shouting me me !!!!

Hang on a minute you cant mix Tamiya and Vallejo I hear you cry :smack so I did a bit off googlings and the model making population was in agreement YOU JUST CANT DO IT YOU HEATHEN BASTARD !!!

Bollocks to that I thought unscrewing the bottle top.

Armed with my pallet, my bottle of Tamiya Dark Yellow, my bottle of Vallejo Tan, some distilled water, toothpicks for stirring and an old brush ( just in case the wankers were right ) :pinch:

I must admit I was nervous and let out a small fart :stinker ( my wife told me not to be so dirty and go to the bathroom ) so anyway after I washed my hands I was back at the work bench

I mixed the Tamiya and used the toothpick to put a blob into the pallet well and squeezed and equal part of Vallejo added a tiny amount of water and began mixing.

It mixed quite well and got a nice smooth consistency and began brushing in light coats. I didnt get any gelling or skinning like you do when brushing Tamiya by itself ( if anyones tried to brush paint with Tamiya then youll know what I mean, I continued and layered a few coats and it looked good.

So anyway I did a few tests for you good people on hear and the results were great but bearing in mind that this test was for brush painting only and only using distilled water as a thinner. I have NOT tried this in an airbrush nor have I tried thinning with Alcohol or the Tamiya thinner, I will of course will do this in due course.

We dont beleive you , you cry !!! well ok heres some pictures

I did actually express my findings on a modeling facebook page for only it to be classed as a fluke by an old face of this model community whose name ryhmes with Spammerhead, so up yours Simon ( whoops ) :laugh:


So there you go you CAN mix Tamiya paint with Vallejo

I will be doing a more in depth piece about this very same topic via a youtube video so I can post it up around the web so I can rub the noses of my critics in my cyber pooh pooh

Please shoot off any questions you can think of regarding all this if you wish

As for me I am off to split the atom

Cheers !! :drinks

 

[moon puppy]

What's next, Cats and Dogs runnin' together?

Very interesting Andy, think a lot of us will be breaking out our old cheap airbrushes this weekend to see if we can glop them up.

 

[ausf]

When I released the Fenderbender years ago, there was a very vocal sector of the modeling community that said it can't possibly work, even though repected reviewers like Saul and Terry at PMMS had write ups on it. One extremely persistent businessman claimed he has tried the design many times and it can't possibly function, culminating in picking one up at my table at AMPs and still making his claim, even though there was a pile of PE on the table for him to try it himself.

Some people are so set in there ways, nothing will convince them otherwise.

Tamiya is a unique acrylic since it is still organic solvent based (How many acrylics are flammable?). As long as the ether Tamiya uses doesn't react with Vallejo's binder, why not?

The key may be in not using Tamiya's thinners or subs, but just the straight paint with Vallejo's thinners or subs.

Either way, looking forward to your testing. Make sure you use fresh Tamiya so no ione claims you're using a solvent depleted bottle.

 

[ausf]

Come to think of it...

I seem to remember adding Tamiya Flat base to Future for satin and flat clear coats.

And I regularly mix Vallejo with Future for transparent effects.

 

[phantom II]

Hi Andy . Good info.

I have been told that Tamiya thinned with distilled water works quite well for brush painting .

I have yet to try the Tamiya and Vallejo mix . Thanks, I will have to explore that possibility.

Future is Acrylic and I know first hand that it mixes with Tamiya , Gunze , Vallejo and Polyscale .

The advantage of mixing paints with Future is a harder finish coat . I spray nearly all my paints.

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[razordws]

This will be very interesting to me as my Hobby store recently switched from Model Master Acrylics to the Vallejo line so the Tamiya and Vallejo lines are the only Acrylics available to me now.

I did try mixing Vallejo with the Tamiya thinner (just out of habit as I used the Tamiya thinner all the time with the Model Master acrylics) and tried spraying it and, yeah... doesn't work so good!

 

[jknaus]

Neato Andy. Might have to try and see
James

 

[AndyFettes]

Well chaps I'm glad you're finding this informative, tonight I'm going for 90% alcohol as a thinner to see how that works out.


I forgot to add that this also gives quite a tough coat of paintcreminds me of eggshell plus it was painted on an unprimed
resin Verlinden ammo crate.

 

[Bagge]

As for me I am off to split the atom

Cheers !! :drinks

thought you did that already, just remember to wash your hands after!

Nice information about the paint by the way

 

[lupanzer]

Very useful Andy...great info!Thanks!

Luiz.

 

[AndyFettes]

heres a quick update

I tried thinning the Vall Tam mix with 90% Alcohol and it seems to "split" the vallejo and I experienced a filming or skinning of the paint however the more tamiya that was added the better the mixture became so I can safely say that the vallejo can only be used as the minor ingredient in the mix, again this was brush painting only

Do I dare with the Tamiya thinner ? Ok I shall,............

Same results as the alcohol mainly

So in conclusion I liked the results of the distilled water much better than anything else and was impressed by the smooth coverage I achieved after a few layers.

Anyone fancy trying this out for themselves ?

I suppose id better dig out an airbrush over the weekend so see what gives there

 

[moon puppy]

Thanks for the report Andy, I haven't had time to get to the garage yet but think I'll give it a go.

 

[reconron]

I suppose id better dig out an airbrush over the weekend so see what gives there

Oh,yes please do mate!


Gr,Ron.

 

[phantom II]

Here's a little test I ran

As you can see, three types of paint

Tamiya , Model air and surface primmer all diluted with Model Master Acrylic thinner without turning to mud

Mixed the two vallejos with the Tamiya and nothing turned to mud and the pigment did not separate either
.

Did not spread it on anything but the pigments stayed mixed . Try the MM thinner out I think it will work

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[Swordsman]

This is very interesting as ... when I used to paint with enamels ... it stopped me from painting ... Brush strokes suck ... Then I discovered Acrylics love them the paint lays down nice but I have also discovered that all acrylics don't really play well together ... like Mr. Color ... which is a nice paint but must be thinned with Tamiya yellow capped thinner ... not testors air bush thinner/cleaner.

Now I mostly use Citadel acrylics because I have those in stock at the shop, so they thin very well with water ... I have used Vallejo rubber straight out of the bottle ... I have also mixed Tam X-13 & AV pale yellow together to get a IGN cockpit color without any trouble ... So I'll be watching as I really do love painting with the Hairy Stick and want to get better at it ... :salute

 

[AndyFettes]

Good job Christian

 

[moon puppy]

Here's a little test I ran


Did not spread it on anything but the pigments stayed mixed . Try the MM thinner out I think it will work

Cheers, Christian B)

Very interesting....