I read a couple of years ago in Tamiya Model Mag about being able to use Vallejo Acrylic thinner as a Matt Coat. I bought some at the time, but haven't tried it until now.

I sprayed it, 1 thin coat, undiluted using my Iwata at ~20psi, on a couple of drop tanks, the top one is unsprayed. As can be seen, the thinner definately has a matt effect, however there are also white spots visible - some sort of splatter? I did have problems with the airbrush blocking and having to give it a full blast to clear it. Seems strange that thinners would block an airbrush though.



As can be seen, the thinners are quite milky looking.


Anyone else tried this? Comments? I might try it next time with either a couple of drops of water or Tamiya thinners in the cup to try and stop the blocking.

Ahoy Neil,
Now that is very interesting.....I have always suspected that thinner to be
of a PVA based chemistry.(Similar to diluted white glue). I have never
tried it as a matt coat but will give it a shot.

I would recommend dilution with just plain distilled water as from
experience, Vallejo MA paints do not do well with alcohols. They tend
to get gummy on me so I can assume that the thinner would too.

I use distilled water with excellent results.

Cheers,
Joe

Just use Vallejo Matt varnish straight from the bottle, works wonders.

And no....Vallejo being a water based resin paint, alcohol is definitely not recommended, unless you like a nice goopy, curdled mess to clean out of your airbrush.

As far as the thinner blocking your airbrush? If the thinner drys around the lid of the bottle, it can create clumps, which likely got into your thinner mix, causing the blockage....same with the white spots on your tank...just pre dryed thinner that got shot through with the liquid.

Vallejo's thinner is designed to thin their paint, so now....it won't make the paint gunky...if you are having problems with the thinned paint blocking your AB...good sign that the paint isn't thin enough.

I haven't heard about using that for that purpose before,

The gloopy stuff they call thinner, is basicly the resin-like carrier for their paints,
but, as above, use the errr... MAT Varnish... does what it says on the bottle & no dramas.

interesting,i'll have to try that. i have alot of that lying around unused as i use the vallejo airbrush cleaner to thin the model air paints...

paul