No, not really a joke. At the time that I wrote that post, I had not unscrewed the cap. Once I did, and before I read your post, I discovered that the cap was screwed onto a spout with a tiny opening.
So, then I really wondered how I would access the paint inside the bottle. I couldn’t imagine that the manufacturer intended the paint to be dribbled out through the tiny opening in the spout onto the brush. I am used to Polly Scale and Model Master where you dip the brush into a wide mouth opening at the top of the bottle.
At that point, I realized that the spout could be removed to access the paint through a wider opening at the top of the bottle but still a small opening, maybe 1/4".
Anyhow, the paint went on smoothly with a small brush, and two coats did the trick.
The small spout on Vallejo is especially nice when you’re filling the paint cup on an airbrush. I usually make a mess pouring from a large mouth bottle into an airbursh so the Vallejo approach is a major step ahead for me.
For small amounts of work, I put a small drop on my glass covered workbench and dip the brush into it.
The Vallejo dropper bottle is one of my favorite features of the paint. I bought a bag of similar bottles from Amazon just so I can keep some of my “custom mixes” in their own dropper bottle.
I’ve found that dipping the brush directly into the paint bottle causes the paint to get lumpy prematurely.
My next “big thing” is to look into a “wet palette” which will keep the acrylics fluid for longer periods and some can be sealed if you need to take a break and they will keep the paint from drying out.
I agree on the airbrush color cup. For dispensing paints, thinners and water I use the “hummingbird” droppers, or transfer pipettes. They’re ideal for dispensing paints into color cups and you can easily measure your ratios with them, too.
Be sure to put the dropper tip back in otherwise the cap will not seat and prevent air from entering.
That is an interesting comment, Ed, about dipping the brush directly into the paint bottle causing the paint to get lumpy prematurely. I have not had that experience. Until I bought my first bottle of Vallejo Model Color paint this week, I have always brush painted with Polly Scale Acrylic paints or Model Master Acrylic paints. My practice is to always dip the brush into the bottle.
I do replace the dropper tip back on top of the Vallejo bottle for the reason you mentioned.
I don’t airbrush, so filling the paint cup from the small spout isn’t part of my painting procedure.
For small amounts of work, I can see where just pouring some paint on a piece of glass and dipping the brush into it would work, but a lot of my brush painting is on large brick structure walls. That requires a lot of paint, so dipping my brush into the bottle makes more sense.
What I am considering going forward is to pour the entire contents of the Vallejo bottle into a 1 ounce Polly Scale bottle so I can benefit from the wider opening in the Polly Scale bottle. Fortunately, I clean out and keep old Polly Scale bottles.
I sometimes sneak over to that site hosted by Joe Fugate and occasionally he has one of these “Ah ha!” moments where he passes on tips. He did a series on “proper” brush painting and I tried adopting these. Never too old to learn new tricks [8D]
Keep in mind the Vallejo paint we’re talking about is pretty thick, you can’t really ‘pour’ it. It’s more like the tube paints you’d get for doing oil-on-canvas art work. If you’ve shaken it up sufficiently (I use an electric paint shaker), you can squeeze out a tiny glob of it and it stays in place without running. If it runs, it’s not shaken enough.
For things like figures (what I primarily use it for) just a small bit of it goes a long way. Note too that it is an acrylic (water based) so the glob dries pretty quickly, another reason to use a tiny amount at a time.
Vallejo does also offer a range of more fluid paints designed to be used in an airbrush by the way…
If you really want to dip your brush in the paint bottle, perhaps using Tamiya’s line of acrylic paint would work better? They come in 10 ml and 23 ml glass jars with a screw-off top. It brushes on pretty well, but it is a bit thinner than Vallejo tube paint. I use Tamiya spray can paint a lot, their paint has a nozzle that produces a fine spray not that different from a low to medium priced airbrush.
Most hobby shops carry it, but like Vallejo it’s primarily aimed at military modellers so you kinda have to test out different colors to find one that’s similar to a railroad color.
I buy my replacement papers from Materson for mine, IIRC they are about $7.00 for a pack of 25.
They are not normal paper. They need to be boiled prior to use. My wife thinks it is funny to see me boiling paper in the kitchen.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
The paper is tough, and suffers no damage from tool used for mixing and blending paints. It lets just the right amount of moisture through to keep painted workable for a longer time.
That’s right in line with my other train activities that my wife puts up with; such as baking plaster rocks, grinding bark and leaves in the blender, sifting dirt in the front courtyard, gathering sage brush on our vacations, collecting dirt along side the road, boiling supertree armatures in the crab pot (after thorough cleaning)…I am lucky my wife has a sense of humor…[8D][8D][8D]
I noticed the mention of a needed mix for BN Green. While I haven’t tried either of them; THE Model Railroad Hobbyist’s Guide to acrylic painting … in a post-Floquil world flyer suggests this: 5pt VMA 71.094 1pt VMA 71.089 1pt VMA 71.095 (The 71 series are Vallejo’s airbrush thinned colors) and Microscale’s guide suggests Gunze Sangyo 66 (Bright Green). I model BN’s rainbow era so I have a lot of use for BN green. However, there are many different iterations of “BN Green” so if it looks close to you it should be fine.
